Dell 1815dn review: Dell 1815dn

The Dell 1815dn is an inexpensive monochrome laser multifunction printer that works equally well in a home office or in a small workgroup, provided you don't need color prints or scans. At $389, the 1815n is quite a deal, considering it prints, scans, faxes, and copies; comes with a built-in duplexer; is network ready; and prints black text at nearly 18 pages per minute. It even has a built-in USB port for scanning to or printing from a USB flash drive. The drive supports Windows, Macs, and Unix machines, so no one on your team needs to be left out. The Dell 1815dn is strictly a work-oriented machine, but with its many options and the low cost of its consumables, it's a good choice for home offices. The Dell 1815dn is reasonably compact for a machine that does so much (17.7 inches wide by 17.2 inches deep by 18 inches high), and at 38.5 pounds with its standard 250-sheet paper tray, it's not too heavy to move around, especially since the body has two deep handgrips on either side. The printer and the scanner lid feel sturdy and well constructed. The hinges of the lid lift out to accommodate bulky books for photocopying or scanning. The automatic document feeder (ADF) mounted on the scanner lid accommodates up to 50 pages for batch scanning, copying, or faxing and has adjustable paper guides. It also does double-duty as an automatic duplexer, which allows for automatic double-sided printing and copying--a boon to anyone trying to save both money and the environment. The back of the machine is where you'll find the power switch and the connectors: USB 2.0 for directly attaching to a PC and an Ethernet port for sharing the printer on a network.

On the forehead of the 1815dn is the control panel and a two-line text LCD. A full numeric keypad allows you to dial a fax number or key in the number of copies you want. The LCD shows the printer's menus, and dedicated forward and back keys allow you to drill down and up through the menus. A check button confirms the selection on the display, a return button takes you back to the last menu you saw, which saves you from having to drill up interminably, and an X button takes you straight back to the main menu. The menus are intuitive and easy to navigate, despite the limited buttons.

Below the printer's control panel is a gap that serves as the output tray. Since the output tray is contained within the body of the printer, there's no annoying wing-like appendage hanging off the printer. While the output tray can easily hold paper sizes up to A4, it has a small flap that folds out to ensure that your longer printed material doesn't go sailing to the floor. The one downside to this design is that you can't expand the output capacity--it maxes out at 150 sheets. The 1815dn comes with a 250-sheet paper tray that can accommodate multiple paper sizes, and you can expand its input capacity with an optional 250-sheet tray, for a total input of 550 sheets (including the ADF). The paper tray doesn't have a stop at the end, which could spell disaster if you're not paying attention when removing the paper tray. To be fair, though, it does have a stop midway, which will keep the tray from flying out due to an enthusiastic tug. Below the output tray is a door that folds out so that you can remove paper jams or change out the toner cartridge. A smaller door within that door flips open to serve as the bypass tray for loading single sheets of nonstandard media, such as transparencies or labels. The back of the printer has a flap that opens out to serve as an output tray for media fed through the bypass tray.

The 1815dn comes with the 3,000-page toner cartridge standard. The cost per page (CPP) for black text is about 2.3 cents, according to Dell. If you upgrade to the 5,000-page cartridge, you can reduce your text printing cost to about 1.6 cents per page. These costs are quite good for a laser printer: the Samsung SCX-4720F has a CPP of 2 cents with its high-capacity toner cartridge. The Canon MF570's CPP is about 3 cents, and the Brother MFC-8440's CPP is about 2.3 cents with its high-capacity cartridge. The control panel of the Dell 1815dn gives you access to a multitude of features. You can set paper size, reduce or enlarge copied images, autofit or clone copies, input paper type, select advanced fax features, and change scan resolutions, among other things. The scanner bed can accommodate paper sizes only up to A4, but the duplexer has a dedicated scanner (called the platen) that allows you scan up to legal-size pages. You can initiate scans from the printer's control panel or--if you install the included software--from your computer, using any number of applications, including Dell ScanCenter, PaperPort, or Adobe Photoshop.

If you use Dell's Network Scan utility, you can scan a document to your networked computer as a JPEG, a TIFF, or a PDF. You can also send out scans via e-mail directly from the printer. In addition, if you plug in a USB flash thumbdrive to the front-mounted USB 1.1 port, you can scan directly to the key. (You can also print directly from the USB drive: Uuse the control panel to select the Print From option and navigate through the files and folders on the drive. This feature supports TIFF, BMP, TXT, PDF, and PRN files.)

Faxing presents another host of options. You can set it up so that outgoing and incoming faxes are automatically sent to certain e-mail addresses, or set up a secure receive option, which will not print your incoming faxes until you enter a passcode, handy for secure transmissions. You can also hook the printer up to an answering machine, and the printer will assess the incoming call signal to determine whether it's a fax or a phone call. Phone calls will go through to the answering machine (and the telephone) and faxes will be received by the 1815dn.

Speed
Strangely enough, the Dell 1815dn printed grayscale graphics (20.01ppm) faster than it did black text (17.75ppm). The similarly priced Canon ImageClass MF5750 clocked 14.80ppm for black text and 16.11ppm for grayscale graphics. The 1815dn printed our PowerPoint presentation at an impressive 17.87ppm. It scanned color documents at 4.86ppm and grayscale documents at 4.85ppm, both faster than the Canon MF5750. The Dell 1815dn rocked the copy test, spitting out copies at 12.29ppm.

Quality
The Dell 1815dn excelled at black print quality. Even at 2.5 points, the black text was legible. Looked at under a loupe, the letters were clean and the edges were crisp. The printer handled grayscale prints decently, though it couldn't escape the dithering that plagues laser printers when printing halftones. The 1815dn also handled grayscale scans decently but was less successful with color scans. The colors appeared washed-out on the screen, and what should've been light gray lines disappeared altogether. In both the grayscale and the color scans, the scanner couldn't capture details in either the shadows or the highlights.

The standard warranty for the Dell 1815dn lasts one year, but you can upgrade it to up to five years. Dell provides free, toll-free phone support 24/7, but it recommends trying the live online chat option first. For less urgent inquiries, you can e-mail Dell's support team or check out its user forums. Dell's Web site also has product-specific support in the form of online user guides, drivers and software downloads, and a troubleshooting tool. You can find basic tips on common how-tos, as well, such as how to change the toner cartridge.

Because you can purchase Dell products and consumables only through Dell, the included software package comes with a program that monitors your usage and toner levels. When your toner starts to run low, the program will remind you to place an order. In fact, you can click a link in the reminder that will take you directly to Dell's site, where you can order toner cartridges (if the printer is networked).