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Samsung CLX-6220FX review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £523
inc VAT

It’s big, loud and heavy, but low costs, great print quality and fast print speeds make this an ideal workgroup MFP

Although its footprint isn’t much larger than that of your average small workgroup laser MFP, Samsung’s CLX-6220FX is a lot taller, making it a little awkward to heft into position. As well as being bulky, it’s also noisy, and it rattles and clatters its way through prints. There’s also a distinct smell of melting toner when it’s operating, all of which makes the CLX-6220FX better suited to being a workgroup device in an office environment than a personal printer.

Samsung CLX-6220FX

The CLX-6220FX was brilliantly simple to set up and install. The installer automatically detected the printer on our network and went through the entire process of installing the drivers and software for all the MFP’s features with minimal interaction from us, although it took a while to complete. The MFP’s built-in menus are remarkably easy to navigate using its built-in mono LCD display and directional buttons, although the copier shortcut buttons stop working if you’re in, for example, the system settings menu. The control panel also makes it very easy to scan to your network, a PC or a USB stick that’s been inserted in the MFP’s host USB port.

Samsung CLX-6220FX

A sleek HTML interface lets you get an at-a-glance view of the printer’s status and keep track of consumable levels remotely. If you want greater control over it, you’ll have to log into the SyncThru admin account to view the settings and security menus, which have a wealth of options. These include a range of methods for restricting unauthorised users from printing, and the ability to change everything, from scan defaults to fax and network settings, just as you would using the front panel controls.

The CLX-6220’s print quality is particularly good, even among the high standard of colour laser devices. Our colour document prints were extremely accurate and even tiny font sizes were pin-sharp. Shading was also smooth in both dark and light areas. The printer has a best quality mode that prints at an effective resolution of 9,600x600dpi using interpolated resolution enhancement.

This is great for picking out fine detail in line drawings and diagrams, but makes little difference to photo printing. There’s also a glossy colour mode designed to enhance photos. Enabling both resolution enhancement and glossy mode meant that two 10x8in photos took one minute and 24 seconds to print and made little visible difference to their quality, except for slightly warmer skin tones. In contrast, the same task took just 30 seconds at normal quality.

Samsung CLX-6220FX

The CLX-6220FX’s print speeds are generally excellent. Mono text printed at 17.2ppm and our colour document printed at 17.1ppm, which is almost as fast. A 5-sided colour duplex document printed in one minute and 49 seconds. Print costs are also low, with a mono page cost of 2.2p and a mixed-colour page cost of 11.5.

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Basic Specifications

Rating*****
Maximum native print resolution9,600x600dpi
Max optical resolution4,800 x 4,800
Output bit depth24-bit

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A420ppm
Quoted speed, colour A420ppm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.030s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.039s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfacesUSB, 10/100 Ethernet, PictBridge USB
Optional printer interfacesNone
Size651x468x498mm
Weight37.0kg
Noise (in normal use)53dB(A)
Duty cycle65,000 pages

Paper Handling

Maximum paper sizeA4, custom length to 356mm
Maximum paper weight165gsm
Standard paper inputs1
Standard paper input capacity250
Maximum paper inputs2
Maximum paper input capacity750
Duplex (code, cost if option)Yes

General

Language(s)PCL 5c, PCL 6, PostScript 3, SPL-C emulation
Supported operating systemsWindows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.3 – 10.6, Linux
Maximum printer memory512MB
Other laser features and options£149

Buying Information

Price£523
Price per colour A4 page9.3p
Price of 2nd paper cassette£160
Warrantyone year onsite
Supplierhttp://www.printerland.co.uk
Detailswww.samsung.co.uk

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview11s
A4 document at 150dpi14s
A4 document at 300dpi24s
6x4in photo at 600dpi23s
6x4in photo at 1200dpi40s
Single 35mm negative at 2400dpiN/A

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.023s
Time for single A4 colour copy 1.025s
Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.051s

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies99
Copier zoom range25-400%
Max mono copy resolution600x600dpi
Max colour copy resolution9,600x600dpi

Fax Features

Fax modem speed33.6Kbit/s
Max mono fax resolution300x300dpi