Handling

The 2335dn is a black and white multifunction laser printer with a fax machine.  It's got a very traditional look with a boxy shape and black plastic, but its imposing size makes something of an impression.  It will be more at home in an office or with a small team than at home.  With 128 MB of memory, it will be able to stack up several large documents.

Although it doesn't have WiFi, the printer has a network port and an automatic two-sided printing mode. The printer tray can hold 300 sheets.  It's compatible with PCL6, PS3 and has drivers with Windows, Mac and Linux.

Speeds

Dell claims the 2335dn is capable of producing 33 pages per minute (ppm).  Using our test documents, we measured speeds of 33.8 ppm.  The automatic two-sided printing mode is a little less rapid but is still a speedy 14.4 ppm.

Today, printers are all relatively fast, with an average minimum of 10 ppm, but things become more complicated when it comes to measuring the time taken to process a document and print its first page.  Fortunately, the 2235dn is well within the time published in Dell's specification.  When the printer is warmed up, the first page arrives in just 8 seconds, which is good.  After being on standby for a while, you need to wait 23 seconds, which is still respectable.  It's after turning the printer off and back on that it takes longer: the first page takes 50 seconds.

The times we measured are about average compared with other laser printers.

Noise and Energy Consumption

After being on standby for an extended period, the printer uses 12.4 W.  That's already quite high for a printer that isn't doing anything, but when  it's printing, that rises to an average of 850 W--contrast that to the 20 W required by an inkjet.

The 2235dn is also a very loud printer, with average noise levels of 62 dB at a distance of 1 metre measured in our test suite.


Printing Quality

The quality of printed documents is entirely satisfactory.  Text is a good deep black and individual characters are sharp, with only a small staircase effect around the edge of some letters.  The graph clearly illustrates the gradients in the bars of the chart.  Otherwise, the text is clean and stands out well on a black and white background.  The contrast is well reproduced.

Dell 2335dn - Original Document	Dell 2335dn - Copy

Be careful, though, as this excellent quality isn't maintained on photocopied documents, which are rather disappointing. There is too much contrast and the different lines on the chart are practically invisible. The text is still legible, though.

Cost per page

While most laser printer manufacturers rarely provide full cartridges, Dell stands out by shipping the 2335dn with a standard cartridge that's full with enough toner for 3000 pages.

Using this cartridge, the cost per page comes to 1.96 p, which is already very low, with an average of around 2.2 p per page for black and white printers.  Using a high-capacity cartridge, the cost falls to just 1.15 p.

Cartridge	RRP	ISO Lifespan	Cost per page
black (standard)	£58.65	3000	1.96 p
black (XL)	£69.00	6000	1.15 p