Verdict

Pros

• Single-button WPS setup
• Easy access for paper jams
• Well-designed control panel

Cons

• No paper cover
• Footprint increase when printing
• No multi-purpose feed

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Samsung is one of the leading suppliers of mono laser printers and all-in-ones and the SCX-3405FW adds fax facilities and an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) to the https://www.trustedreviews.com/samsung-scx-3405w_Printer_review Samsung SCX-3405W. In the process, this makes it much more of a SOHO workhorse.

Coloured in light and mid-grey, with a small footprint and a neat curve to its ADF, the most striking aspect of the machine is the rounded, rectangular aperture just below its scanner. This is for the output from the mono, laser print engine and there’s a rather flimsy, pull-out extension to support pages as they come out. That and the fold-down input tray increase the footprint of the printer considerably when in use, and there’s no cover for the tray, so you may well want to fold the trays away when not printing.

There’s a cover to the ADF, though, which folds over and raises the base of the feed to give a smooth slide in for up to 40 sheets of paper. A flip-over paper stop at the right-hand end of the machine catches the source document after scanning.

The control panel has a similar layout to the SCX-3405W, except that this machine has a two-line, 16-character LCD display, rather than the other’s two-digit LED. This means it can display useful status messages, though the lack of a backlight makes it none-too-easy to read.

The control panel also offers a number pad for fax dialling – though no single-key quick-dials – and three special buttons. The WPS button establishes a quick connection to any WPS-equipped router, the Eco button can selectively remove pictures, text or other page elements which aren’t the focus of a particular proof print. The ID Copy button takes two separate scans, of the front and back of a card, and prints them on one page.

The single-piece drum and toner cartridge slides down deep into the heart of the SCX-3405FW, once you’ve hinged up the scanner and the cover to the printer section, which lies underneath.

Software comprises Samsung’s own SyncThru application, which handles most of the common requirements in this type of all-in-one. Sockets at the back offer USB and Ethernet connections, if you don’t want to use wireless.

We expected the Samsung SCX-3405FW and the SCX-3405W to give very similar speed results, but were surprised. Samsung claims both machines are capable of 20ppm, but the 5-page document gave 11.5ppm and the longer, 20-page test gave 15.0ppm. This compares with 12.0ppm and 16.9ppm for the SCX-3405W, so not quite as fast.

This discrepancy is more obvious with the 5-page text and graphics print, which produced 8.8ppm on this machine, but 13.0ppm on the simpler one. The earlier tests were carried out from a PC running Windows XP SP3, before we upgraded to Windows 7 and we thought initially that the differences might be a function of the Samsung drivers for the two OS versions.

However, copying a single page from the flatbed took 13s here, while on the SCX-3405W it took 10s, so a similar speed difference, independent of any PC. A 5-page copy from the ADF took a more than respectable 27s and a 15 x 10cm print took 16s. Using Samsung’s Android App took a fairly laid-back 1:48 for a 20 x 15cm image.

Prints produced by the machine are generally good, with sharp, smooth text and fair greyscale graphics, though black fills are grey and grey fills look lighter than they should. A copy from the flatbed suffered some of the speckles you often see from CIS scans of printed originals.

The only running cost in the SCX-3405FW is the single-piece drum and toner cartridge, which is only available in one capacity, good for 1,500 ISO pages. With a best price of just under £40, this works out at 3.5p per page, including 0.7p for paper. This is a pretty good running cost for a sub-£150 all-in-one.

Verdict
In most ways, the Samsung SCX-3405FW looks like a better buy than the SCX-3405W, as you get the ADF, fax functions and the two-line LCD display for very little extra on the base price. Running costs are the same, but under test this machine was slower and greyscale print wasn’t as clear. It may have been a problem with this sample, or course, but try and see a print sample before you buy.

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