Dell 1235cn - DigitalVersus

Dell 1235cn


PrinterBase	274.85
Printerland	295.55
OYYY	297.29
Amazon Marketplace UK	319.95


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Resolution	600 x 600 ppp
Speed B&W / color	16 / 4 ppm
Ink drop size	picolitres
Number of cartridges	4
Number of base colors	4
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Scanner / Copier / Fax	Yes / Yes / Yes
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Nilofar Hadjanadjiboudine
Test date: September 21, 2009

Scanner and copier

The scanner isn't really this model's strong point.

For one thing, it's slow. You need to wait 18 seconds just for a preview scan and almost 20 seconds for a colour scan of 4 x 6'' photo print at 300 dpi. For another, the quality isn't there either. The colours have a strong tendency to be dominated by warm tones and the sharpness of the details is disappointing.

When photocopying, a black and white document takes around 20 seconds; you'll need to wait around twice as long (45 seconds) for a colour document.

Handling

The Dell 1235cn is a colour multifunction laser printer which includes a fax machine. From the outside, it looks just like the Samsung CLX-3175fw that we tested a few months ago. But we're glad we put through the same bank of tests, because although the two printers might look like each other, they produce very different results.

Dell 1235cn	Samsung CLX-3175fw

The printer is made up of a main paper tray that can hold 150 pages and a sheet feeder that can hold 15 pages. With 128 MB of internal memory, it will easily be able to keep up with the printing needs of a small team in an office.

It includes an Ethernet port, but doesn't have WiFi. Unfortunately, the list of missing features doesn't stop there, as there's no double-sided printing mode or Linux support either.

Speeds

Although the printer can reach decent speeds when printing in black and white, its performance in colour is a little less impressive.

Just like the Samsung we mentioned above, the 1235cn prints at 16 pages per minute (ppm) in black and white and 4 ppm in colour, and it's this second figure that puts it behind some inkjet printers.

What annoyed us the most was the time it took to produce the first page. Once the printer is already warmed up from a previous document, it only takes a speedy 11 seconds. If, on the other hand, it starts in standby, then you need to wait 48 seconds for the first page to arrive. And it's over a minute for the first document you print after switching it on.

Time taken to produce the first page (seconds)

Noise and Energy Consumption

On standby, the 1235cn uses about 7.5 W, which isn't much at all, for a laser printer at least; we'd still have preferred less, though. That shoots up when it's printing though, reaching 500 W.

When we set it up at a distance of one metre in our testing room to check the noise levels, we measured a very noisy 66 dB.

Printing Quality

As we mentioned, the 1235cn looks a lot like Samsung's CLX-3175fw. But the quality of the documents printed on the Dell printer is very different and unfortunately a long way from meeting our expectations. The colours are generally accurate enough, even if the contrast is a little too extreme. The gradients in our test documents were very well reproduced with a smooth range of colours. Text lacks detail and characters run into one another, especially in our test document with black characters on a yellow background. Solid blocks of colour are even, however.

Black and white text is very clear and the staircase effect around the edges of the characters is very minimal. The curves in the characters are clean and well-drawn.

Compare the Dell 1235cn to other printers in our Produce Face-Off

Cost per page

The toner and the drum are separate, and, as usual, the cartridges supplied with the printer aren't entirely full. The supplied black toner cartridge lasts for 1000 pages and the various colours 700 pages each.

The 1235cn has a high cost per page and is one of the most expensive laser printers to run.

Cartridge	RRP	ISO Lifespan	Cost per page
black	£48.30	1500	3.22 p
cyan	£48.30	1000	4.83 p
magenta	£48.30	1000	4.83 p
yellow	£48.30	1000	4.83 p
imaging drum	£113.85	24 000	0.47 p

Black and white printing speeds

Network port

Overall quality

Colour printing speeds

Expensive to run

The 1235cn is slow at printing in colour, produces disappointing results, uses a lot of power and is noisy! In black and white, though, it's fast and accurate, and just right for a small workgroup.