Samsung CLP-550 Color Laser Printer Drivers and Software

Samsung may be a newcomer to the business printing business, but it has established itself as a valued guest. The combination of well-made, home-designed laser printers, both black and white and color, also attract good discounts, making them one of the most affordable products in their class. The Samsung CLP-550 is a mid-range, untethered color laser designed for small offices or workgroups.

The popular image of a color laser printer is a large, heavy square box with many different parts inside, each requiring separate maintenance to produce color prints. The Samsung CLP-550 doesn’t go far to dispel that view. The almost cubic mass is a definite two-man lift and most surfaces are covers that swing out to reveal parts of the mechanism inside.

You position the printer sideways on your desk as the control panel rests along its long edge and the 250-sheet paper tray slides out from the base of its long face. An additional 100-sheet multi-purpose tray folds out on the right side of the device for media such as envelopes or transparencies.

The controls consist of a group of five buttons that control the printer’s menu system. On the other side of a two-line 16-digit mono LCD display is a cancel button and a power indicator. The menu system is fairly easy to navigate, although the display would benefit from a backlight.

There’s also a status map with five pin-head LEDs that indicate different parts of the printer where a page may be stalling or running out of consumables. Nothing went wrong during testing, so none of these LEDs illuminated, although we did see some multi-sheet feeders.

It’s quite a complex procedure to install everything. If you’ve never put consumables into a laser before, you may have to fiddle around as the diagrams in the instruction manual are small and not that clear.

Once the covers are locked back into place, printing is straightforward. The driver is a little more complex to use than that of a mono laser, but the additional controls for color balance and tone tuning are there if you need them. There’s support for overlays and watermarks, as well as the printer’s built-in duplex (double-sided) printing feature. You can also save up to 32 suites of printer settings.

Despite all this versatility, there doesn’t appear to be a way to default the Samsung CLP-550 to A4 paper. If A4 is loaded in the main paper tray and A4 is selected as the default in the printer menu, the driver will see US Letter every time.

Related Printer: Samsung CLP-600 Driver

The print quality of text and graphics is good, and even very thin rules and character overruns print cleanly. Solid color areas in business graphics are smooth and have almost no stripes. Photo printing isn’t that good as colors are overly vivid and details are lost in dark shadows. You can customize this, but it’s difficult, especially if the photos are part of a more complex document.