Check StaticIce for best price near you - prices start at $328 (before $50 cashback) from Umart (SE Qld & Melbourne) but OfficeWorks or others may match (or beat) these prices. Please add comment if you find even cheaper.
I bought two of these for myself about 12 months ago (home & office). Had been looking for something with these specs for under $500 for quite a while. My MFC or printer specs checklist was:-
- mono-laser;
- Postscript printing capacity;
- low cost per page of consumables;
- built-in auto-duplexing;
- built-in 10/100 network;
- low energy consumption when on standby;
- if MFC, then fax & scanner should be flatbed style;
- if MFC, then preferably with size reduction / enlargement on copy function;
- preferably with drivers also available for Mac and Linux;
- preferably with stand-alone or manual faxing ability (i.e. in addition to PC-faxing);
This model has all of the above. Took me quite a while of searching before I noticed this model on the market at a good price - I paid $295 on sale for one for my office from Computer Alliance (Mt Gravatt in Brisbane) but was very satisfied upon pulling it out of the box and initial set-up - so I went back four days later to get one for my home as well. I can't remember exactly but think that was about twelve months ago. I'd say it has be up there with the IT purchases with which I have been most happy!
Other observations:
- no other consumables to buy other than toner cartridge (& paper) - some lasers require regular separate purchase of drums!
- comes with "starter" toner cartridge - rated at 2,000 pages;
- regular replacement toner is approx $140 for 5,000 pages = 2.8cents/page for toner;
- has "Direct USB" port for direct scan to USB flash key, or print direct from USB flash key (I've never tried this and doubt that I will need. It might give faster scanning!!??)
- good small footprint;
- my niece has stayed with me lately and had no problem installing drivers and using this MFC from her 12mnth old Macbook;
- has excellent automatic booklet printing features - including the auto-duplexing;
- as well as flatbed this also has auto-document feeder (ADF) which is useful when copying or faxing multi-page document;
- good sized paper capacity - 250page;
Wish-list / negatives:
- only other MFC function I'd like is a built-in telephone answering device which would also auto-detect incoming faxes for best use of this on a single home phone line - have only seen this on a few crappy ink-jets;
- location of power switch is a little non-intuitive (very picky!);
- slight curl to output pages - but this may be unavoidable in any laser with such a small footprint;
- other lasers may give better "print-quality" - i.e. darker output - but not sure if that means much higher toner consumption - you may want to find a shop where they can print you some test pages;
- NB: network on this is wired not wireless. So to use network you need (a) a spare ethernet RJ45 port on your router; and (b) to be able to position the printer close enough to the router to connect the network cable. At home I use an ADSL modem that is also a switch (router) with wireless network and four 10/100 RJ-45 ethernet ports. This means I have direct access to all print, scan and PC-fax features of the printer wirelessly from my laptop from anywhere in the house without the need for my study desk-top to be switched on. Some may wish for a printer with built-in wireless. (Not sure if that would work for me - would I have to disconnect my laptop from wireless internet in order to connect directly to printer in order to print? Or would wireless router manage the connection?);
NB: details of cashback are contained under FAQ link on Samsung website - however this hasn't been updated to reflect the "offer extended till 31Jan10" that can be seen on the primary page (above link). Can't see that large outfit like Samsung would screw you around on this sort of thing - but I'd be printing/saving pdf's of both pages for my records just to be safe.
When searching I crossed inkjets and colour lasers off my list of candidates given the cost of replacing toner cartridges (e.g. colour laser = 3 or 4 toner cartridges at approx $120 each = $360 just for toner!). For its price and feature set I think this model is a great buy - even after the cashback expires. Happy to read comments from others if they have found a similar or better MFC solution! Also good to read comments/suggestions re the desired specs list or wish-list etc.
This MFC has scan to USB (there is a usb port in front) and scan to e-mail (scan and e-mail the PDF to e-mail account(s) of your choice) features. They come in handy as you don't need a PC to scan. The scanner is the CIS one, not the CCD one (but most of the MFC in this price range uses CIS though overall, the scan quality is not bad).
By the way, I did have to upgrade the firmware on mine because the firmware it had by default tends to print a result page after the scan to e-mail was completed.
Even though it prints double sided (duplexer built in). The document feeder does not support duplexing. Postscript driver is provided, but it has less features than the normal driver (but at least it support postscript, which is again another plus).
It ships with 2000 page introductory cartridge instead of 1000 pages (for some other MFCs).
Basically, if you need to print double sided a lot, or have a need for scan to USB or scan to e-mail (you need to be able to connect it to a network hub/switch or router), or have quite a few PCs/laptops and need to use network printing definetely consider it. Normally, at this price range, you cannot get a MFC with that many features.