Thursday, September 26, 2013
Samsung ML 1740
The first thing you notice about it is the fact that it’s small. It only takes up 14 square inches of desk space, which is ideal for a home office. There is a 250 paper tray at the front, and a single sheet feeder for those odd shaped prints. There is also a rear output slot for card stock and other stiffer print media. This is a nice touch, because as the footprint of this device is quite small, the bend to the print drum is quite tight.
Setting up is a simple affair, the toner cartridge and drum are together and slot in the front, the connections are at the back and the drivers are quick and self installing. The only downside is that the USB port is only 1.1 speed, instead of the seemingly standard USB 2.0. Paper loads easily into the drawer and all moving parts seem to work without catching, rubbing or otherwise making any noise at all.
Print quality is good. The standard 600 dpi produces text that is crisp and black. Images and diagrams are equally well drawn, with grayscale showing minimal banding and good, even coverage. At 13 pages per minute, it isn’t the fastest printer in the world, but it is still plenty quick enough to be suitable for most workgroups.
With the ML-1740, what you see is what you get. There are no upgrade options, no expandable memory, or optional paper drawers. This is it. It is ideal for single users or offices that don’t print much, but other than that it’s utility is limited.
It comes with a starter toner which lasts for approximately 1000 pages, replacements can go for 3000 pages and cost around $38, which is pretty reasonable for laser toner. As the cartridge and toner are one unit, there is no extra expense of replacing drums every 20000 pages like most other laser printers. This saves a bit of money over the lifetime of the device.
The main advantage of the ML-1740 is its relative low cost. Purchase price is reasonable, and there are no drum replacements to consider. So over a lifetime, the cost per page should be very economical.
