Samsung ML-2165W

If you need a personal mono laser to sit on your desk, and don't want to give up a lot of desktop real estate for it, the Samsung ML-2165W ($130 street) is a tempting choice. It offers Wi-Fi, suitable paper capacity for a personal printer, reasonably high-quality text and graphics, and acceptable, if somewhat slow, speed. Samsung also offers free apps to let you print from an Android, iOS, or Windows 7 device by way of a Wi-Fi access point. (It also plans to add direct Wi-Fi printing with a firmware upgrade later this year). Unfortunately, the printer also has a relatively high running cost, which limits its appeal if you print a lot of pages.

The ML-2165W's most striking feature by far is its small size. It may be the smallest laser printer that's ever showed up at PC Labs, at just 7.0 by 13.0 by 8.5-inches (HWD). That's smaller than most inkjets. It's also smaller than, for example, the HP LaserJet Pro P1102w ($149 direct, 3.5 stars) or the Editors' Choice in this category, the Brother HL-2270DW ($150 street, 4 stars).

One of the costs of keeping the printer size down is that the ML-2165W is a little weak on paper handling. It offers a single 150-sheet tray, no manual feed, and no automatic duplexing (for printing on both sides of a page). The low paper capacity means that if you print more than about 30 pages a day, you'll have to add paper often enough so it may turn into a small annoyance.

This could be a problem if you want to take advantage of Wi-Fi to share the printer with even one other person. For most people who use the ML-2165W as a strictly personal printer, however, the 150 sheets should be adequate.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
Setup on a Windows Vista system was standard for a USB-connected mono laser. The ML-2165W's speed is best described as fast enough that you won't feel like you're always waiting for it, but slower than the competition. It came in on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at 7.6 pages per minute (ppm). In comparison, the Brother HL-2270DW managed 11.7 ppm and the HP LaserJet Pro P1102w effectively tied that at 11.4 ppm.

The ML-2165W did better on output quality than speed. Text quality falls in the middle of the range for mono lasers. It's easily good enough for any typical business use, including documents with small fonts?at least, if you pick the right font. Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you might even consider it good enough for desktop publishing applications.

Graphics quality in my tests was dead on par for a mono laser, making it good enough for any internal business need, including PowerPoint handouts for example. Photo quality was a bit below par, with the printer losing more shades of gray than most mono lasers. However the quality was still acceptable for most situations where you'd use a mono laser for photos, like printing Web pages that include photos. On the other hand, I'd hesitate to use the printer for a client newsletter with photos, because of a noticeable loss of the subtle shading that makes photos look photo-realistic.

One potential issue for the printer is the relatively high running cost, at 4.3 cents per page. If you don't expect to print much, that shouldn't be a problem, but it's something you should consider before buying. As a point of comparison, the Brother HL-2270DW's claimed cost per page is 2.2 cents lower, or a savings of $22 for every thousand pages. You don't have to print all that many pages for this to add up to a big difference in total cost over the life of the printers.

The other issue you'll want to consider is paper handling. Both the Brother HL-2270DW and HP LaserJet Pro P1102w offer a higher paper capacity along with a 10-page multipurpose tray in one case and a manual feed in the other?something you'll also find in Samsung's own ML-2545 ($100 street, 3 stars). On the other hand, the additional paper handling features go hand-in-hand with a bigger size. If you can live without them, and particularly if you want a printer that takes up as little desk space as possible, the Samsung ML-2165W is a potentially good choice as long as you're not concerned about the running cost.

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