Samsung SCX-4521F All In One Laser Printer

The SCX-4521F is at the cheaper end of Samsung's all in one printer range. But even though at that price point it's aimed at small office or home office user, it still offers a reasonably rich set of features. The Samsung SCX-4521F is a 4 in 1 multifunction printer - it prints, scans, copies and faxes.

Printing

The SCX-4521F is a monochrome (black and white) laser printer. The print speed is quoted at 20 pages per minute and the print resolution is 600 x 600 dpi. The paper input tray has a capacity of 150 sheets and doesn't appear to be expandable. That should be fine for average home use and even low volume office use, but probably indicates that the printer was not designed with high workloads in mind. Also, as far as I can tell, there is no option to add on a duplexer unit.

Connectivity is achieved via a USB 2.0 interface or parallel port - no networking capability.

Scanning

A flatbed scanner is built into the top of the unit. Scanning is done in color at 600 dpi (or 4,800 dpi in enhanced mode). It also comes with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. This can be used to scan text documents into an editable rich text format. An automatic document feeder (ADF) with a 30 sheet capacity sits on top of the scanner.

Photcopying

The copier provides all of the basic functions you would expect. You can zoom anywhere from 25% to 400%. And the ADF makes copying multiple page documents easier.

Faxing

Faxing can be done either directly via the automatic document feeder, or you can use the SmarThru software to send a fax directly from your PC (but you can't receive directly on your PC).

The SCX-4521F is relatively compact for an all in one printer with dimension of 374mm x 438mm x 368mm and reasonably light at around 10 kg.

Samsung SCX-4521F reviews from customers are mostly positive. There are a few minor gripes about the automatic document feeder and about paper jams, but on the whole most buyers are very happy.