I’m all for convergence and efficiency. Why would you bother have several separate devices, each of which serving just a single purpose, when you can have one unified machine to handle them all. That’s the brunt of the argument behind multifunction printers and the purpose for the Samsung SCX-5935FN. This network-ready monochrome laser multifunction printer is clearly targeted at the business market. It may not be pretty, but it does the job. How well? Let’s find out!
Features at a Glance
The Samsung SCX-5935FN may not be powerful enough for a large office, but it’s perfectly suitable for a small business or a home office. Since it is a little on the bigger side of things, I wouldn’t suggest stuffing it into cramped quarters, but a regular sized room should be a good fit.
The key selling point with this multifunction printer is its utility. Samsung stuck with a more subdued grey appearance for this MFP and it doesn’t even do color. It is “just” a monochrome printer, but it comes with scan, copy, and fax functionality too. Samsung also claims that it has the highest maximum monthly duty and the lowest cost per print.
Among the highlights are its high level of output, large paper tray (up to 1,050 sheets), expandable RAM, integrated hard drive, OCR processing, networking capabilities (including FTP and email), USB port, and a seven-inch color LCD touchscreen. There’s no Wi-Fi, but there is a standard Ethernet jack for connecting to your network.
What’s in the Box?
The accessories that come bundled with this multifunction printer are pretty much par for the course. You don’t get the first ream of paper or anything like that, but you do get the pricier first cartridge of laser toner. The first toner is typically a capacity crippled version that gets you far fewer pages than the retail versions. It does get you started and ensuring that this is the printer for you.
As for the rest of the accessories, you also get some phone cable for the fax function, but there does not appear to be any RJ45 cable included for the networking functionality. That’s not a huge deal, since the cable is usually pretty cheap or you might already have one in the junk drawer at the office. The power cable is naturally included in there as well.
Along with the software CD and quick start guide, there are finally two overlays that can be used on the main control panel. That’s to provide French text for all the francophones in the audience.
Setup and Configuration
Sure, you could use the Samsung SCX-5935FN as a regular USB printer physically connected to your primary computer, but that wouldn’t make use of its important networking functions. It’s much better having the printer connected to your network router instead. Then that way you can be anywhere in the office and print like a ninja.
Overall, the setup process is relatively painless with the provided installation CD, but it would have been easier if you could simply add the printer using the default Windows utility. You’ll also find that the CD will automatically install extra software that you may or may not need, so it may be worthwhile to take the “custom” install path rather than the “recommended” one. Then that way you can select the features that are most important for you and your environment.
Stored Documents on Internal Hard Drive
Just because you have a printer doesn’t mean that you always have a computer attached to it. That’s why Samsung has decided to include an 80GB hard drive under the hood of the SCX-5935FN. The idea is that you can receive faxes and so forth, storing them on the drive for later access and lowered printing costs.
This does seem like a rather clever idea, but I found the execution to be clunky at best. Fumbling my way through the on-screen menu, I found an area for stored documents. That made sense, but it was not nearly as clear how you go about storing said documents in there.
Similarly, going to the “scan” portion of the menu, it was not immediately obvious how I could go about using the built-in scanner function on this multifunction printer, sending the resulting image or PDF file to the 80GB hard drive. The same could be said about the menu related to an attached USB drive. If Samsung is going to embed a hard drive in a MFP like this, they need to make it much more obvious how you go about putting it to good use.
Touchscreen-Based Interface
Instead of forcing you to fumble through a series of cumbersome buttons, Samsung did the great thing of including a seven-inch touchscreen display. This makes it so much easier to make your way through the various menus.
From what I can tell, this is a resistive touchscreen and not a capacitive one like the iPhone or Nexus One. This allows for some greater precision, but it means that it’s not quite as finger-friendly. I’d suggest you use your fingernail when pressing the virtual buttons.
Through the menu, you can set access the copy, fax, and scan features, as well as get to the stored documents, setup menu, toner info, LCD brightness, and more. The network setup is performed through the touchscreen as well. You go to the IP settings and enter the information manually using the (hardware) numeric keypad. Since it uses a static IP, I’d suggest you use one at the upper end of your router’s IP range so that you don’t get any duplication errors. I speak from experience.
To some people, the on-screen user interface can be a little confusing, but that’s because this printer offers a heck of a lot of customization and features. For photocopying, for instance, you have multiple duplex options, reduce/enlarge options, and so on. Getting through some of the setup options can be daunting too, but the default settings are usually sufficient.
One of the nicer features is called cloning. If you have something that you’d like to copy and it’s smaller than a full page, you can create multiple copies of it on each individual sheet. This is good for short forms, coupons, and other instances where a full page for a single copy would be wasteful.
Doing the Multifunction Dance
I’ve said before that a good multifunction printer is one of the best items you can have in your home office. It’s a shame that this Samsung MFP is monochrome and not color, but the rest of the features and functions are quite useful.
For instance, it has both a feeder and a flatbed scanner, and the resulting image can be saved to a connected PC, uploaded to an online server somewhere, or sent out as an email right from the printer. The “network-ready” aspect is great and as a result, these functions can be used from any workstation in the office. This is far more versatile than the printer that is plugged into your computer and saves on having to setup multiple printers for each computer separately.
Print Quality and Efficiency
While the previously reviewed Epson WorkForce 600 is smaller and offered color printing, it is an entirely different beast. For starters, it’s an inkjet and can rifle through cartridges quite quickly. This is especially true when printing in color. What’s even worse is that many color inkjets nowadays expect you to replace the color cartridges when they are spent, even though you may only use black and white.
The Samsung SCX-5935FN, by contrast, is a monochrome laser printer. This is much more efficient and inexpensive in the long run, especially if you happen to go through a lot of volume. I found the print times to be faster in general and the resulting print quality was good too. For people that care about speed, the rated page per minute for this printer is 35 PPM for standard letter size and 33 PPM for legal. We didn’t have any legal paper, but we did find that depending on the complexity of the pages, 35 PPM was within the ballpark of speed. That’s pretty good and will keep you running with the single tray. But then again, the does handle 1050 pages which is two reams of paper versus the capacity of most printers which is one ream of paper or less.
You can see some gradation lines when printing images, but text is very crisp and you don’t have to worry about any ink smears. The large paper tray, which holds about 1000 sheets, is designed for this higher level of volume too. Speaking of volume, since the toner is a toner, a few shakes when the empty notification comes on can often yield a few hundred more free pages.
The cartridge tray is located in the front, above the paper tray, making for easy access. This makes for a somewhat unsightly panel, but I’ll accept for the sake of its utilitarian utility. The fact that you can hide the printer completely from plain site and still print due to the networking capability makes the chunkiness acceptable.
Final Thoughts
It is not a thing of beauty nor is it supposed to be. The Samsung SCX-5935FN was built from the beginning to be useful and functional. I think that Samsung has succeeded in this regard as the printer will win no beauty contests. It’s definitely more beast than beauty.
The network-ready features come in really handy, not only working as a network printer, but also giving the ability to upload and download documents to and from a remote server. The print quality and speed are within acceptable ranges, though the “warmup” time can take several seconds. However, once warmed up, it starts to pump out pages at a reasonable pace.
This multifunction printer is certainly not without its issues, like being forced into a fixed IP and only having a single paper tray, but it’ll do the job for a small office. For larger offices, the lack of dual trays may be an issue, but the printer’s massive 1050 page capacity tray is nearly equal to the capacity of some dual tray setups.
At the same time, at about $1100, I’d expect it to do a little more than just “do the job.” There are more affordable options out there for home office dwellers on a budget, but there are bulkier and more expensive ones too. In the end, the SCS-5935FN ends up being pretty middle of the road.
Pros
- Robust network features
- Large paper tray and output area
- Hard drive dock available in the back
- Handy touchscreen user interface
Cons
- Physically large for some smaller offices
- Startup time is longer than expected
- Monochrome only
- Pricier compared to smaller alternatives
Overall Rating: 7.5/10.0
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Samsung SCX-5935FN Network-Ready Monochrome Laser Multifunction Printer Photo Gallery
