Samsung ProXpress C2670FW review

Samsung's C2670FW - an all-in-one office printer, copier, scanner, fax - is making a play to be the printer that everyone on your team can use. With an MSRP of $699.99 (about £445/AU$852), toner running $108.99 (about £69/AU$133) for black, and $101.99 (about £65/AU$124) each for Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta, this printer is targeted at media savvy teams looking for a single machine that solves a lot of problems.

Both fast and able to handle large jobs, its hefty 70-pound weight and 18.46" x 17.81" x 19.85" footprint has the model slightly smaller and lighter than the Sharp MX-C301W ($1395, £890/AU$1705). This Samsung solution also offers a dramatically more robust set of skills when compared to the similarly priced Brother HL-L9200CDWT, which was priced just a hair higher, at $700 (£445/AU$852), but only offered printing, with no scanning, fax, or copying.

Those copier, scanner, and fax functions are not only at the standards you've come to expect from a printer you're spending $700 on, but they're also accessible from Samsung's Mobile Print App. The model is much more suited for the small to mid-range team, and its 600 dpi output, an industry standard at this point, produces both rich photos and crisp text. It has two paper inputs, a main tray at the base of the machine, and an input tray for other media. It accepts paper up to the 8.5 by 14-inch legal format. Its front-loading input tray accepts paper up to 220 g/m2, allowing you to print beautiful photos on heavier glossy paper, as well as on labels, envelopes, and cardstock.

In this cold winter we're experiencing, I took my time with the printer to finally print a series of beach landscape photos I took at Far Rockaway and Jones Beach. The small details in the crashing waves were as detailed as I could have hoped from a multi-function printer, and the richness of the blue skies took me to a much more comfortable climate than what the east coast is currently experiencing. I also had great luck scanning and copying magazine covers in the photo copier. Again, with the photos this machine was printing, I could easily envision it being the workhorse machine for a small team printing out clear, rich images for a presentation board or book.

Specs and benefits

Having worked in a number of small business offices over the years, it takes a lot of quality features for me to see a printer as anything more than a necessity. More often than not, for those as low on the totem pole as I've been, the office printer is a persnickety beast of burden.

Thanks to Samsung's C2670FW - which is good enough for an office, but a tech support agent classified it as a consumer product - I won't always jump to dread upon seeing an office printer. The first thing I noticed in this regard was how simple it was to install toner. To pop a cartridge into the C2670FW, all you have to do is remove the orange and clear plastic case, and place the cartridge vertically into a slot. There's no need to rotate or lock in toner. This process is so simple even people that still use flip phones can do it without technical support.

Helping this printer stand out from its competition is its integration with Samsung's mobile offerings. While users with Android and iOS devices can use the Samsung Mobile Print app to access all of the unit's features over a Wi-Fi network, Samsung's Galaxy devices can communicate with the C2670FW through NFC, the same great technology that Apple is utilizing in its recent ApplePay purchasing feature. Although Samsung's is not the first iOS app, or mobile printing solution, they have created a very good interface. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to use. I was easily able to choose between all of the different albums in my iPhone 6's photo library, and print either one or multiple images at a time.

Noise, almost always a damning problem with printers, is no issue here. After coming home late one night, I sent a job to the printer via the app on my phone, and that led to a quick and painless printout. Neither of my easy-to-wake roommates was awoken, so it's safe to say this machine will fit seamlessly into your office environment.