Samsung ML-4551ND monochrome laser printer

Samsung's ML-4551ND is the company's top-of-the-line monochrome laser printer, and it offers network connectivity and fast print speeds. Although its print quality isn't as consistent as HP's LaserJet P4015n, the Samsung ML-4551ND laser printer can still produce accurate documents.

The ML-4551ND monochrome laser printer has a 500-sheet front-facing paper cassette and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray. Samsung quotes the ML-4551ND laser printer's monthly duty cycle at a maximum of 200,000 pages, so it will definitely be able to handle high quantities over a lengthy period.

USB, Ethernet and parallel connections are offered on the back panel, which also opens to reveal the printer's mainboard. The ML-4551ND's retail configuration has 128MB of memory, but this is user-upgradeable to a maximum of 512MB. Automatic duplexing is included, allowing you to print double-sided in order to cut down on paper use.

The ML-4551ND monochrome laser printer is quite easy control both directly and over a network. Five buttons and a monochrome LCD on the printer itself allow you to change settings such as duplex and layout, graphics resolution, network options and even emulated print languages. Unfortunately, while you can change the static IP address, you must print a network configuration report when determining the printer's DHCP-assigned address.

The Web interface provides many of the same settings available directly from the printer, along with additional network security settings like IP filtering. The interface also allows you to upgrade the ML-4551ND monochrome laser printer's firmware.

Samsung provides Windows, MacOS X and even Linux drivers for the ML-4551ND.

In our tests, the ML-4551ND took an average of 9.3 seconds to print the first page of an A4 document. Subsequent pages printed at an average rate of 46.1 pages per minute; this is slightly slower than the LaserJet P4015n. The speed was consistent when using either of the printer's quality settings.

Text documents are crisp and accurate, with no aberrations. Though the ML-4551ND lacks the line density or half-toning capabilities of some HP monochrome laser printers, it manages to produce text suitable for professional presentation documents. Monochrome graphics are also highly detailed, though the printer's 1200dpi resolution lacks the fine grain required to create a consistent black.

Both 10,000- and 20,000-page toners are available, with the later producing an average running cost of 1.9c per A4 page.

Automatic duplex and an extensive menu system complement fast print speeds and fantastic document quality. There are better text printers available but given its price the Samsung ML-4551ND is great value.

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