Samsung SCX-3405FW

If you need a mono laser MFP for light-duty printing in a micro office or as a personal printer in any size office, the Samsung SCX-3405FW ($200 street) should grab your attention. Small enough to share a desk with, it offers wired and WiFi network support; the ability to scan, work as a standalone copier and fax machine; and the ability to fax from your PC even over a network. It even includes a 40-page automatic document feeder (ADF) to complement the letter-size flatbed and let you scan legal-size pages. Add in the reasonably high-quality output and acceptable, if not impressive, speed, and it's certainly worth a look.

The SCX-3405FW is one of the few mono laser MFPs that's small enough to serve comfortably as a personal printer. In fact, it's one of the smallest. Measuring 11.7 by 15.8 by 11.5 inches (HWD), it's smaller than the Editors' Choice Panasonic KX-MB2000 ($130 street, 4 stars) for example, and roughly the same size as the HP LaserJet Pro M1217nfw MFP ($259.99 direct, 3.5 stars) that I recently reviewed.

The practical cost of the printer?s very small size is that it has little room for paper handling features. If you plan to share it on a network, the 150-sheet tray?with no manual feed and no automatic duplexing?will limit it to light-duty printing even by micro office standards. However, the paper handling is adequate for most personal use where the small size is more important, since you'll likely want to keep it on, or next to, your desk.

Setup and Speed
Setting up the SCX-3405FW was standard fare. For my tests, I connected it to a network using the Ethernet port and ran the tests from a Windows Vista system.

Samsung rates the printer at 21 pages per minute (ppm), which means you should see close to that speed when you print text files with no graphics or photos. On our business applications suite, I timed it (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at an effective 7.7 ppm, fast enough so the speed shouldn't be an issue, but far from impressive. It's essentially tied with the less expensive KX-MB2000, at 8 ppm and significantly slower than the more expensive M1217nfw, at 11.1 ppm.

Output Quality and Other issues
Output quality for the SCX-3405FW is a bit of a mixed bag, but its strongest scores are for text and graphics, which are generally the more important types of output for mono printers. Both are at the top of the tight range where the vast majority of mono laser MFPs fall. Photo quality is at rock bottom of the full range for the category.

The text is easily good enough for any typical business document, even if you need small font sizes, although you may have to pick the font style carefully if you need 4 or 5 point size. Depending on your level of perfectionism, you might even consider it good enough for desktop publishing. Graphics quality is similarly good enough for any internal business need, including PowerPoint handouts and the like.

Photo quality is good enough to print, say, Web pages with recognizable photos, which makes it good enough for internal business use. However, there's an obvious loss of shading across the entire range from white to black, so light areas, like a sky with clouds, turned solid white in my tests, and dark areas turned a solid black. I wouldn't even consider using the printer for something like a client newsletter with photos.

As long as you don't need better-quality photos?and odds are you don't if you're shopping for a mono laser MFP?the Samsung SCX-3405FW has a lot to recommend it. It offers all the MFP features you're likely to need in a personal printer?scanning, faxing, and copying. And note that Samsung offers free apps that that let the printer both print from and scan to Android, iOS, and Windows 7 devices over a Wi-Fi access point, with plans to allow direct Wi-Fi connection with a firmware upgrade later this year. Most of all, it's small enough to be a good physical fit as a personal printer, as well as a good fit for what it can do.

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