Dell C2665dnf Color Multifunction Printer review: It's fast and easy to use, but oh, those toner prices

Everything about the Dell C2665dnf color laser multifunction is top-notch: capacity, speed, output quality, and features. It's even got a classy new interface for its 4.3-inch touchscreen. At $630 it seems like a dream come true for any small workgroup. But if your office frequently prints in color, the toner prices will wake you up out of a sound sleep. The costs for black toner are somewhat better.

The C2665dnf is tall, straight-angled and dark gray, but not so much ominous as handsome. The colorful touchscreen display features a brand-spanking new interface, with the 2D, flat look to its icons that's in vogue at the moment. It's easy to navigate, however, the scroll bars are thin and a hard to spot. Beyond that, the menu structure and controls are very well thought-out.

The C2665dnf is easy to set up and supports USB, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet. The software is minimal, and the driver is as well. Some of the Windows software has acquired the Windows 8 look, some has not, but it looks as if Dell is headed in that direction.

Paper handling features on the C2665dnf are top-notch, with a large 250-sheet input tray, a 150-sheet multi-purpose tray, automatic two-side printing (duplexing), as well as a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) for the letter/A4-size scanner. There's an optional $186, 550-sheet, bottom-mounted cassette to expand capacity. The scanner will automatically scan two-sided documents and push-scan to PCs.

Secure printing is supported, as well as email and Wi-Fi printing. Dell's Document Hub lets you print documents directly from Skydrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and other online storage services with the surprising omission of iCloud. Drivers are available for the Mac, but that's about it. The C2665dnf also supports NFC printing, a new and still unusual way to pair a phone with a printer for direct sending of jobs. Owners of iOS devices should know that the C2665dnf is AirPrint compatible.

The C2665dnf is fast and then some. It blew through our monochrome pages in short order, spitting them out at 16.6 pages per minute on the PC and 16.1 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-size (4-by-6-inch) photos printed at 4 per minute to plain paper and 3 per minute on glossy laser stock. Full-sized photos printed from the Mac took only 43 seconds apiece. Copies emerged at a lively 6.3 per minute. Scan speeds were middling, taking almost a minute to scan a full-page photo at 600 dpi and 24 seconds to scan a smaller, cropped section at 1200 dpi. On the other hand, the scans were better in quality than most we’ve seen.

The C2665dnf's output is impressive for a color laser printer. You expect the text to be crisp and sharp, but color graphics also excelled, seeming remarkably inkjet-like (that’s a good thing). The color temps are a bit warm, but there's little graininess and no banding defects. The C2665dnf will allow you to forgo a color inkjet as an adjunct unless you're heavily into photography.

Don't buy the C2665dnf unless you're going to print a lot, and you have the money to invest in the large capacity supplies. Even then, you're getting no bargain. The regular 1,200-page cartridges cost $77 per color (CMY) and $68 for black. That's a massive 19.2 cents per page total for the colors, and 5.7 cents for black. Nearly 25 cents for a four-color page puts the C2665dnf among the most expensively supplied printers we've reviewed, including $50 inkjets.

Fortunately, when you use the $141, 4,000-page color and $100, 3000-page black, this drops to 3.33 cents for black per page and 11.25 for the colors. A 14.5 cent four-color page is bearable, though hardly cheap. You can knock another cent off both those numbers if you opt for the $136, 6,000-page black cartridge. Every 60,000 pages or so you'll need a new set of drums to the tune of $150, or an additional 0.2 cents per page.

The c2665dnf is rated for a 50,000 sheet duty cycle, with real-world usage between 700 and 4000 sheets a month. The unit is warrantied for a single year, which is short for an office product. Optional support packages are available for up to five years at $360.

The Dell C2665dnf is feature-complete, fast, and a flat out pleasure to use. However, there will be no joy in Toner-ville when you strike out for new supplies.

Editor's note: Updated at 7:30 p.m. PT to note that the C2665dnf is AirPrint compatible.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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Review: Dell B1265dfw is a decent monochrome laser MFP with pricey toner

Thinking of the $280 Dell B1265dfw as a monochrome laser printer with benefits puts it in its best light. Besides good print speed, it offers copying, faxing, and scanning in color. There's even an automatic document feeder (ADF), though the duplex scanning features are restricted to the flatbed portion of the scanning system and are manual only. The B1265dfw also suffers particularly pricey toner--well over three cents per page even with the high-capacity supplies.

The B1265dfw is your standard medium-sized, boxy small-to-medium business MFP. It's solidly constructed, and though its standard warranty lasts just one year, a 3-year advance-replacement warranty is available for an additional $40.

The B1265dfw is a triple treat connectivity-wise, with USB, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet on board. The software Installation is easy, and Dell has made an effort to simplify Wi-Fi setup, even providing a WPS button on the control panel. Said control panel is on the right front of the unit, flips up for easy access, and is intuitively laid out. There's a numeric keypad for faxing and a two-line monochrome display. It's rendered in off-white which helpfully focuses your attention on it from the otherwise charcoal colored unit. On the other hand, Dell made the embossed icons on the circular cursor control difficult to read by not differentiating their color. Go figure.

Paper handling features include automatic duplex printing; a 250-sheet bottom-mounted paper cassette; a front-loading, single-sheet auxiliary feed; a 151-sheet integrated output tray directly above that; and a 40-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) for the scanning portion of the unit. The flatbed scanner is letter/A4-sized, and the lid telescopes slightly more than an inch to accommodate thicker materials.

Though the B1265dfw has an ADF, it's limited. While there's help (prompts on the LCD) for manual 1-sided to 2-sided, and 2-sided to 2-sided copying, it's only available when using the flatbed platen. This is not the MFP you want to buy if you regularly scan lengthy two-sided documents.

The B1265dfw’s speed is middling for a monochrome laser, but fast compared to other $300 multifunctions we’ve tested—most of which have been inkjets.Documents consisting of plain, black text with a few simple, monochrome graphics average a speedy 19.3 pages per minute (ppm) on the PC, and 15.3 ppm on the Mac. Snapshot-sized, 4--by-6-inch photos print at about 5.5 ppm.

The quality of the B1265dfw's text is excellent, which is expected for any monochrome laser printer. The graphics are mediocre at best, with horizontal striation and vertical banding becoming more noticeable as image size increases. Scans are quick, of good quality, and you may scan in color as well as monochrome. Copying is obviously limited to black and white and suffers the same faults as the other graphics.

The B1265dfw uses a single integrated drum/toner unit and ships with a 1,000-page starter-size cartridge. The replacements cost $57 for a 1,500-page cartridge, and $83 for a 2,500-page cartridge. That works out to 3.8 cents per page (cpp) with the former, and 3.3 cents per page with the latter. That's pricey for a monochrome laser no matter how cheap the initial unit cost.

You buy a monochrome laser for speed and great text. The B1265dfw delivers both, albeit not as cheaply as one would wish. If you do the math, the total cost of operation will probably work out for small-volume copying and printing. The question you should ask is whether you might not be better off with a full-featured, $300 color inkjet MFP like the Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4540, which provides decent speed and impressive print quality, with far superior graphics and a significantly cheaper cost per page.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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Review: Dell C1760nw color printer has great output quality but pricey toner

We’ve spent a lot of electronic ink telling you to avoid low-cost color laser printers, because they’re all slow, with sparse features, and worst of all, really expensive toner. We’d almost advise the same about the $280 (as of March 25, 2013) Dell C1760nw color laser-class printer (it uses LED technology), but it has one thing going for it: impressive graphics quality, which is challenging to find on any office color laser printer at any price point. Choose this one above the rest, if you must, but you might also want to check out the faster, far more economical, office-class inkjets that we’ve seen from Epson and HP.

The C1760nw's two-line LCD display and control buttons are minimal, but effective. The menu structure is nicely laid out, making options easy to find. A blue light directly above the controls indicates the status of Wi-Fi connections. You can also manage the printer via Wi-Fi or Ethernet using the unit's HTML configuration interface. In addition to the PC and Mac drivers, the C1760nw offers remote-printing features, including printing from mobile devices and via email.

As with most low-cost color lasers, paper-handling features on the C1760nw are sparse. The front face folds down to create a 150-sheet, open-faced input tray on the bottom of the unit. A 10-page, removable bypass tray sits directly on top of it. The bypass tray allows you to print envelopes and other one-offs without unloading and reloading that main tray, as required with the single-tray C1660w. The output bin integrated into the top of the unit holds 100 sheets. The C1760nw lacks automatic two-side printing (duplexing), however, onscreen prompts walk you through the manual process. You can easily reach most of the paper path for clearing paper jams by folding down the panel on the back of the unit, and the toner cartridges are accessed via a panel on the right side of the unit.

Though cheaper than the C1660w's, the C1760nw's toner is still no bargain. The 3.5 cents you'll pay per black page is around the average for entry-level inkjets, but the additional 5 cents for each additional color is high. Black toner is sold in $70, 2000-page units and the 1400-page cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges cost $70 each as well. Those are the high-capacity supplies. Dell also sells the 700-page cartridges the C1760nw ships with, but unless you want to pay over 7 cents per page (cpp) for black pages and over 8 cents per color, we recommend against them.

Melissa Riofrio

While adding color to a C1760nw page is expensive, it's definitely worth it. Color graphics and photos look far better than what we’ve normally seen from an inexpensive, laser-class printer. Text is outstandingly sharp, and black areas are smooth and uniform, if a tad lighter than we'd like.

The C1760nw posted average to slow time in our speed tests, using the ethernet connection. Full-page (letter-size) photos print to laser glossy paper at 1.5 pages per minute (ppm). Smaller, snapshot-sized (4- by-6-inch) photos print at 1.8 ppm to plain paper and just under 1.46 ppm to glossy laser stock. Black text and mixed pages of black text and monochrome graphics print at an aggregate 8 on the PC and 8.2 on the Mac.

The C1760w carries a one-year warranty with easy exchange. You can pump that up to five years with exchange for $80, and on-site service is also available. The drum/fuser is a lifetime unit, and those support options are reassuring when no replacement is readily available. Dell quotes a 30,000-page duty cycle, but in real life this is about a 500-page-a-month unit. Even if the unit can handle heavier use, print more than 500 pages and the price of the toner will start catching up to you.

Color laser devotees, we know you’re out there. If you must buy a low-cost color laser, the Dell C1760nw is one we’re willing to recommend--albeit with many reservations--because of its unusually good graphics quality.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Julliard, and now he power mods his car for kicks.
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The daughter of a mechanical engineer, Melissa grew up playing with machine parts and still loves getting into the nuts and bolts of how things work. She is never happier than when she is on a factory tour.
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HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color Printer M451dn Review: Great Output, Pricey Toner

The $500 (as of April 2, 2012) HP LaserJet Pro 400 M451dn color laser printer produces extremely nice output--including photos--and is very speedy for a model in this price range. It also has an automatic duplexer, a feature missing from the $450 LaserJet Pro 400 M451nw that we recently reviewed. It sounds great--until you examine the toner costs, which are steep for a relatively high-volume printer.

The controls on the M451dn are minimal but adequate. A two-way rocker button lets you navigate the two-line LED; the panel also has a warning light, along with the usual OK, cancel, and back buttons. Software installation is easy via either USB or ethernet, and the printer dialog procedure is well thought-out.

Paper-handling features include a 250-sheet bottom main tray, an automatic duplexer, a 150-sheet output tray, and an optional ($143) bottom-mounted, 250-sheet auxiliary paper feeder. With a monthly duty cycle of 40,000 pages and a recommended actual monthly print volume of up to 2000 pages, the M451dn can handle a fair amount of printing.

In terms of access, the M451dn is extremely well designed. From the front you can fold out a small part of the panel to reveal the 50-sheet front multipurpose tray, or you can move a larger part of the panel to access the paper path and the slide-out toner tray. A pop-off panel on the right side of the printer makes it easy to upgrade the standard 128MB of memory to 384MB. Note: As of this writing, HP's website sells a 256MB DDR2 DIMM memory upgrade for $599. That exorbitant price comes with HP’s guarantee that the memory will work in the printer, but third-party memory is available for less than $30.

That brings me to the Achilles' heel of this printer: toner costs. The standard black toner cartridge costs $79 and lasts 2200 pages, or 3.6 cents per page. A high-yield black cartridge, available for $102, lasts for 4000 pages, reducing black costs to 2.5 cents per page. The costs are a little higher than average compared with those of other color lasers we’ve tested--and incidentally, some business inkjets have significantly cheaper consumables.

HP offers no high-yield option for the M451dn's cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges, so if you print a lot of color pages, this is not the printer for you. The standard sizes cost $114 each and last for 2600 pages, working out to just under 4.4 cents per page per color. Next to other standard-size cartridges, these costs are a little cheaper than average, but compared with high-yield toners, they are far more expensive than average. The starter-size cartridges that ship with the printer last approximately 1400 pages.

If you can hack the toner costs, the output of the M451dn is impressive and arrives quickly. Text is dark and sharp, and color photos are very good for a color laser at this price. Our full-page test photo showed a cool color palette and nice details. Text pages rendered at 11.4 pages per minute on the PC and 11.0 ppm on the Mac. Normal-size photos printed at 3.2 ppm to plain paper and 1.5 ppm on glossy paper. Full-page photos printed at about 0.8 ppm.

Output quality and speed are the HP LaserJet Pro 400 Color Printer M451dn's strong suits. If you need the Wi-Fi connectivity that it lacks, its otherwise identical cousin, the M451dw, is only $50 more, at $550. However, if you print in any sort of volume, the ongoing costs for any model in the M451 product line will hurt you eventually--especially if you print lots of color. Alternatives in this price range include the Dell 2150cdn and Brother HL-4570CDW; the latter's high-yield supplies are much less expensive than the M451dn's.

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Samsung ML-2955DW Review: Cheap Laser Printer, Pricey Toner

The Samsung ML-2955DW monochrome laser printer is notable for its very low street price ($150 as of February 8, 2012) and its full network connectivity, namely USB, ethernet, and Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, the expensive toner restricts it to low-volume use.

It’s the same old story: cheap printer, pricey toner. The ML-2955DW ships with a starter-size toner cartridge with a 1000-page yield. Replacements include a 1500-page cartridge for $63, which works out to 4.2 cents per page--steep compared with the current average of 2.6 cents per page for all the monochrome lasers we’ve tested. The higher-yield cartridge costs $75 and lasts for 2500 pages, or 3 cents per page, versus an average of 1.8 cents per page for other high-yield cartridges we’ve priced. If you take a year or more to get through a cartridge, you probably won’t care. If you have to replace the cartridges several times a year, however, you will definitely start to feel the pinch. For higher-volume use, step up to a model such as the Dell 2350dn, which has reasonably priced consumables.

The ML-2955DW is otherwise a decent printer. Equipped with a 533MHz CPU and 64MB of memory, it printed plain text in our tests at a middling rate of 18.3 pages per minute. It comes with a 250-sheet input tray and a 150-sheet output tray; the latter has a flip-out plastic panel that catches paper or covers the output area. The printer also has a front manual-feed slot, which you can access by pressing on a small front panel. On my test unit, however, the bendy panel required a pretty hard push to open.

The top control panel is spare to a fault. It has power and cancel buttons, plus buttons to enable Wi-Fi Protected Setup and ‘Eco’ mode (explained below). A few indicator lights are present as well, but they suffer from inscrutable icon labels and color/blink patterns that mean nothing unless you consult the documentation.

Samsung tries to make it easier to save paper and toner with its ‘Eco’ mode, which automatically combines duplexing, 2-up printing (fitting two reduced-size pages onto one sheet), and a lighter application of toner. These settings are adequate for drafts and internal reference documents, though the lighter toner means that text might be slightly harder to read. If you delve into the ‘Eco’ tab in the printer driver, you can see estimates of the resources you are conserving with each choice.

The Samsung ML-2955DW is priced to fit the budget of small or home offices--at least initially. The toner costs over time will be dear. If you plan to print more than a few dozen pages per week, move up a hundred dollars or so in purchase price to buy a machine with cheaper consumables.

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