Samsung ML-1710 Laser Printer

Quick Verdict: This tank of a laser will last you forever, take up very little room, and save you a bundle on ink. Works with Apple's Airport wireless printing.Full Review: I picked up this printer for college in 2003 when it was still new. I still have the ML-1710 and I refuse to upgrade because I have no complaints that would be remedied by picking up a newer laser printer. The Samsung Toner Drum (runs about 70 bucks for the 1710D3) prints AT LEAST 3,000 pages but the ML-1710 has an economy mode that helps me get approximately 7,000 pages per drum. Nowadays these 1710s are difficult to find, but if you can get one, hold onto it. Samsung clearly overbuilt these things, and this surprises because they are the smallest laser printer you can find that can still has these stats. I had never owned a laser printer before this one, but I selected it based upon Apple's Printer Compatibility list, which was listed on the Airport Express website. I originally got it because I was going to have my speakers and my printer wireless in my dorm room. Now I am glad I did get it, with a few notes of critique. First of all, the paper tray is way too small. You'll find yourself hoping that you did not have to refill it so frequently. Secondly, I find that the white plastic shell that houses the printer gets scuffed and marked too easily by pencils and similar office objects (mine looks dingy after so many years). Finally, the plastic hinge that holds a tiny flap for the paper that prints out is very poorly engineered, so it must be handled gently when you move the printer, lest it break off. Mine broke off but I was able to nudge it back into place. Without this plastic flap, your pages will curl and go all over the place when they come out the top of the machine, because the laser makes the paper much floppier and curlier when it heats it during printing. This printer has adjustable paper trays, so it can print directly to envelopes, different paper sizes (including legal). It is a little bit noisy when it starts up from being off, but when you leave it on you do not have to worry about that start up sound as much. Lastly, always press the power button twice so that the second green light stays on for economy mode, you'll save a bundle that way.

I bought this product because of the favorable reviews and excellent price. However, I am sorely disappointed with the driver for Mac OS X 10.2 (which, incidentally, did not come with the printer, but had to be downloaded from Samsung's web site). If you're a Mac OS X user, forget anything beyond very basic printing. The drivers are no more than Beta versions. There is absolutely no support for manual feed (one of the reasons I bought this printer was to print envelopes, which is impossible without manual feed). Other features are missing from the driver. I've had the printer for a couple of months now, and in all other ways is excellent (apart from being unnecessarily noisy). But the lack of a good driver for the Mac is unforgiveable, especially when Samsung touts this product as OS X compatible.

I've had this printer for over a year. Under OS 9 it was indeed fast, but with different versions of OS X the Samsung's performance is disappointing at best.In terms of speed, I have not experienced 17 ppm. Often I get a performance of about 2 ppm. They had an older driver that worked better, but I have not been able to find it anymore. A visit to Samsung's website reveals they have no Mac drivers listed at all. Based on my experience with this product, my next printer will not be a Samsung. As a matter of fact, I'm not likely to purchase anything with Samsung's name now.I'm giving it 2 stars because it was very cheap, and even though it's painfully slow it does work 90% of the time, so it is not a total waste.UPDATE (03/25/2008):First, it's interesting that people have not find this useful. The fact remains that support for OS X is awful.After doing a clean installation of Leopard I did not like the printer's performance once again.As mentioned, Samsung does not have the OS X drivers in their US website. Fortunately they do have them in their Australian site. I found their old driver there, and I'm currently using version 1.1 instead of 1.5. They are also identified as "ML-1710" and "Samsung SPL 2.5" respectively, under the Print & Fax System Preferences.So far the older driver has improved printing speed significantly. Hopefully this will be useful to one or two more people :-)

I have been using the Samsung ML-1710 for a few weeks now. I use it in an office, where I am often printing on blank paper, but also need to print on letterhead and envelopes pretty frequently. I've been impressed with the speed and print quality of the 1710, but it has some quirks you might want to consider before you buy it. As others have mentioned, it takes a long time to warm up (to receive the data from the computer) and it's noisy while doing so. To use the manual feed tray - which I do for envelopes and letterhead - you have to go in and tell it to use this feeder and then set the option back to use the regular paper tray. Other printers I've used seem to be able to figure this out on their own. You also have to wait for the printer to warm up before putting anything in the manual feed tray, otherwise it just cycles through and comes out with nothing printed on it. The most annoying thing is that envelopes come out with light printing on them, as if the "toner save" feature is on. I have contacted tech support about this. They sent me a "firmware upgrade," a software program that's supposed to fix the problem, but I couldn't get it to work on my computer or a co-workers. I contacted tech support again, but they didn't have any other solutions other than to send it back to them to have the upgrade installed. So I guess I would say, the printer is not bad for the money, and it has its good points, but you will have to tolerate a few annoyances (and, probably, light envelopes).