Not perfect, but good for general use

When I first got into graphic design about 15 years ago, I bit the bullet and bought a $1,400 HP LaserJet 4Plus that was my only printer for years since color printers at the time were extremely cost prohibitive, and color inkjets didn't exist at the time. That 4 Plus cranked out a LOT of pages over many years, but as inkjets emerged and print quality became better and better, my use for a B&W laser grew less and less...mainly to print out web pages, labels, envelopes, and page proofs for a magazine I do the layout for. I used to provide B&W proofs for clients using the 4 Plus, but now use my Canon i960 or Konica-Minolta 2530DL color laser for that. The good old 4 Plus lasted about 14 years with absolutely no problems, but last year began giving out, so started looking for a faster replacement with USB. The 4 Plus is parallel only, limited to 600dpi, and not considered fast by today's standards. I got an HP 1022 for the speed, USB, and 1200dpi capability last July and it's performed nicely, but began printing a bit off center and with heavier looking text and graphics. So something's changed that's not worth fixing since I only paid $139 for it (which was a price tag mistake at Office Depot...should have been $199.99). It still prints great, just off center about 1/8" to the top and right, which messes up my label templates and anything requiring accurate registration. So I went looking again. I first got a Brother HL 2040 and it was awful. Actually, print quality was good, but it curled pages so badly I could barely read them when holding in front of me. It curled envelopes into a "U" shape, and crunched the corners making them unusable. It was immediately returned. Next, I got an HP 2015 that produced excellent text, but has some funky drivers. It loads both PCL5e and PCL6, and I could get text to look good using one, but not graphics. With the other, I could get good graphics quality, but ragged text. I called HP and did everything I could, but ended up returning it. I don't do that much B&W printing anymore other than web pages and labels on occasion, so certainly didn't want to pay that much for a B&W printer anyway. Next, I decided to buy another HP 1022, but it too printed off center.

I was getting tired of making trip after trip, trying and returning printers, when I saw the Samsung ML 2510. The sample prints looked good and straight with sharp text and no page curling, so what the heck. The price was $129.99 at Staples...$70 less than the HP 1022, and $220 less than the HP 2015. I wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised by the overall text print quality and speed. It also has some nice features to change the print quality, including adding watermarks. To test a printer's on-page registration (whether or not it centers page content with equal margins), I always open my page layout programs (Pagemaker and InDesign), open a new page with 1/2" margin guides, draw a 1pt black box around the margins, and do some prints. The Samsung's alignment isn't perfectly centered, but is better than the other printers, and very usable. Horizontal registration is perfect (equal margins on both sides). Vertical is off toward the bottom of pages only .03" (slightly more of a margin at the top than bottom). It's pretty darn close. In order to perfectly center text in a page of Avery labels, 30 to a page, I only had the adjust vertical alignment by -.03 (.47 instead of .50) in Word's label maker. Labels come out crisp and sharp, perfectly centered in every label.

IN THE BOX
You get the ML 2510, starter toner cartridge, power cord, paper tray cover, quick start sheet, software CD, documentation, warranty. No connection cable included.

APPEARANCE/CONSTRUCTION
The Samsung ML 2510 is a simple, relatively sleek design, light gray front and top with dark gray sides and back. The top front is rounded to give it a more modern appeal and not a squared-off look. Make no mistake that these inexpensive printers aren't constructed nearly as well or with high quality components as the high-end printers. Overall, it feels fairly solid, but you can tell when you pick it up that there aren't many metal parts inside, or heavy-duty components. Just as with any inexpensive, basically disposable printer, I'd imagine all the gears and most of the internals are plastic. But I've seen many expensive printers, scanners, etc with an awful lot of plastic components. It's simply the way it is these days. The ML 2510 is made in China...so what's new??!! An extendable paper rest is located in the paper exit bay that's folded out once for letter size paper, with another rotating extension for legal paper. This paper rest works well and seems more solidly connected than the one on the HP 1022. The toner cartridge access door seems pretty flimsily made and connected, so be gentle when accessing this door. Actually, the ML-2510 looks a lot like my Konica-Minolta 2530DL color laser on a smaller scale, with the same light/dark gray color scheme and rounded top front. They're fairly close to one another in my office and it's like a matched set.

SETUP
Setup is as easy as you can get. (1) Unpack. (2) Install toner cartridge. (3) Load paper. (4) Make connection. (5) Turn on printer. (6) Install software. (7) Print. It all took about 5 min on Win XP Pro. Sample prints are acquired by pressing the orange "Go" button at the top right of the printer.

PRINT QUALITY
I'd judge overall print quality to be quite good, though not perfect. Not quite on par on par with my HP1022, 4-Plus or an HP 2015, but pretty good. Text is excellent but graphics show quite a bit of banding. Graphics are not quite as sharp as the HPs, but sometimes I think the HP graphic reproduction may be a bit too sharp and overdone, which can overaccentuate any ragged edges. When looking only at the ML 2510's graphic printouts, they look just fine in terms of sharpness and detail, except for the banding. At a normal viewing distance, I did notice on solid black graphic images, there's some slight visible pixelation on the top edges only, whether in 600 or 1200 dpi. Odd. This isn't noticeable with the HP 1022 or 4-Plus. Again, this would only be a concern if you'll be printing things in B&W for clients who require perfection for their own reproduction, business cards with a solid graphic image, etc. But I doubt you'd want to print business cards with a B&W laser anyway since the toner isn't permanent. I've done business cards with my old 4 Plus and they didn't wear too well. I use my color laser for this or have them comercially printed. For my use, this pixelation won't matter since I don't use a B&W laser for clients' final work. This pixelation doesn't show up at all in regular text, which as I said, is very sharp and very readable at 4pt. Pages exit with very little curl, if any. More curl will be noticed when doing large, continuous print jobs when things begin to heat up, but still nowhere near the Brother 2040's "curling iron" system. I'm getting nice flat pages using the lightest, cheapest 20# copy paper from Office Depot.

ENVELOPES
You can forget about printing envelopes. I used the same #10 security envelopes I use in my HP 1022 that come out beautiful and perfectly straight with no flaws, and on the ML 2510 they exit with crunched trailing edge corners, and are curved. I couldn't get one envelope to come out without flaws. But that's ok. I can use my HP 1022 or Canon i960 inkjet for envelopes.

SPEED
The ML 2510 is rated at 25 ppm, letter size paper, depending on connection, operating system and computer performance, etc. The 2510 is noticeably faster than my HP 1022, and plenty fast for my needs. It cranks out magazine proof pages very quickly.

ONBOARD CONTROLS
The only button on the ML 2510 itself is the orange Go button at the top right of the printer. Located just behind this button is a green led to indicate printer operation, and another red LED to indicate a problem or error. Pretty simple. When facing the back of the printer, the power cord connection is on the left, around the side in the corner. The USB and Parallel connections are located on the opposite side (right).

PAPER TRAYS
The main paper tray, which holds 250 sheets, is accessed by pulling open the front door, exactly like the HP 1022, and appears very solid. The main paper tray has internal tabs to accommodate letter, legal, or envelopes. A smoked transparent cover is included to place over the extended part of the tray, however, unlike the Hp 1022's that has a connection system that allows you to rotate the cover up to access the paper tray, the ML 2510's paper tray cover simply sits on top of the tray. When you need to access the paper tray, it has to be removed. But this is a minor complaint.

The upper tray, located just above the main tray, is to accommodate single envelopes, labels, etc. The main tray cover provides the base upon which the upper tray media rests. This way, media isn't hanging out and down as in many printers.

NOISE
The ML 2510 is a bit louder in operation than my HP 1022, but fairly typical for a laser printer. You can control the sleep mode time in the printer's settings, and while in sleep mode, you hear nothing. Time to wake-up and print is about 8 sec.

SPECS
As in all of my reviews, I don't regurgitate specs here that are already easily accessible online, so here's the link: http://www.samsung.com/Products/PrinterandMultifunction/BlackWhiteLaserforHomeHomeOffice/ML_2510XAA.asp?page=Specifications

BOTTOM LINE
So far, I'm finding the ML 2510 to be a very good printer that speeds through my needs. Text quality is excellent, which is what most B&W lasers are all about. This printer is aimed at home/individual users who don't need a full-blown, networked, million-page-per-month duty cycle, $2,000 printer. So if you need something more beefy, look elsewhere. At this point, I'd recommend this printer to anyone needing a simple, inexpensive, quality output B&W laser for home use. Time will tell how long it'll last under daily use in my business. But so far so good.

BTW, a few days after buying the ML 2510 at Staples, I was roaming around Best Buy and they had it for $84.99 (no rebate). I took my receipt back into Staples and they matched the price. So I got it for $85. I'm now seeing it advertised for $69, so that would be a good buy indeed.

UPDATE Well, the toner that came with the printer sure didn't last very long! The toner that came with my HP 1022 lasted forever, but the starter toner in the Samsung didn't last one ream of paper. The Samsung OEM toner cartridges are pretty expensive, so I went with a 3,000 page compatible toner for $35 and it's doing fine.

UPDATE 9/29/07 This printer either eats toner or I got a bad replacement 3K page toner. I haven't had the new toner very long but began noticing degrading print quality....then the red low toner warning light came on the other day. I did the usual shake-and-replace but didn't help. I did a system info printout and saw that only 1,002 pages had been printed with the new 3K capacity toner (basically text docs and a few images). So I've sent a scan of the info printout to B&B Office Supply where I bought it and see if they'll replace it at no cost. We'll see. If they replace it and I get another low page count, I'll go back to my HP 1022 and just deal with the slightly off center printing. The HP's print quality is great and toners last a long time and worth the cost.

UPDATE 10/16/07 B&B will do nothing about replacing the toner even though the printout I sent clearly shows it's a 3K toner and has only printed 1K. The woman I spoke to was very demeaning and talked to me as if I were a child with no experience (I've had my own graphic design business for 20 years and know the difference between printing text and graphics), spouting statistics and theories as to why she felt I only got 1K prints. Basically in her view it was my fault and very obvious they had no intention of replacing the toner so I told her to just forget it, I'd do no further business with B&B, and hung up. So this was my first and definitely last order from B&B. There are way too many other vendors who treat customers with value and consideration and not a debate team member. So I'll buy another toner locally and see how it does in comparison. Currently, I have a fairly new toner in the HP so it may be a while. So right now the Samsung is sitting idle in a corner.

UPDATE 12/22/07 I decided to give this printer as a Christmas present to my brother who needs a B&W laser for simple text docs since the HP 1022 is definitely much better for my needs. Print quality is better with no banding, toner life is significantly better, and it does a great job with envelopes.