Samsung CLP-660ND Color Laser printer review

Compared to other laser printers, Samsung CLP-660ND is a bit cheaply priced. However there’s still lot of competition in this range too. It has the speed and the performance which you need for running your small business.

It has a good print rate of 19.8 pages/ minute. It also prints graphics at quite a good rate of 2.9 pages/ minute. The text appears great. The letters are formed nicely and appear dark black. Good quality text is a major highpoint of this printer. However the biggest disappointment with Samsung CLP-660ND is its graphics. They appear out of pattern and are of poor quality. The graphics aren’t good even when printed on the glossy laser paper.

Designed simply, the printer has an input tray which can hold up to 250 sheets. Accommodating legal size paper in this tray isn’t very easy though. There is also a 100 sheet multipurpose tray. The front panel and the handle for opening the multipurpose tray are located at the same place and hence it’s become difficult to distinguish the handle.
There are problems with opening the front panel; it doesn’t open up in one go.

The printer also has an output tray which can accommodate 200 sheets. However it might be unreachable for few, as its located at the rear end. An additional input tray of 500 sheets can also be added. You can also print labels and envelopes with this printer. It supports Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

The control panel is done in a simple way. It has a monochrome LCD on which the menu is displayed. The buttons are clearly labeled. The messages displayed on the screen are clear and easy to understand. Samsung CLP-660ND has a smart panel monitor application. This gives information about troubleshooting, on screen status and various other things.

The printer comes with a 2500 page black ink cartridge. There are also three 2000 page colored cartridges- yellow, cyan and magenta. The high yield versions are also available which are a bit expensive. A 5500 page black ink cartridge can be bought down for $110; which approximates to 2 cents/ page. Each 5000 page color cartridge is worth $130; which costs around 2.6 cents/ page. You will need to replace the cartridges once the ink is over.

Installing the printer is easy; though initially it might look a bit confusing. You get a PDF user guide with this printer which contains all the details which you need to know for operating the Samsung CLP-660ND. The driver doesn’t contain too many details. The word is not too positive about the printer’s driver which has posed lots of problems in the past. However Samsung has assured to rectify the problem soon.

In spite of being a decent printer, Samsung CLP-660ND doesn’t score well in reliability ratings. In the reliability and service survey, this printer got a rating of ‘better than average’; which isn’t too good. This is one of its major drawbacks. Of course its biggest drawback is its poor graphics quality. You should buy this printer only if your work doesn’t involve too many graphical print outs.
All in all this is a good printer with decent design and speed. Its black text is easy to read even at small font sizes. However its poor graphics may limit its use in many centers!