Samsung SCX-4400 Laser Multifunction Printer Driver and Software

While all three of the previous statements may apply to most laser all-in-ones, none apply to Samsung’s Samsung SCX-4400. It’s black with a blue LED indicator and the scanner is inserted the right way up.

The machine’s jet-black body is made up of matte and glossy panels, so Samsung includes a polishing cloth to keep them that way. The top of the case is completely transparent, nothing sticks out. There’s a gap halfway up the device to let the printed pages out, and at the bottom the spring-loaded paper tray pops out when you press the only physical button on the SCX-4400.

The tray only holds 100 sheets, so you can tend to its needs fairly regularly, even when used in a small office. You will also need to attach the clear plastic paper pad to the front of the device to catch the pages that come out. That’s a shame, as it distracts from the all-black blockiness of the machine, but without it all your pages end up on the floor.

All controls are touch buttons and an array of blue 14 x 5 pinhead LEDs provide most information, such as: B. the number of copies selected and when you opened the case. There’s also a series of slightly incongruous little red icons that appear when you’re running low on things like paper or toner. As a final touch, the scanner light shines through a blue stripe on the side of the flatbed lid, emitting a sort of Knight Rider-style light that moves back and forth as it scans.

Installing the combined drum and toner cartridge is very easy after reaching under the scanner section and opening a latch. The cartridge is surprisingly slim and is easy to place in its well rather than finding and sliding it into position as is often the case.

The scanner is sensibly oriented in portrait orientation, so documents are placed with their long edges front to back on the glass. The rear-opening lid is therefore longer than normal and tends to close when a document is created. It could be folded back a little further.

Samsung supplies a good software suite, including its own ScanThru application for scanning, which includes built-in OCR, color correction and descreening.

Samsung claims a print speed of 16 ppm for the SCX-4400, and our five-page text and text and graphics tests took 29 and 28 seconds, respectively, yielding real-world speeds of 10.3 ppm and 10.7 ppm. While these aren’t stunning, they are suitable for general home or home office use, which is obviously what this machine is aimed at.

The copy speed is improved by the clever technology of operating both the scanner and the printing engine at the same time. While most all-in-ones first complete a scan and then begin printing, the SCX-4400 begins printing when only about a third of the target document being scanned has been scanned. This gives a single page scan time of just 11 seconds, ideal if you need to make a quick copy.

The print quality of the machine is well above average. Text is clear and dense, with no signs of toner splatter, and even given Samsung ‘s claim of an “effective” resolution of 600 dpi, which usually means a software improvement of a lower resolution, there are no signs of jaggies on curves or diagonals.

Business graphics are also well reproduced, with clean grayscale and very few signs of banding. Grayscale photocopies are a different matter, however, as they have noticeable smudges and aren’t really suitable for presentation materials. Finally, photo prints work surprisingly well, with very light banding and good grayscale, although darker tones wash out to black too quickly.

The only consumable in the Samsung device is a one-piece print cartridge that is good for 2,000 pages at 5 percent coverage. A typical internet price for this device is around £40, giving a cost per page of 2.84p, including paper. This compares quite well to other monolaser all-in-ones we’ve tested recently and is certainly no reason to leave this good-looking device off your shortlist.

Related Printer: Samsung SCX-3206

Verdict

The SCX-4400 is all about style. Its clean, black lines mean it fits a variety of black and silver PCs, or even older, white Macs. It prints well, scans reasonably, and copies quickly, but has some flaws, notably the 100-sheet paper tray and the vicious 1,000-page starter cartridge. You’re paying for the looks, but underneath the black, shiny skin is a fair all-in-one.