Samsung ML-1915

If you’re more interested in high-quality black text than colour photo graphics, a laser printer can be a better choice than an inkjet, as it provides faster prints and is cheaper to run.

Samsung’s ML-1915 is designed as a home or small office printer and is ideal for regular correspondence.

The printer’s design is quite conventional, with a 250-sheet paper tray at the bottom and a single-sheet feeder above that for envelopes and headed paper. Pages feed out to the top surface, where there’s a simple control panel, with indicators for status and power and three buttons, for power, job cancel and to print what’s on the computer’s screen.

In fact, you can print just the selected window or the full screen, depending on how long the print-screen button is pressed. It’s very handy, though it does rely on the user having their ML-1915 close enough to their PC to put it within easy reach. A function key on the keyboard might have been more convenient.

Of more use is Anyweb, an application supplied with the printer that enables users to cut and paste any section of a web page and collect and arrange the scraps to produce scrapbook pages which can then be printed. It’s a handy and quick tool for anybody who’s doing research online.

Samsung quotes a print speed of 18 pages per minute (ppm) for the ML-1915 and under test conditions we saw a maximum of just under 14ppm, though 12ppm is nearer the mark for typical three-to-five page documents. Both speeds are good, a lot quicker than from comparable inkjets and the print quality was also well above average. It produces crisp, jet-black text and reasonable greyscale graphics, with a good range of tints, so colour originals are still decipherable when printed in greys.

The only consumable is a combined drum-and-toner cartridge, which makes maintenance very easy. The cartridge is available in two capacities: 1,500 and 2,500 pages and looking at the larger cartridge gives a cost per page of 2.2p, which isn’t at all bad for a machine at this asking price.

Overall, this is an excellent personal or home-office laser printer, with a useful web tool thrown in.