Canon Color imageClass MF726Cdw

BY TONY HOFFMAN

One of two small-office color laser multifunction printers (MFPs)being introduced to replace the Canon Color imageClass MF8580Cdw$589.95 at Amazon, the Canon Color imageClass MF726Cdw ($549) offers solid performance and a good feature set, including several mobile printing choices. The MF726Cdw$549.49 at Amazon lacks some of the drivers included with its near-twin, the Canon Color imageClass MF729Cdw, but unless you need to print with PostScript, you probably won’t miss them.

Design and Features
This off-white MFP measures 18.9 by 17 by 19.2 inches (HWD) and weighs 68 pounds with the toner cartridges in place. The MF726Cdw needs a table of its own, and you will definitely want two people to move it. It has a good range of MFP features. It can print, copy, scan, and fax both single- and double-sided documents. It can also print from a wirelessly connected mobile device, and can print from or scan to a USB thumb drive. The MF726Cdw can also scan to a network folder or a PC. Lastly, it can work as a standalone fax machine or send faxes from a PC.

Its front panel features a 3.5-inch, color touch screen, an alphanumeric keypad for entering fax numbers and other information, and buttons identified by both words and icons, including Home, Back, Color (scan), Black (scan), and Stop. Although we’ve seen much larger touch screens, the one on the MF726Cdw is easy to use, responsive, and has a good menu system. A spot on the front panel is labeled NFC, and you can print from a compatible mobile device placed in close proximity to it. A port for the USB thumb drive is on the front of the printer to the right of the output tray, just below the front panel.

A 250-sheet main paper tray and a 50-sheet multipurpose feeder are standard, as is an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. The printer is set by default to two-sided printing as a paper-saving measure. An optional second 250-sheet paper tray ($199) is available from Canon. The 50-sheet duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) lets users copy, scan, or fax both sides of multipage documents at up to legal size. It first scans one side of a document, flips it over, and then scans the other side.

The MF726Cdw’s range of connectivity choices, both wired and wireless, counts as a plus. It has Ethernet, USB, and Wi-Fi connectivity. It also offers two ways to make a direct, peer-to-peer connection with a compatible device: Wi-Fi Direct and NFC. Mobile protocols and services supported include Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print Service, Canon Print Business, and Google Cloud Print.

The only driver included is Canon’s host-based (UFR II) driver. For those businesses that rely on PostScript printing, which requires a PostScript driver, the Canon MF729Cdw is almost the same as the MF726Cdw, except that it adds PCL5e, PCL6, and PostScript drivers. If you don’t need those extra drivers, you can save some money by sticking with the MF726Cdw.

Printing Speed
I tested the printer over an Ethernet connection with its drivers installed on a PC running Windows Vista. In its default duplex mode, for which it is rated at rated at 10 pages per minute (ppm), the MF726Cdw printed out our business applications suite (as timed with QualityLogic’s hardware and software) at 5ppm, a good speed for its rating. Note that rated speeds are based on text-only printing, while our test suite includes text documents, graphics documents, and documents with mixed content. Not surprisingly, its speed matched the Canon MF729Cdw. The Editors’ Choice OKI MC362w$251.15 at Amazon turned in a speed of 5.9ppm, while the Brother MFC-L8850CDW$546.47 at Amazon, rated at 32ppm, zipped through our tests at 8.6ppm. Although our official timings are done in an MFP’s default printing mode (in this case, duplex), I also did ad-hoc testing of the MF726Cdw in simplex mode, where it turned in a speed of 6.6ppm.

Output Quality
Overall output quality is average for a color laser, with slightly above-par text, graphics that are a bit subpar, and average photo quality. The MF726Cdw’s text should be fine for any business use except ones requiring tiny fonts.

With graphics, colors are bright and well saturated for the most part. One test illustration meant to show a gradation in tone displayed very little change between different zones. The MF726cdw did poorly in printing very thin, colored lines. One illustration showed some misregistration, a slight misalignment between two graphic elements. The graphics should be okay for most internal business use, but I’d hesitate to use them for formal reports. Photos are fine for printing out images from webpages.

Running costs for the MF726Cdw, based on Canon’s prices and yield figures for toner and other consumables, are 2.9 cents per monochrome page and 16.7 cents per color page. The OKI MC362w’s running costs are 2.8 cents per monochrome page and 13.9 cents per color page.

Conclusion
The Canon Color imageClass MF726Cdw is a solid color laser MFP with a good feature set and a wide range of mobile-printing choices. It lacks the Canon MF729Cdw’s PCL and PostScript drivers, but unless you need to print PostScript files, this shouldn’t be a problem. The MF726Cdw is a good, cost-effective addition to a small office or workgroup with light- to medium-duty printing needs, including printing in color.
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Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw

BY M. DAVID STONE

Based on price alone, the Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw ($399) is an obvious candidate if you need a color laser multifunction printer (MFP) for your micro office or for personal use and want one that can print, scan, copy, and fax. It’s a little larger than most MFPs aimed primarily at micro offices, which may force you to look elsewhere if space is tight. But if you have enough room in your office, it can be worth a look.

The biggest argument against the MF628Cw$249.99 at Amazon is that it’s not hard to find competition that delivers significantly more capability for only a little more money. Most notably, the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M277dwBest Price at Amazon, our Editors’ Choice light-duty color laser MFP for SoHo use, matches or beats the MF628Cw in most ways—including offering faster speed and somewhat better text quality. It’s also smaller and lighter. If you don’t need the extra capability, however, the MF628Cw’s lower price will make it the more attractive choice.

Basics
Basic MFP features for the MF628Cw include printing, copying, scanning, and faxing—including scanning to and faxing from a PC—as well as standalone copying and faxing. In addition, it can print from or scan to a USB memory key, and it offers support for mobile printing and scanning.

Connect the printer to your network by Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and you can connect to it though an access point from iOS and Android phones and tablets to print from or scan to your mobile device. Assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can also print through the cloud. If you connect to a single PC via USB cable instead, you won’t be able to print through the cloud, but you can still print to or scan from the printer using a mobile device by taking advantage of the built-in equivalent to Wi-Fi Direct, which lets you connect directly to the printer.

Paper capacity for the main tray is limited to 150 sheets. That matches the HP M277dw’s capacity and is one of the key design choices that make both printers best suited to light-duty use. It’s enough for most personal printing, but it’s on the meager side for a shared printer in a micro office.

One welcome extra is a single-sheet manual feed to let you print one- or two-page documents on a different paper stock without having to swap out paper in the main tray. Unlike the HP M277dw, however, the MF628Cw doesn’t include automatic duplexing for two-sided printing.

Another extra is a 3.5-inch, color touch-screen control panel. In addition to being large enough to make it easy to hit the command you’re aiming for, the backlit screen is highly readable, and it offers well-designed menus. When you’re printing files from a USB key, however, it doesn’t let you preview the files onscreen before printing them.

Setup and Speed
At 52.9 pounds without its toner cartridges, or 57.3 pounds with them, the MF628Cw is heavy enough that moving it is a two-person job. The printer is also big enough, at 16.9 by 17 by 19.1 inches (HWD), that you might have trouble finding room for it in micro or home office. Assuming you have enough flat space, however, setup is standard fare. For my tests, I connected it to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a system running Windows Vista.

I clocked the MF628Cw on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at 4.4ppm. That’s within the typical range for its rating of 14 pages per minute (ppm) for both color and monochrome pages. It’s also faster than some of its competition, including the Samsung Multifunction Xpress C460FW$180.99 at Amazon, at 3.3ppm. However it’s a lot slower than the HP M277dw, at 8.4ppm.

Interestingly, the MF628Cw was slower in our tests than the Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw$279.99 at Amazon, which managed 5.5ppm, even though Canon says both are essentially identical except for the addition of fax capability in the MF628Cw.

A close look at my results shows that the difference in speed comes entirely from the MF624Cw’s better speed for the first page of each print job. If you count only the time after the first page comes out (which is how engine speeds are timed), and ignore single-page documents, both printers delivered the same speed on our tests. In practical terms, that means there’s only a few seconds difference with single-page documents, and the more pages you print at once, the less of a difference you’ll see in pages per minute. In short, the difference won’t matter much in real-world use.

Output Quality
The MF628Cw’s output quality for text is as the low end of the range that includes the vast majority of color laser MFPs. Fortunately, laser text quality is good enough in general for even the low end of the range to be suitable for any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small font sizes.

Overall graphics output is one step above most of the competition. Almost all of the individual images in my tests were good enough to use for marketing materials. There was one exception, however, with 1-pixel-wide lines against a black background nearly disappearing. That suggests you should check each individual image carefully before you use it in a situation where top quality matters.

Photo output is one step down from average. The majority of color laser MFPs offer near-photo quality. The MF628Cw’s output quality in my tests was just enough below that that I wouldn’t use it for, say, a real-estate handout or marketing materials. However, they’re good enough for anything less demanding than that.

Conclusion
If you don’t need a fax capability, consider the Canon MF624Cw, which is less expensive than the Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw and a bit faster on our tests as well. If you need to fax, the HP M277dw costs a little more than the MF628Cw, but offers substantially more capability and is smaller and lighter as well. If you have room for the MF628Cw, however, don’t have the flexibility in your budget to spend any more than you have to, and need fax support, then it may appeal to you with its particular mix of speed, output quality, MFP features, and price.

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Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw

BY M. DAVID STONE

The $349 Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw $349 color laser multifunction printer (MFP) delivers a mix of features and capabilities—most notably a low price and low paper capacity—that make it appealing for personal use or for use in a micro office. However, it’s big enough to look like it should be in a small office or workgroup. Whether you consider it a good (metaphorical) fit for your light-duty use will depend largely on whether it can physically fit in however much space you have available.

The MF624Cw$279.99 at Amazon is in the same category as the more expensive, but far more capable, HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M277dwBest Price at Amazon, our Editors’ Choice light-duty color laser MFP for SOHO use. However, it’s more directly competitive with the smaller and lighter HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M177fwBest Price at Amazon, which is the next step down in HP’s line.

All three printers offer a similar paper capacity, with a 150-sheet main tray, which is enough for most personal use, but limits all of them to light duty for shared use. Both the MF624Cw and the HP M277dw add single-sheet manual feeds, so you can print small print jobs on a different paper stock without having to swap out the paper in the main tray. However, the more expensive HP M277dw is the only one of the three that adds automatic duplexing for easy printing on both sides of the paper.

The MF624Cw falls somewhere between the two HP models in other key features as well. It did better on our tests for speed and text quality than the HP M177fw, but didn’t do as well as the HP M277dw. One clear disadvantage for it, compared with both HP MFPs, is its bulk. It’s bigger than either, and it’s the only one of the three that’s heavy enough that moving it into place is best done by two people.

Setup and Basics
The MF624Cw measures 16.9 by 17 by 19.1 inches (HWD) and weighs a hefty 52.9 pounds without the toner cartridges or 57.3 pounds with them. Assuming you have enough room for it, however, and preferably have someone to help you move it into place, setup is standard fare.

Basic MFP features are limited to printing, scanning, and copying. In addition, it can print from or scan to a USB memory key. The highly readable 3.5-inch color touch-screen control panel offers both well-designed menus and a large enough size to make it easy to hit the command you’re aiming for. However, you can’t use the LCD to preview files before printing them.

Also going beyond the basics is support for mobile printing and scanning. If you connect the printer directly to your network using either Ethernet or Wi-Fi, you can connect to it though an access point on the network to print from or scan to it using iOS and Android phones and tablets. Assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can also print through the cloud.

If you choose to connect to a single PC via USB cable, you’ll lose the ability to print through the cloud. However, you can still use the MF624Cw to print from or scan to your mobile device by connecting directly, thanks to its built-in equivalent to Wi-Fi Direct

Print Speed and Output Quality
For my tests, I connected the printer to a network by Ethernet and installed the drivers on a system running Windows Vista. On our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), the MF624Cw came in at 5.5 pages per minute (ppm), which is fast for both the price and the 14ppm rating for monochrome and color. In comparison, the HP M177fw is slower, at only 2.9ppm, but the HP M277dw is significantly faster, at 8.4ppm.

Interestingly, the MF624CW was also faster in testing than the Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw$249.99 at Amazon at 4.4ppm, even though Canon says both are essentially identical except for the addition of fax support in the more expensive printer. Canon also rates both at the same speed. A close look at my results showed that the speed advantage for the MF624Cw comes entirely from being able to print the first page of each print job faster. If you start timing after the first page comes out (which is how engine speeds are timed), and ignore the results for one-page documents, both printers delivered the same speed.

Output quality for the MF624Cw is at the low end of typical for color laser MFPs for text, one step above most for graphics, and one step below most for photos. For text, that translates to being easily good enough for any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small font sizes.

Most graphics output is good enough even for marketing materials. However, you might need to check your images carefully before you decide to use them. In one particularly demanding test image with 1-pixel-wide lines against a black background, the lines were hard to see. Photos are best described as not-quite-near photo quality. I wouldn’t use them for a real estate handout or marketing materials, but they’re good enough for anything less demanding than that.

Conclusion
If you need a color laser MFP for a micro office or personal use, be sure to consider the HP M277dw. It costs a bit more than the Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw, but it delivers substantially more capability—including fax support, print duplexing, and better-quality text. Also consider both it and the HP M177fw if you don’t have much space available. Compared with the Canon model, either one will be easier to find room for. The MF624dw’s balance of speed, output quality, and price makes it a more-than-reasonable choice, however, if size and weight aren’t an issue, and you don’t need the extra features in the HP M277dw—or can’t afford it.

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HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw

BY M. DAVID STONE

If you need a color laser printer for heavy-duty personal use or light-duty shared use in a micro office, the HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw ($299.99) is a terrific fit. Along with fast speed and high-quality output, it offers mobile printing, both Ethernet and Wi-Fi for connecting to a network, and even the ability to print from a USB memory key. The combination makes it our Editors’ Choice personal or light-duty color laser printer for a micro office.

The M252dw’s$159.00 at BUYDIG.com key strength is that it beats most of its competition for both speed and output quality. That’s a notable feat, considering that most color lasers in this price range tend to score well in only one of those categories. When I reviewed the Brother HL-3170CDW$248.94 at Amazon, for example, I pointed out that although it comes up a little short on output quality, it made up for that with its speed. The M252dw not only delivers higher-quality text, graphics, and photos than the Brother model, it’s convincingly faster, too.

Paper handling is the one area where the M252dw can’t match some other models in the same price class. It’s not hard to find printers, including the Brother HL-3170CDW, that offer a 250-sheet page capacity plus a single-sheet manual feed. The M252dw is limited to a 150-sheet tray plus a manual feed. That’s fine for most personal use, but a little low for a shared printer, which is what makes the M252dw best reserved for light-duty shared use even by micro-office standards. One helpful extra, however, is the built-in duplexer.

Mobile Printing and More
The M252dw offers other features that go beyond the basics, including its ability to print from a USB memory key. In addition, if you connect it to a network by Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can print through the cloud and can use the front-panel touch-screen to take advantage of HP Web apps. The Web apps let you print information from select websites, including Dropbox and Google Docs. You can also connect to the printer through an access point on your network to print from Android and iOS phones and tablets.

If you connect to a single computer via USB cable, you won’t be able to use HP’s Web apps or print through the cloud, but thanks to the printer’s Wi-Fi Direct, you’ll still be able to connect directly from your phone or tablet to print. For mobile devices that support NFC, you can also establish the connection simply by touching the device to the NFC logo on the front of the printer.

 

Setup and Speed
At 9.3 by 15.4 by 16.4 inches, and a hefty 27 pounds, the M252dw is on the big-and-heavy side for a personal printer, but still small enough to share a desk with and light enough for one person to move into place. Setup is standard fare. For my tests, I connected it to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the software on a system running Windows Vista.

The print speed is a definitive strong point. HP rates the M252dw at 19 pages per minute (ppm) both for color and for black and white, which is the speed you should see with text or other documents that need little to no formatting. On our business applications suite, I clocked it (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software) at 8.3ppm. That makes it surprisingly fast for both its price and its rated speed.

As a point of comparison, the Brother HL-3170CDW has a 23ppm rating, which in theory makes it roughly 20 percent faster than the M252dw. But its speed on our tests was 6.8ppm, which actually makes it more than 20 percent slower. The M252dw is even faster on our tests than the HL-L8250CDN$308.40 at Amazon, which Brother rates at 30ppm, but on our tests managed only a leisurely 6.6ppm.

Output Quality
Overall output quality is above par for a color laser, thanks primarily to the graphics output. Text is a match for most lasers, making it easily good enough for almost any business need. Colors in graphics are a touch dark in terms of a hue-saturation-brightness color model, but still suitably eye-catching and well saturated, and a step above the norm for the category.

Photo quality falls in the middle of a tight range that includes most color lasers. From two or three feet away, you could easily mistake the output for traditional photos, especially if they’re framed behind glass. Within that context, however, they aren’t very high quality.

Colors in the M252dw’s photos tended to be a little dark in testing, as was the case with its graphics but more so. Most people would consider the text and graphics good enough for marketing materials like one-page handouts and trifold brochures. The photos aren’t really suitable for that, although you could use them if you don’t need top-tier photo quality. On the other hand, photos quality is easily good enough for any business use.

Conclusion
If you need a shared printer for medium- to heavy-duty use in a micro office, be sure to consider the Brother HL-3170CDW and the Brother HL-L8250CDN. Both offer a higher paper capacity than the HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw, and both are fast enough for most micro offices, despite being slower than the HP printer. If you’re in the market for a personal printer, however, or a shared printer for light-duty use, and want fast speed, high-quality output, suitable paper handling, and convenience features like mobile printing and being able to print from a USB key, the M252dw is hard to beat, making it an easy pick as our Editors’ Choice.

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Dell Smart Printer – S2810dn

BY M. DAVID STONE

The Dell Smart Printer – S2810dn ($229.99) delivers the right mix of features for a workhorse monochrome laser printer—namely, fast speed, good paper handling, and reasonably high-quality output. Its 350-sheet paper capacity puts a limit on how much it can print conveniently, but it’s suitable, and a good choice, for up to heavy-duty use as a personal printer or moderate use in a micro to small office or workgroup.

Features
In many ways, the S2810dn$149.99 at Dell is a close match for the Brother HL-5450DN$144.99 at Amazon, which is our Editors’ Choice for this category of monochrome laser printer. Both offer Ethernet and USB as connection choices, with the Dell printer adding Wi-Fi as an optional ($59.99) extra, and Brother offering the slightly more expensive Brother HL-5470DW$179.99 at Amazon as a nearly identical alternative to the Brother HL-5450DN, but with Wi-Fi added.

All three printers also offer similar paper handling, with a 250-sheet main tray, a duplexer for two-sided printing, and a multipurpose tray. The S2810dn actually has a small edge for its standard paper capacity, with a 100-sheet, rather than 50-sheet, multipurpose tray. However, Brother offers an optional additional tray for both of its models, boosting the maximum capacity for each to 800 sheets. The option to add another tray helps make the Brother models appropriate for heavier-duty printing than the S2810dn can easily manage. That, along with a low price, keeps the Brother HL-5450DN in place as our top pick.

Like the Brother models, the S2810dn offers mobile printing support. If you connect it to a network, you can print from iOS, Android, and Windows phones and tablets, by connecting through an access point on your network. Dell also offers the ability to print from select websites (including Dropbox, Evernote, and Box, for example) using a supplied program that runs on your PC or an equivalent downloadable app on your mobile device. In either case, you give commands from the program and relay the data through your PC, phone, or tablet.

The advantage of this approach—as opposed to connecting to websites directly with the printer and giving commands from the front panel—is that you can print from a website even if the printer is connected to your PC via USB cable. Because the PC-based app works only with Windows 7 and above, however, I couldn’t try it out with the Windows Vista system I used for testing.

The printer offers some security features for offices that need it—including private printing, which lets you send a job to the S2810dn, but not print it until you enter a PIN code at the front panel.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
The S2810dn measures 10.8 by 16.1 by 17.2 (HWD), which makes it a little bigger than you might like to have sitting on your desk, but small enough to fit reasonably well if you need to keep it there. At 27.1 pounds, most people will be able to move it into place without help. For my tests, I connected it to a network, using the Ethernet port. Setup is standard fare.

Dell rates the S2810dn at 35 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing text or other documents that need little to no processing. On our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic’s hardware and software), the printer managed a suitably fast 11.8ppm with its default setting for duplex (two-sided) printing, and an even faster 13.4ppm when I set it for simplex (one-sided) printing. That makes it convincingly faster than the Brother HL-5450DN, at 10.8ppm in simplex mode, or the Brother HL-5470DW, at an essentially identical 10.7ppm.

The S2810dn also delivers more-than-acceptable output quality across the board. Text is at the high end of the range that includes most monochrome lasers, making it good enough for virtually any use short of serious desktop publishing.

Graphics are at the high end of average, making the output easily suitable even for PowerPoint handouts and the like, as long as you consider monochrome output suitable at all. As with most monochrome lasers, photo output is good enough for printing photos on webpages with recognizable images, but not for anything more demanding than that.

Conclusion
If there’s any possibility that your print needs may increase to the point of needing a higher paper capacity, either the Brother HL-5450DN or the Brother HL-5470DW is likely a better choice than the S2810dn. Even if you won’t need a higher capacity, you might still prefer the Brother HL-5450DN over the S2810dn because of its lower price. Likewise, you might prefer the Brother HL-5470DW over the S2810dn for its lower price, plus its built-in Wi-Fi.

If you’re sure you won’t need the higher capacity the Brother printers offer, however, the Dell Smart Printer – S2810dn is a strong candidate. Its fast speed justifies its higher price compared with the Brother printers, it delivers essentially the same level of output quality, and it even offers a slightly higher standard paper capacity than either Brother model. The combination makes the S2810dn a close second to the Brother HL-5450DN overall, and a great choice as a workhorse monochrome laser printer.

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HP Color LaserJet Enterprise M553dn

BY TONY HOFFMAN

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise M553dn ($599) leaves off a few of the extras found in the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise M553x$1,199.99 at HP—the new high-end model in the company’s 500 series of single-function color laser printers—but it comes in at a much more moderate price. The M553dn$599.99 at HP is an impressive beast, combining very good speed with superb output quality and an ample feature set. It is considerably faster than the HP LaserJet Enterprise 500 Color Printer M551dn$823.47 at Mwave.com, which it is replacing, both in HP’s line and as our Editors’ Choice color laser printer for medium- to heavy-duty use in a small to midsize office.

Design and Features
The M553dn measures 15.7 by 18 by 18.9 inches (HWD), so you’ll probably want to put it on a table of its own, and it weighs 60.6 pounds. It helps to have two people to move it into place. The standard paper capacity for the M553dn is 650 sheets, split between a 550-sheet tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose feeder. The printer comes with an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. Up to three optional 550-sheet paper trays ($299.99 each) can be added, for a maximum paper capacity of 2,300 sheets.

In the M553dn’s top-right-front corner is a four-line LED, tilted for easy viewing, plus an alphanumeric keypad. On the printer’s right side, just below the top, is a port for a USB thumb drive.

The M553dn offers USB and Ethernet connectivity. It does not offer 802.11 Wi-Fi or a NFC/Wireless Direct module, the latter which the HP M553x has, although you can still print to it from mobile devices if it is on a network with a wireless access point. To that end, it supports HP ePrint and Apple AirPrint, and is Mopria-certified. Printer drivers include PCL5, PCL6, and HP’s PostScript emulation. The latter is useful because although most offices don’t need PostScript for printing, some can’t do without it. I tested the M553dn over an Ethernet connection with drivers installed on a computer running Windows Vista.

Two other models fill out HP’s M553 series. The aforementioned HP M553x adds a second 550-sheet paper tray, plus an NFC/Wireless Direct module, and instead of having a color touch screen, it has a four-line LED and keypad. The HP M553n ($449.99) is the same as the M553dn, but lacks the auto-duplexer.

Print Speed
I timed the M553dn on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), at 12.2 pages per minute (ppm). That’s a good speed, considering its 40ppm rated speed for both color and black-and-white printing that’s based on printing text documents without graphics or photos—our test suite includes text pages, graphics pages, and pages with mixed content. It’s effectively tied with the HP M553x, which we timed at 12.4ppm, just a single second across all the tests separating the two printers. It beat the HP M551dn, our Editors’ Choice medium- to heavy-duty color laser printer for small to midsize offices, which is rated at 33ppm and which tested at 9ppm. The Dell C3760dn Color Laser Printer$499.99 at Dell, rated at just 23ppm, tested at 7.9ppm.

Output Quality
The M553dn’s output quality is above average, with excellent graphics, above-par text, and slightly above-par photos. Text should be good enough for any business use, even those that require tiny fonts.

With graphics, colors are bright and well saturated. There were no significant issues in our tests, and the output should be fine for PowerPoint handouts going to clients or colleagues you are seeking to impress. With photos, one test print had slight posterization (sudden shifts of color where they should be gradual), and our one monochrome test image showed a slight trace of tinting, but the rest of the test prints approached true photo quality. Taken together, the M553dn’s text, graphics, and photos should be good enough for printing marketing handouts or trifold brochures.

Running Costs
The M553dn has reasonably low running costs of 1.7 cents per monochrome page and 10.9 cents per color page, matching those of the HP M553x.

The M553dn sells for much less than the HP M553x, but includes most of that printer’s features, only lacking the latter’s touch screen, second paper tray, and NFC and HP Wireless Direct connectivity. If you must have these features, you could either go with the HP M553x, or get the M553dn and buy the paper tray ($299) and/or the HP JetDirect 3000W wireless module when it is released later this year at a price yet to be announced, and probably save a good bit of money. (The touch screen is not available separately).

Even without any of the extras, the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise M553dn is a formidable color laser and a great value, a worthy successor to the HP M551dn as our Editors’ Choice. Not only is it priced to sell, and has relatively low running costs, its output quality is good enough that it can save you the cost of having to hire a print shop for most of your marketing materials.

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Ricoh SP 4510SF

BY M. DAVID STONE

By most measures, the Ricoh SP 4510SF ($1,099) is one of the more capable monochrome multifunction printers (MFPs) in its price class. Suitable for heavy-duty use in a small office or medium-duty use in a midsize office or workgroup, it’s built around an LED engine, which makes it essentially identical to a laser printer except that it uses LEDs rather than a laser to draw the image of each page on its drum. Its front-panel touch-screen menu is badly in need of a redesign, but if you don’t mind investing the time to make sense of the menu, the SP 4510SF$740.00 at Amazon has a lot to recommend it.

Like both the Xerox WorkCentre 3615/DN$766.85 at Amazon, which is our Editors’ Choice in this category, and the HP LaserJet Pro MFP M521dn$582.12 at Amazon, which is another top pick, the SP 4510SF offers a full set of basic MFP features. It can print and fax from, as well as scan to, a computer over a network, and it can work as a standalone copier and fax machine, with support for standard faxing over a phone line and both Internet fax (for sending faxes over the Internet) and IP fax (for sending faxes over a company Intranet).

Beyond that, the SP 4510SF can send scanned documents as email attachments without a computer, automatically forward incoming faxes as email attachments, and scan directly to an SD memory card or a USB memory key using PDF, TIFF, or JPG format. If you add the optional hard drive ($300), which was not included with our test unit, it can also let you view scanned images on the 4.3-inch color touch screen and print files from a memory card or USB key, reading the same three formats it can scan to.

Going Beyond the Basics
Still more features worth noting include the ability to print through the cloud and the ability to both print from and scan to Android and iOS devices through an access point on your network. The SP 4510SF offers an assortment of features of most interest to a larger office or enterprise workgroup, like the ability to require a password or a card swipe—using one of the printer’s optional card readers ($229 to $299)—before printing a document.

The one important shortcoming for the SP 4510SF is the touch-screen menu, which is filled with choices that are obscure at best. The steps for scanning to a USB memory key, for example, include navigating a path through menu options labeled “Send Settings” and “Store File.” Once you learn how to decode the options, using the menu is easy enough, but Ricoh would do well to rework the menu logic and option names to make them easier to follow.

Also note that that the printer can’t fax from or scan to a PC over a USB connection. Both features work only over a network. That’s unusual, but shouldn’t be a problem, since it’s unlikely that any office would get a printer with this much capability and not share it on a network.

Paper Handling
The SP 4510SF’s paper handling counts as a strong point, with a duplexer (for two-sided printing) and 600-sheet paper capacity standard, divided into a 500-sheet main tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray. You can also add up to two additional drawers, with a choice of either 500-sheet ($305 each) or 250-sheet ($169 each) drawers in any combination. That works out to a maximum total 1,600-sheet capacity, which is less than the Xerox 3615/DN’s maximum of 2,350 sheets, but still easily enough for most midsize offices.

For scanning, the printer offers both a letter-size flatbed and a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF), which can handle up to legal-size paper and can duplex by scanning one side of the page, turning it over, and then scanning the other. For copying, the combination of duplex printing and duplexing ADF lets you copy both single- and double-sided originals to your choice of single- or double-sided copies.

Keep in mind that a duplexing ADF isn’t as fast as a duplexing scanner, like the one in the HP M521dn, which scans both sides of the page at the same time. However being able to scan two-sided pages easily is a lot better than being limited to simplex (one-sided) scanning only.

Setup and Speed
The SP 4510SF measures 19 by 16.5 by 16.8 inches (HWD), making it far too big to share a desk with comfortably, and it weighs 50.6 pounds, which makes handling it a two-person job. However, that’s typical for this class of MFP. Setup is standard fare. For my tests I connected the printer to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a system running Windows Vista.

The printer’s speed isn’t particularly impressive, but it’s not slow enough to consider it a problem. Ricoh rates it at 42ppm, which is the speed you should see printing in simplex mode with a text document or other file that doesn’t need much processing. However, I timed it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at 7.1ppm in its default duplex setting and 8.8ppm in simplex mode. That makes it a bit slower than the Xerox 3615/DN, which came in at 10ppm in simplex mode. However it’s faster than the HP M521dn, which managed only 5.3ppm in simplex mode.

Output Quality and Running Cost
The SP 4510SF’s output quality is another strong point, with text and photos that are both a little better than what most monochrome MFPs can manage, and graphics quality that’s at the top of a tight range that includes the vast majority of monochrome MFPs.

The text quality isn’t quite good enough for high-quality desktop publishing applications, but it offers highly readable, well-formed characters even at small font sizes, making it easily good enough for any business need. Graphics output is suitable for any internal business use and even good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like, assuming you consider black-and-white output acceptable. Photo output is equivalent to good-quality newspaper photos.

The printer also earns points for its low running cost. With its highest-capacity cartridge, it offers a claimed cost of 1.1 cents per page, or 0.6 cents less per page than the claimed cost for the Xerox 3615/DN. That translates to a $60 savings for every 10,000 pages you print. Print just 20,000 pages per year, or 80 pages per working day, and you’ll save $600 in five years compared with the Xerox model.

If you can make good use of a bit higher paper capacity than the Ricoh SP 4510SF offers, or you aren’t willing to accept front-panel commands that take effort to understand, be sure to consider the Xerox 3615/DN and the HP M521dn. If you don’t need a higher paper capacity, however, and aren’t bothered by the thought of having to learn the printer’s idiosyncratic menu logic, the SP 4510SF’s more-than-acceptable speed, above-par output quality, and impressively long list of MFP features make it an attractive choice.

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Ricoh SP 4510DN

BY M. DAVID STONE

Clearly designed as a workhorse monochrome printer for a small to midsize office or workgroup, the Ricoh SP 4510DN ($725) delivers a suitable level of paper handling for the job and better output quality than much of the competition. Although it uses LEDs rather than a laser for drawing the image of each page on its drum, it uses the same technology otherwise, making it fully comparable to laser printers. It was a little slower in our tests than you might expect for the 42 page-per-minute (ppm) engine rating, but for offices that are more concerned with how good the pages look than with how quickly they print, it’s an excellent choice.

The SP 4510DNBest Price at Amazon is essentially in the same class as the Dell B3460dn$549.99 at Dell, which is our Editors’ Choice monochrome laser for heavy-duty use in a small office or moderate use in a midsize office or workgroup. The Dell model delivers significantly better speed, but the Ricoh printer delivers better output quality. Assuming you connect it to a network, it also offers support for printing through the cloud and for both printing from and scanning to Android and iOS devices through an access point on the network.

The Dell B3460dn offers the higher paper capacity of the two, but the SP 4510DN’s paper handling is good enough to count as a strong point. The printer comes with a 500-sheet main tray, a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, and a duplexer (for two-sided printing) standard. You can also add up to two additional trays with capacities of either 500 sheets ($305 each) or 250 sheets ($169 each) in any combination. The maximum total of 1,600 sheets is easily enough for most midsize offices, but less than the Dell B3460dn’s 2,300-sheet maximum.

One other notable option for the SP 4510DN is a hard drive ($300), which wasn’t in the review unit. According to Ricoh, adding the hard drive adds private printing, letting you send a job to the printer, but not print it until you enter a PIN code at the front panel. The drive also lets you store forms you use repeatedly on it, so you can print them on demand from the front panel.

Setup and Speed
The SP 4510DN is a typical size and weight for the category, at 12 by 14.6 by 15.4 inches (HWD) and 34.2 pounds. Setup is absolutely standard, with a choice of USB or Ethernet connections and the option to add a parallel port ($134) or Wi-Fi ($400). For my tests, I connected it to a wired network and installed the driver on a Windows Vista system.

The rated speed of 42 pages per minute (ppm) is what you should see when printing a text file, with little or no formatting in simplex (one-sided) mode. On our business applications suite, however (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), I clocked the printer at 6.9ppm in its default duplex setting and 8ppm in simplex (one-sided) mode. That makes it a lot slower than the Dell B3460dn at 15.3ppm in its default simplex mode.

It’s not even hard to find less expensive printers with faster speeds. For example, the Dell B2360d$149.99 at Amazon, which is our preferred pick for medium-duty use in a small office, managed 15ppm on our tests (also in simplex mode). Overall, the SP 4510DN’s speed is acceptable, but a little slow for both the price and engine rating.

Output Quality
A key saving grace for the SP 4510DN—but not the only one—is its output quality. Text and photo quality are both a step above par for a monochrome laser printer, and graphics quality is at the top of a tight range that includes the vast majority of monochrome lasers.

For text, that translates to highly readable, well-formed characters even at small font sizes, although the output is just short of being suitable for high-quality desktop publishing. Graphics output is easily good enough for any internal business use, including PowerPoint handouts, assuming you consider black-and-white output acceptable at all. Photo output is equivalent to good-quality photos in a newspaper.

Also in the SP 4510DN’s favor is its low running cost. Its highest-capacity cartridge offers a 12,000-page yield and a claimed cost of just 1.1 cents per page—a savings of 0.5 cents for each page compared with the Dell B3460. That may not sound like a lot, but it adds up to a $50 savings for every 10,000 pages. Print just 20,000 pages per year, or 80 pages per working day—which isn’t much for a workhorse printer in a medium-size office—and you’ll save $500 over five years compared with the Dell B3460.

If you don’t need particularly high-quality output, be sure to consider the Dell B3460dn for its fast speed and high paper capacity along with output that’s easily suitable for most business needs. But also consider whether the speed and paper capacity outweighs the Ricoh SP 4510DN’s low running cost. Beyond that, if you need the SP 4510DN’s high-quality output, it will almost certainly be the better fit in any case.

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How to Print to an HP 4000 Series Printer Without a Parallel Port

by Soroush Madjzoob

You have just unpacked your brand spanking new laptop only to find that it doesn’t support a connection to your older HP 4000 series printer – now what?

Related: The Five Reasons Dell Beats HP in the Technology Market 

It used to be that parallel ports and COM ports were standard issue on every computer; no matter the manufacturer.  Today however, with ever shrinking footprints of PCs and a shift towards mobile computing, there is a race to miniaturize as much as possible!

And with the advent of the USB port, you can’t blame the computer industry for doing away with the large (space consuming) Parallel and COMs ports!  This does produce a dilemma for most users trying to hang on to their investment in HP printers that don’t have a USB port.

No worries, there is still a way to connect to your HP 4000 series printers that don’t have a USB port; actually two ways!  These older, work horse printers, all have an EIO port or Expansion Input/Output port; which allows you to plug-in different types of add-on modules.

If you’re using your printer in an office environment, you can network-enable your printer; giving access to users that you want to share the printer.  You can start with the basic HP JETDIRECT 620N (J7934G), which runs at 10/100 transfer speeds, or kick it up a notch to a HP JETDIRECT 630N (J7997G) print server, which runs at gigabit speeds; or just go all out and get a wireless version like the HP JETDIRECT 380X WIRELESS PRINT SERVER (J6061A); each for under $100!

Related: Why PCs, Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, QNX, Dell, Panasonic, and Jaguar Won CES

If you’re using the printer in a more personal setting, say at home, you can try using a J4135a JetDirect card that gives you USB and Apple LocalTalk expansion options. You could also try buying a USB to parallel cable but those solutions are not always 100% effective.

Any of the above solutions give you a very inexpensive solution to continue to get a return on your HP 4000 printer investment.

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Brother HL-L2300D

BY M. DAVID STONE

The Brother HL-L2300D monochrome laser printer($119.99) is small enough to sit on your desk without taking up a lot of space and is limited to connecting via USB cable. The combination defines it as a personal printer for any size office. Despite the small form, however, it delivers a level of paper handling that would be suitable for sharing. Add in its fast speed and more-than-acceptable output quality, and it’s an easy pick as our Editors’ Choice low-cost, personal monochrome laser printer.

When it comes to paper handling, the HL-L2300D$79.99 at Amazon delivers a point-for-point match with the Samsung Xpress M2625D$98.99 at Amazon, another top pick. Both models offer a 250-sheet tray, a one-sheet manual feed, and a built-in duplexer (for two-sided printing). This should easily be enough for even heavy-duty use by personal printer standards.

Almost as important as the paper handling is the small size. The HL-L2300D weighs just 15 pounds, making it easy for one person to move into place, and it measures 7.2 by 14 by 14.2 inches (HWD). That gives it a slightly lower weight and size than the Samsung model, which is always a plus for anything that you plan to share your desk with.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
Setup is standard for a USB-connected monochrome laser. For my tests, I connected it to a system running Windows Vista. The printer’s engine rating is 27 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing a text document or other file that needs little to no processing. I clocked it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), at 9.3ppm, which is a respectable speed for the price and engine rating, and just a touch slower than the Samsung M2625D’s 9.9pm. The HL-L2300D is essentially tied with the Brother HL-L2340DW$119.98 at Amazon, which is a similar model with Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct added.

Output quality for the HL-L2300D is just a touch below par overall, with text and graphics both a step below the ranges that include the vast majority of monochrome lasers. For text, that still translates to being good enough for virtually any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small fonts. For graphics, it makes the output easily good enough for any internal business needs, but not good enough for most people to consider it suitable for PowerPoint handouts or the like.

Photo quality is typical for a monochrome laser. You can certainly print recognizable images from photos on webpages, for example, but don’t plan on using the printer for anything more demanding than that.

If you want the convenience of being able to print wirelessly from your phone or tablet using a printer that’s connected to a single PC, you should take a look at somewhat more expensive models that support Wi-Fi Direct, like the Brother HL-L2340DW and the Samsung Xpress M2835DWBest Price at Amazon. If you simply want to print from a PC connected via USB cable, however, the HL-L2300D delivers a balance of speed, paper handling, output quality, size, and price that makes it an excellent candidate for a personal monochrome laser printer and our Editors’ Choice in the category.

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