Samsung CLX-3160 Color Laser Multifunction Printer Driver and Software

The Samsung CLX-3160 was just one of two multifunction devices included in our list of color laser printers. This was largely due to its features and capabilities, as well as its street price of $520 to $550.

For a little more money than a low-end color laser that just prints, you get a machine that also copies and faxes, and has some interesting image editing features to boot: reduce/enlarge, reusable copies, posterization, scanning, and more.

You even get a USB PictBridge port on this printer, allowing appropriately equipped digital camcorders and cameras to transfer images directly to the printer for output. The same port can be used to back up the printer’s configuration and settings to a USB flash drive. This is a very nice and unusual feature in our opinion.

This capability at such a low price inevitably comes with a downside, and for the Samsung CLX-3160 that includes slow color output speed. Although this machine prints at a tolerable 17 pages per minute for black and white pages, it slows down to a maximum of 4 pages per minute for color pages. Still, it does a good job with all types of output and even produces decent-looking photos and high-resolution graphic prints.

Paper-handling capacity is also somewhat limited, with a 150-sheet paper tray and a side-to-side manual feed, as well as a 50-sheet automatic document feeder. The device comes with 128MB of RAM and does not have a slot to add more RAM.

Consumables come in several forms: Black toner is available in a 2000-page cartridge for $60, while CMY toner is available in 1000-page cartridges for $50 each. Different bundles are available at different discounts, but we didn’t find any evidence of high-capacity or high-yield cartridge options like most other color laser printers covered here.

Related Printer: Samsung CLX-3175 Driver

Despite its MFC features, the CLX-3160 is average size for a color laser printer. The dimensions are 48.5cm x 46.5cm x 42.9cm (19.1″ x 18.3″ x 16.9″) and the weight is 20.5kg (45.2 lbs). An additional 250-sheet paper cassette is available for the device if you want to increase the size. Low paper capacity. If you can live with the slow color output speed of this machine, you’ll find that it otherwise makes a very good personal color MFC laser printer and is also well suited for SOHO or small workgroups.