Samsung SCX-4500 Multifuntion Laser Printer Review

Michael Kwan

16 years ago

We like pretty things. We like shiny things. Most components of our digital lifestyle have received some rather extreme makeovers. I need not remind you of the ancient “Zack Morris” cell phones of old, comparing them to the sleek and shiny RAZRs and iPhones of today. The same thing can be said about computer mice, computer towers, LCD monitors these days. You name it and chances are that there are plenty of aesthetically pleasing options for you to consider. The one area in our digital lives that has yet to be affected by our need for eye candy is the printer.

When you look at just about every company that manufactures printers for corporate or consumer use, the resulting product is usually a plain beige box that shoots out pieces of paper with some ink or toner on it. Look at most of the printers being offered by Canon, Dell, and HP, and you’ll quickly see how generic they all look. Samsung wants to change that.

Prior to hearing about the Samsung SCX-4500 multifunction printer, I couldn’t even fathom what a fashionable printer would look like. After all, printers are thought of — up until now, that is — as purely utilitarian devices. They’re there, because we need them and not because they look good. The Samsung SCX-4500 completely throws this mindset out the window.

A Printer Can Be Eye Candy Too

Instead of a boring gray or beige complexion, the top cover of the Samsung SCX-4500 laser multifunction printer gets dressed up in an absolutely gorgeous piano black finish. It has the same glossy reflection that you’d find on the company’s MP3 players and LCD monitors. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this glossy finish does not extend down the sides of the printer, nor will you find any reflective goodness running down the front. Instead, these are all covered in matte black.

But that’s not where the attractiveness ends. Much like the Samsung YP-K5 (or recently reviewed YP-T9) portable MP3 player, this multifunction laser printer is equipped with touch-sensitive controls and a set of funky blue LEDs. What this means is that the “display” is typically hidden behind the piano black finish, nearly invisible to the naked eye when not in use. It is only when the blue lights are turned on by your touch that you can see what’s going on.

I’m personally not a fan of touch sensitive controls, although they add to the svelte appearance of this machine. I prefer standard buttons if only for the tactile feedback and relatively level of responsiveness. That said, if you’re accustomed to devices like the Apple iPhone, then you should have no qualms about using touch-sensitive controls on the SCX-4500.

Don’t get me wrong. The piano black finish, blue lights, and touch sensitive controls are very pleasing to the eye. I just don’t think that they’re the most functional and user friendly way to go. We all know how much of a fingerprint magnet that these glossy finishes inevitably are. Be sure to keep a buffing cloth close at hand.

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What’s In the Box (And What’s Not)?

The packaging for this printer isn’t all that special. You get a rather normal-looking white cardboard box, proudly proclaiming that it will put “brilliance on your desk” and it aims to “imagine intelligence”, whatever that means. It’s a little unfortunate that the box had a bit of a rough ride with the courier, so it was pretty beat up when it arrived at my door. Thanks UPS Man!

As with most other printers these days, the SCX-4500 comes with your usual smattering of documentation, an installation CD, a toner cartridge, a paper tray, and a power cable. There is no USB cable included, so you’ll either need to buy one yourself or swap the cable over from your old printer. You’ll naturally need to provide your own paper as well.

Getting everything connected and ready to go is a walk in the park. There is no complex configuration needed, because when you swing around to the backside of the printer, you find only two ports: One for USB and the other for power. Next to this is the power switch. When you insert the installation CD into your computer, you’ll be presented with the user manual, but this isn’t really necessary. Setup is fairly automatic and I didn’t even realize it was completed. I’m not kidding when I say that you’ll be up and running in less than five minutes, including the scanner function.

Loading the toner cartridge is similarly straightforward. You’ll notice that the SCX-4500 looks almost like two devices stacked on top of one another. This is because the top portion opens upwards on a hinge to reveal the cartridge compartment. Slide the toner in, click it in place and you’re good to go. Unfortunately, the top half only opens to about 40 degrees or so. This means that wedging the toner cartridge into its compartment can be a bit of a challenge if you have larger hands.

It would have been nice if the hinge opened a little more, but we hope that you don’t need to change the toner that often anyways. This printer is obviously not for high volume applications.

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Function One: Printer

As mentioned, the Samsung SCX-4500 is a multifunction laser printer. Although this might make it sound like the perfect addition to a small office, the number of functions housed within isn’t exactly that huge. Instead, you basically get three core functions: Printer, scanner, and standalone monochrome copier. Oh, that was something that I didn’t mention. The SCX-4500 is a black-and-white laser printer and not color. Don’t expect to make any fantastic photo prints using this thing despite its resemblance to its photo printer cousin, the SPP-2040.

Setting up the printer in Windows XP is just about as easy as any other printer. You just load up the appropriate drivers and you’ll be printing spreadsheets with the best of them in about five minutes. The speed is reasonable, but it is nowhere near as fast as some higher-end MFPs. Remember, this machine was designed to be easy on the eyes and not necessarily designed to be the most powerful machine in your home office.

Grayscale performance isn’t the best, so I wouldn’t recommend printing that many images using this machine. Because it is black and white, I’d probably stick to documents, pie charts, and other simple images. Text is very sharp though. I should also note that there is no automatic duplexing.

Function Two: Scanner

A thin lid can be raised on the top of this multifunction printer to reveal a flatbed scanner. This will handle color images, sending the BMP file over to your USB-connected computer. The on-board controls are quite simple and they are very easy to use.

You can probably adjust the settings using the provided software, but at their default settings, a scan of a single page can take nearly a minute. This is far too slow for most people, but the resulting resolution is quite good. You just have to be patient.

To scan to your computer, simply tap the “Scan to PC” touch-sensitive control and away you go.

Function Three: Copier

In stark contrast to the scanner function, the monochrome copier function is quite speedy, as you can see in the video below.

Using the same controls as the scanner, you can adjust basic things like the number of copies, darkness level, and enlargement/reduction. I’m pleased with this end of things.

BONUS Function: Fashion Accessory

Seeing how your desktop computer isn’t a boring beige box anymore, it’s only fitting that the rest of the your technological gizmos should have some spark of personality as well. The Samsung SCX-4500 satisfies this requirement, serving almost like a piece of jewelry for your desk. It’s shiny and it looks nice, much like many Apple computers. If you want to be hip and trendy, you don’t want a bland gray printer. In fact, Samsung told us that they targeted this printer product specifically at the Mac Affluent.

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Conclusion: You Pay For Pretty

Given the current MSRP of $299 US the Samsung SCX-4500 is hard to recommend over many of its contemporaries unless you’re willing to pay a premium for its physical attractiveness. Similarly-priced multifunction printers will be much more powerful than this machine, offering you all sorts of additional options and features. On the flip side, if you’re satisfied with the current level of functionality, you can achieve the same level at a significantly lower price. It’s just that the alternative won’t be so pleasing to the eye and you probably wouldn’t get treated to touch-sensitive controls either.

Despite its aesthetic appeal, the Samsung SCX-4500 definitely has its shortcomings. I find it strange that when the Korean company put so many attention into tossing in a piano black finish and beautiful LED displays, they forget about some of the smaller details. One aspect that really jumped out at me was the cheap plastic paper tray. Instead of a black plastic, there is this rather generic-looking clear plastic piece that loosely attaches to the front. It totally throws off the whole look and appeal of this printer and I found myself doing without the tray most of the time.

I’m glad that Samsung has gone with laser and I’m happy that they’ve decided to break the barrier, producing a printer that’s actually good-looking. However, with about a $100 premium over similarly-equipped multifunction printers, it can be very difficult to recommend. There’s no automatic duplexing, there’s no fax function, there’s no Ethernet port… the limitations are numerous.

To the SCX-4500’s credit, the machine is very quiet and I still like seeing my reflection in the piano black finish. Although overall performance is somewhat mediocre, this thing is definitely “Ultra Bling” and there is no doubt that Samsung receives points for innovation in breaking away from the traditional design of your standard office printer.

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