• CLP-600N Laser Printer...
• • CopyFaxes.com
  • $407.99

At first blush, this Samsung printer is another of the color laser printers designed to compete for their share of the low-end market. At street prices of $365 to $400, it's certainly priced right, and with identical output rates of 21 ppm for both color and black-and-white, it certainly competes comfortably even with the most expensive printers covered in this review. It also offers very respectable 2400x600 equivalent color resolution and 600x600 monochrome. As you might guess by its fast output speeds, the CLP-600N employs a single-pass print engine.

Samsung breaks up the cubical design with a hump to one side for paper handling.

Otherwise, the printer is about as basic and no-frills as you'd expect it to be. It comes with a 250-sheet paper tray and a 100-sheet multi-purpose tray, and can handle a reasonable range of paper and envelope sizes. An extra 500-sheet paper tray is available as an add-on option. There is no duplexing unit available, though the driver will guide users through the motions necessary to print first on one side of a print job, then the other, with human intervention needed to make this work.

The CLP-600n falls in the middle of the size range among the printers covered here, with dimensions of 18.3" x 18.3" x 17.5" (46.5 cm x 46.5 cm x 44.5 cm). It also falls in the middle of the weight range at 62.8 lbs (28.5 kg). Replacement toner cartridges are rated at 4,000 pages, and cost $100 for black and $135 each for CMY color; these are widely available on the aftermarket, and better discount prices may be available.

Be careful shopping for this printer, and concerted searches for rebates and discounts may pay off. We found numerous reports from buyers who claimed to have paid $200 or less for their units, most of whom also reported decent satisfaction or better with its print performance. Our own experience with this printer is that it does well with color and black-and-white text, is good with line art and simple color graphics, and is just satisfactory with high-resolution color images or photographs. Then again, that's what we've learned to expect from low-end color laser printers.