Samsung CLP-315

The CLP-315 is one of the most compact and cheapest colour laser printers we've ever come across. At just £84 exc VAT it costs less than some inkjets.

But the CLP-315 is surprisingly capable for such a low-cost printer. Where many of its laser printer brethren look plain and dated, the Samsung’s classy black chassis makes it one good-looking printer. It sounds like a minor consideration, but for those furnishing a home office, the Samsung’s good looks matter.

And the CLP-315 produced excellent results in our quality tests. Our photographic test stood out in particular, with natural-looking skintones and no obvious banding. Our business graphics tests were also impressive.

Our only complaints are that white text on a coloured background printed out a little blurry, and text quality is less refined than it ought to be. Still, viewed in isolation the CLP-315’s document quality is good enough for most purposes.

It’s quick in monochrome mode: our black and white test documents printed at a rate of 17ppm. The time it takes to produce a first page is also good, at 14 seconds for a black and white page, and just under half a minute for colour. Its colour speed is slow, due in the main to its four pass print engine, with colour documents printed at 4ppm. That’s fine for occasional use, though, and it's a cheap printer to run too, with mono and colour cartridges coming in at very reasonable prices.

The CLP-315, in fact, offers a magnificent combination of aesthetics, speed, print quality and value. If you need a printer that will stand up to a few users throwing frequent colour jobs at it, you should look at the Dell 1320cn instead – it's faster in virtually all areas and offers equally good prints. But if value is vital, there’s nothing to match the Samsung this month.

Author: Dave Stevenson