Verdict

Laser printers might not be the most exciting bits of kit that you can buy for your PC, but if you need to print large amounts of text, then you should seriously consider getting one. Why? Because you will save huge amounts of money on printer consumables. A toner cartridge for a laser printer, depending on model, lasts for between 3000 and 6000 pages and would normally set you back between £45-100. This is a lot more affordable in the long run compared to a black inkjet cartridge that can cost up to £20 depending on printer model. If you’re lucky this will last you for around 500 pages.

Laser printers used to be horrendously expensive for the home market, but this is far from the truth today with many low end laser printers hitting sub £100 levels. The Samsung ML1750 is a bit more expensive at around the £175 mark depending on retailer. It does lack some of the features seen on larger business laser printers, but as a personal laser or one for the smaller business it’s a great choice.

First off let’s start with some basic features and specifications. The ML1750 has a 166MHz processor and 8MB of memory, which means that it will be able to process most print jobs you throw at it. It’s capable of a print resolution of 1,200 x 600 dpi which is very good for a laser printer, especially at this price point. You can connect the ML1750 to a parallel port, as well as a USB port and there is support for both USB 1.1 and USB 2.0.

What I really like about the ML1750 is the 250 sheet paper tray, which is a proper removable tray. This means that there is less paper mess and it is very easy to load paper in the printer. There is also a small indicator on the front of the tray that shows remaining paper quantity. There’s a manual feeder at the front of the printer in case you want to print envelopes or on thicker paper stock. The manual feeder will only take one page at the time, so this might be something to bear in mind if you print a lot of odd shaped material or a lot of envelopes.

The paper path in the printer means that the printouts end up up-side down on top of the unit. But there is also a face up paper path, but this means that the printouts end up at the back of the printer. In combination with the manual feeder at the front you can get a straight paper path through the printer, which is ideal again for thicker paper stock. The top output tray is capable of storing up to 50 sheets before it has to be emptied. It’s a shame that the chassis isn’t a little longer though, as you have to fold out a small support bracket that holds the paper in place.

The ML1750 is also a very compact unit measuring 348 x 335 x 193mm (W x D x H) which makes it easy to place. It is however worth noting that the paper tray sticks out somewhat around the back together with the inputs for power and the parallel port. This means that it can’t be placed flush against a wall.

Printers are usually fairly universal as far as operating systems are concerned, but you might not get all the features on some. Samsung supplies drivers for Windows, Mac OS and Linux on the supplied CD which is very impressive.

What is not so impressive is the supplied toner cartridge, as it is what Samsung refers to as a starter. This means that you will only get a 1000 page toner supply at purchase which is really a bit stingy. A replacement toner for the ML1750 is in the £50-60 range depending on supplier, which is what you would expect.

So what is it that makes this printer so great for the small office or home user, apart from being affordable and cheap to run? Well, it’s quiet and remarkably fast to wake up from standby and print out the first page. It takes only a couple of seconds for the printer to wake up and then another 20-30 seconds or so for the first page to come out. Printing a 10 page text document took 49.9 seconds at 600dpi. The spool time was 5.5 seconds and the first page was out of the printer after 16.2 seconds.

Printing a 10 page 5% coverage document at 300 dpi, which is the draft mode, took a total of 46.6 seconds, this is faster than printing at 600dpi but the quality was visibly reduced. Again printing a 10 page PDF document with a couple of images took a total of 47.6 seconds at 600dpi which is very impressive and actually faster than the text test.

Printing pictures on the ML1750 is a completely different story and they don’t come out very well at all. They tend to suffer from banding across the image as well as poor image resolution even though the printer was set to 1200dpi and the image enhance feature in the drivers was enabled. But this is not what mono laser printers are meant to be doing.

There is a toner saver option on the ML1750, but the printouts looks washed out when this is enabled, but it comes in handy for draft printouts where quality doesn’t matter.

The ML1750 might not be capable of Samsungs quoted 16 pages per minute (ppm) but it’s not far off. The print quality for text is first rate and as long as you stick to 600dpi you will get some very professional outputs.

The drivers are easy to install and there is a printer monitoring tool as well. Everything can be set in the drivers and they are fairly easy to get to grips with. The manual is also first rate and easy to understand.

I do however have one complaint and that is the printer cable, or rather the lack of one. Parallel port cables might be costly, but a USB cable wouldn’t have been too much to ask for when you’re spending this much on a printer.

Overall the Samsung ML1750 is an excellent little printer that’s a great choice for anyone that prints a lot of text based material. Samsung might not be the number one brand in printers, but the ML1750 is a first rate printer that deserves a Recommended award.

”’Verdict”’

The Samsung ML1750 is almost perfect, but the starter toner and the lack of printer cable remove some of its lustre. It is however a great personal laser printer for the home or small office.

(table:features)

Trusted Score