The CLP-500 is Samsung's first venture into the budget colour laser printer market. It costs less than £500 but provides some features you would expect to find only on more expensive printers. Notably, it is capable of duplex printing, which means you can print to both sides of a page without having to re-feed the paper.

In our tests, the CLP-500 produced good results. Text-documents were sharp and remained legible even when printed in very small type sizes. It is also relatively fast, with a print speed of 20 pages per minute (ppm) mono, and 5ppm for colour.

It is not designed to print photo images from your digital camera, but the CLP-500 produces high-quality colour documents at a fairly high resolution of 1,200 x 1,200dpi. The standard 600 x 600dpi mode was less impressive in terms of print quality, but significantly quicker. Nevertheless, it still delivered above-average print quality.

Unfortunately the CLP-500's high running costs mean it is not best suited to printing large amounts. The starter toner cartridges (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) last for only 1,500 mono and 2,000 colour sheets. A full set of replacement cartridges costs about £300 and won't last particularly long - 7,000 pages for black and 5,000 pages for colour.

The cost of replacement parts could also escalate for heavier users, as the drum and transfer belt both need replacing after 50,000 pages.

The CLP-500 comes with both USB and parallel connectors, but you'll have to pay an extra £194 to upgrade it with a network card. This isn't an essential addition, but it is useful since it allows multiple computers to use the device without your main PC being switched on.

On the whole, Samsung has delivered a strong printer with very few faults. If you print relatively few colour documents, it is one of the best low-cost colour lasers on the market.

Contact: Samsung 0870 242 0303
www.samsung.co.uk