Samsung ML-2525 review

Samsung's personal mono lasers are among the most attractive we've seen, with their petite dimensions and stylish black finish. The ML-2525 keeps things simple, with a single USB connector and nothing so advanced as automatic duplex units or extra paper trays, but it's all the more usable for it. An extra nod to ease of use is the Print Screen button, which does exactly that: it takes whatever is on your monitor at the time and prints it out in landscape mode. It's a nice touch.

Samsung claims a print speed of 24ppm, and our tests almost reproduced that. Printing the standard 5% coverage letter at normal quality we recorded 22ppm, and the first page began rolling just seven seconds after we hit the print button. Switching to more complex DTP documents reduced that to 20ppm, but it remains impressive for such a tiny device.

Our quality test, a selection of gradients, fonts and photos, took just nine seconds and showed off the ML-2525's reasonable output. Characters were sharp and images had good contrast, although there was noticeable grain and black text on a grey background was a little frayed. It's certainly usable at this budget, though, so the minor weaknesses shouldn't detract too much.

The ML-2525 has a 250-sheet paper tray in its base, as well as a single-sheet feed on the front for other media such as envelopes and card stock. The paper feeds out onto the top of the printer, with space for 80 sheets once you flip out the plastic stopper. The rear of the device does stick out a little more than we'd like, but all in all it's a printer we'd certainly recommend for its looks and space-saving qualities.

Whether we'd recommend it on value is a different question. It comes with a 1,000-page starter cartridge, with standard (1,500) and high-yield (2,500) replacements available for around £38 exc VAT and £45 exc VAT respectively. For light users the Samsung compares well to our current mono A-Lister, the Brother HL-2035 – that device currently costs around £10 less to buy but has no high-yield cartridge option to cut costs as you print, and also has a replaceable drum to add to the outlay.

The ML-2525 matches the Brother for output quality, and it's faster, more compact and attractive, and will cost you slightly less in the long run if you print enough to get the most out of those bigger cartridges. All things considered, if you don't need the luxury of colour printing the Samsung is a great choice.

Author: David Bayon