Dell 3130cn Color Laser Printer Review
Pros
• Excellent print quality
• Excellent print speed
• Economically priced
Cons
• Must purchase duplexer separately
• Some owners report significantly lower ink cartridge page yields
• Front panel design allows for exposure of sensitive parts
The Dell 3130cn Color Laser printer is an affordably priced color laser printer that can handle a majority of today's printing needs. This Dell printer offers power and high performance with many top-of-the-line technical specifications that are competitive with other manufacturers' comparable printers such as the Lexmark C734dn. Features include expandable memory, optional wireless card, multi-port connectivity, low-toner notification, and fast printing speeds. These features and more make the Dell 3130cn Color Laser printer and excellent choice for small businesses or workgroups.
The 3130cn printer comes with 256MB of on-board memory and can be expanded to a total memory capacity of 1280 MB. Its processor is a reasonably fast 400 megahertz. This processing speed, generous memory capability and a print resolution of 600 x 600 dots per inch makes the 3130 a competitive performer for just about any print job including highly detailed graphics production. Dell reports a print speed specification of 26 pages per minute color and 31 pages per minute for black and white.
An optional 40 GB hard drive and can be purchased for high capacity storage allowing the installation of third party fonts. The hard drive also supports spooling, collating, and stored, delayed, and proof printing.
How often does someone in a small business office or workgroup enjoy getting up to refill the paper in the printer? Not very often of course, and that's why the Dell 3130cn comes with a 250-sheet paper drawer and a 150-sheet multipurpose tray. Optional paper storage includes a 550-sheet drawer which jumps the maximum paper input capacity to 950 sheets. In addition, it has a paper output bin that can hold up to 250 sheets of paper.
Two-sided printing jobs such as books, reports, training manuals, etc. can be dealt with easily by adding the optional duplexer. Even if your print products do not require printing on both sides of the page, the duplexer can still be used to help conserve paper usage by printing on both sides of one page instead of one side on two pages.
Connecting to the Dell 3130cn isn't a problem either. The printer includes parallel, Ethernet, and USB ports connectivity providing the diversity of connecting to a single PC or being used on a network. Purchase the optional network protocol card and you'll have instant compatibility with network protocols like NetBEU (SMB), AppleTalk, UDP/IP (NetWare, mDNS, IPP, SMB, DDNS) and Netware® P-Server (IPX).
If wireless is the way to go for your network, the optional Network Adapter offers that capability. The IEEE802.11 b/g wireless network adapter allows you the ability to locate your printer just about anywhere without the nuisance of lengthy, cumbersome wire cables. You can also set it up, turn it on, and install it wirelessly from anywhere in your office as well.
Dell offers an included 1-year basic limited warranty and a 1-year NBD on-site service and the option of extending this up to 4 years.
Although the Dell 3130cn has all these beneficial features there are a few items that could use improvement. For example, for a computer with this type of processing power, speed, and capacity, you would expect a duplexer to be part of the standard features. A comparable printer such as the Lexmark C543dn which normally sells for less than the Dell 3130cn has the duplexer built right in.
Also, the front panel and internal design is somewhat awkward. If you try to open the front panel to replace the toner cartridges for example, the intuitive design leads you to open the multipurpose tray via its front panel pull down handle. Once you find the somewhat elusive side panel button that opens the front panel the transfer belt is exposed. Since the transfer belt is a relatively sensitive integral part of the printer, it really should be designed so that it is provided a bit more protection.
Finally, Dell states that the standard toners shipped with the 3130cn yield approximately 4000 black and 3000 colored pages. However, according to some owner comments, including a few on Dell's own website, the users are realizing a much lower yield.
In conclusion, the Dell 3130cn color laser printer comes with 256 MB of memory and a standard black and three color toner cartridges. Optional additions or accessories that can be purchased separately include a duplexer, additional memory modules up to 1 GB, a 550 sheet paper drawer, an internal hard drive, and various network connectivity options. The Dell 3130cn color laser printer is a great buy that packs powerful performance and relatively economic pricing for any small business, office, or workgroup application.
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Tags: color laser printers, dell printers, network printers, printer reviews
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