Samsung SCX-4500 Printer Review
The Samsung SCX-4500 laser printer is a multifunction device designed for the home or small office user. Its modern black design is eye-catching, but its speed and features lag behind the competition.
The main benefit of the Samsung SCX-4500 seems to be its sleek black design, which is admittedly very unique and impressive. It is up to buyers to determine how important the design is to them, however, as it comes at a price premium, and with some tradeoffs in features and performance.
At only 6.5 inches high, it is certainly one of the smallest multifunction devices on the market, and it is not even apparent at first glance that there is a flatbed scanning surface anywhere in sight. The unit can print, scan, and copy, however, and generally does each task well. Scanning quality is a bit lacking, especially when compared to the competition. Its streamlined design also makes a few sacrifices in usability, as the control panel is left intentionally sparse, resulting in fewer buttons for its slick looks, but making some tasks more difficult to get done.
Samsung SCX-4500 toner cartridges have a capacity of only 2,000 pages, which makes them fairly expensive from a cost per page standpoint. The 4500's laser toner cartridge is easy to access and install, despite its economic turn offs, and users can get more from each printer toner cartridge by using the unit's toner save mode, which reduces the amount of toner used per page at only a very small sacrifice in print quality.
Print speed is around 13 pages per minute, which is slower than similar units at the same price, but still decent. Text print quality is very sharp, but loses some detail at small font sizes. Graphics quality is a bit lackluster, but is often the case with many machines at this price point.
Overall, the Samsung SCX-4500 puts a lot of stock in its design, but many users may not wish to pay extra for it. Competing units have more to offer at the price, though they don't look as nice.
