Dell 3130CN Review June 27, 2011 11:58 by Matt Bird

Overview

The Dell 3130CN is a big machine with cheap OEM costs per page - when compatibles or remanufactured cartridges are readily available for it it will be incredibly economic to run.

Ratings

Dell 3130CN

Main Review

If the previous printer (Brother DCP9045CDN) was a brooding beast, this one must be some sort of towering monster, coming in at a whopping eighteen inches (forty-five centimetres) high; this will tower over virtually every desk, a black obelisk of printing prowess. To put this into context, it’s the same height as our multifunction laser, and is half again the height of my monitor, which isn’t small! Despite its intimidating dimensions, this is a good machine for a workgroup requiring lots of printing, so long as they are not in need of any functions other than colour printing. With a good speed (advertised at thirty one pages per minute), and a good standard paper capacity (four hundred) the basic model is capable of printing fast, without needing to be monitored. In addition to this there are various add-ons available, such as a duplexer and additional paper trays, making it even better for big jobs. It’s not a cheap piece of kit, but it’s not entirely unreasonable either, coming in at less than four hundred pounds; its printing costs are pretty average too, at about 1.39p per A4 sheet (with the duplexer this is quite reasonable, effectively halving the cost of paper). For the many offices out there with multiple computers it has the capability to be connected to a network, and an additional component (not included in the standard model) can allow it to be connected by WiFi, making it pretty versatile in choosing where to place it – assuming you’ve a space large enough.