Dell B2360d – Print Speeds

Dell rates the B2360d at a very healthy 38ppm, surprisingly high for a printer in this class. When we ran our 5-page text test, we saw a speed of 21.4ppm, a good speed in its own right, but hardly 38ppm. The 5-page text and business graphics test took exactly the same time as straight text.

However, on the longer 20-page document, where the printer can get into its stride, the speed increased to 31.6ppm, a good deal faster than from many similarly priced mono lasers.

Printing this document duplex, as 20 sides on 10 pages, gave a speed of 17.4 sides per minute, again more than respectable. The 15 x 10cm photo took 11s at 1,200dpi, which is quick.

Dell B2360d – Print Quality and Costs

Print quality is generally very good. The printer is manufactured for Dell by Lexmark and uses one of the 1,200dpi engines that company pioneered and has refined for many years since. Text, even at the default 600dpi, is sharp and well-defined and business graphics are also clear, with smooth greyscale fills, though there’s not a huge range of tones to represent different colours.

Photo prints are well detailed in lighter areas of images but, as with so many mono lasers, the B2360d struggles with dark shades, which tend towards black too much.

Sound level at 0.5m is 63dBA, which is not particularly loud, given the speed of the machine. We measure the noise for desktop printers at this distance, as it more accurately represents the kind of distance you’ll work from the machine. The ISO standard uses a 1m test distance.

The 60,000-page drum may not need replacing during the service life of the printer, though given the speed of the machine, it’s likely to be put in quite high-use environments. The high-yield version of the toner cartridge is good for 8,500 pages, too, so maintenance costs should be low.

At Dell’s prices, the cost per page is 2.6p, which is low for its class.

Should you buy a Dell B2360d?

This is an unusual printer, in that it has an unusually fast print engine for a personal printer, but no networking, cabled or wireless, which would make it more suitable for sharing in an office. However, there’s a version of the device, the B2360dn, with cabled networking, for only £20 extra.

Compared with the https://www.trustedreviews.com/brother-HL-2270dw_Printer_review Brother HL-2270DW or https://www.trustedreviews.com/samsung-xpress-m2835dw_Printer_review Samsung Xpress M2835DW, this Dell offers faster print – 31.6ppm against 20.0ppm and 20.3ppm respectively – and lower running costs – 2.6p against 2.7p and 3.0p – but not the flexibility of alternative connections.

Verdict

If your main requirements in a mono laser printer are speed and high resolution print, the Dell B2360d is an excellent offering at a good price. Its text print quality is very good for most business uses and it’s one of those machines which just gets on and does the job it was designed for. It should be at the top of your shortlist.

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