The Dell 3000cn Printer A Perfect Choice For The Budget Conscious

by erin on February 22, 2010

A good and efficient laser color printer nowadays would cost at around $1200. Imagine if you could get all the features and benefits of this price for only a sweet deal of $449. This deal is offered by a Dell 3000cn printer.

Performing at impressive speeds, efficient paper handling, and overall functions, this printer is a good option to consider if you are looking for a cheap printer in a laser color category. Text weight is just perfect, not too light nor too heavy, just right for average reading or reference. You can expect the same results for very small fonts; all of which are easy to read.

Colors are accurate in photos and grayscale photos are in smooth and sharp details. In terms of speed, it performed a good 17.9 pages per minute for black and white text, while color prints average at about 3.4 pages per minute. Not so bad for a high end color laser printer of this price.

The overall design of the 3000cn may appear bulky and large, but the 17 by 17 inch footprint size will surprise you that it will not grab as much desk space. With this small space you have a paper tray that can hold 150 sheets and reasonably, there is no rear paper exit or a manual bypass feeder to conserve desk space or to avoid any unnecessary obtrusions.

For larger capacity, you can add a paper drawer as an additional option by investing $180 for a 250-sheet drawer, $230 for a 500-sheet drawer, or $300 for a duplexer. Though starter cartridges can provide 2000 pages for black and 1000 pages for white, for only $45 you can get a replacement black toner cartridge providing a good 4000-page capacity and for $65 you get a color cartridge generating 2000 pages.

Since the printer drum is expensive at $170, frequent replacements will not be necessary because it is only required for every 30,000 pages dished out. Per page yield, the total cartridge cost would be about 1.5 cents per page for black while color printouts would cost 12.5 cents.

Similar to other standard high-end printers of this category, connection to an Ethernet port, USB, or a parallel port is also provided. This machine has an intuitive menu back dropped by a backlit LCD, yielding total ease and simplicity in manual configurations. If memory needs to be upgraded, there is a wide range to choose from; starting at 64MB of memory up to 576MB.

The Dell 3000cn printer documentation is simple and straightforward; instructions on how to set up and a sheet for quick reference are provided handy. These are easier to read compared to voluminous manuals that are often shelved, because more often than not, thick manuals are info overload when you only need to know how to set it up. If more details are needed, it is conveniently provided by the Dell website. The printer has a web-based management tools where you can restrict access of color printing only to authorized users, or monitor toner levels. Remember that you will need to replace toner occasionally.  Dell toner is found cheap online, however, make sure to purchase Dell 3000cn toner so it fits the printer. In summary, the Dell 3000cn printer is a high-end color laser printer that yields so much more for less the cost.

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