Samsung CLP-300 - Color Laser For Everyone - Closer Look Inside and Outside

Closer Look:

The CLP-300 is a very basic color laser printer.  It has a few nifty features that help Samsung keep the cost of the unit down.  Take a look at any of the pictures below.

CLP-300 Power I/O	CLP-300 Toner Cavity	CLP-300 Back Open
CLP-300 Imaging Cavity	CLP-300 Toner Imaging Unit	CLP-300 Toner Lineup

Toner replacement in most printers is very simple.  Samsung has made things even easier with the CLP-300 and the Toner Drums.  To install or replace toner, you simply must pop the front off the printer, pull out the empty drum and slide a new one in place.  It's is really that simple.  Even a office jock could replace toner in this printer in under 3 minutes.

Although this design allows for easy toner replacement, I am concerned about the cost of replacing the imaging unit.  The Imaging unit is very large and actually houses the toner ports.  If something were to fail on this large unit, it would mean very expensive replacement of the entire imaging unit and toner cavity.  This would likely cost much more than a new CLP-300.  If this unit were to fail out of warranty, the printer would be a throw-away product - something we see often in ink-jet printers, but not often in laser printers.  I have no reason to believe the imaging unit should fail, but sometimes I don't do well with technology and what can go wrong often does.

Although not pictured on this page, the CLP-300 has a 150-sheet paper tray that accommodates paper up to 8.5 x 14.  This printer also has the capability to handle envelopes and other odd-sized paper, but does not offer two-sided printing.  This is a more expensive feature found on the CLP-510/550, but it is one that I personally would miss.  Although for $250CDN, you can't expect everything.

On the next page we'll cover installation and set out to test this printer.