Samsung CLX-3185FW

Unethical! Designed with a built in 100-copy limit per cartridge, EVEN IF NOT EMPTY! – Outrageous, environmentally destructive, wasteful and leaves you with a feeling of being ripped off! Never again will I bother with buying Samsung office products. This printer model has been programmed automatically to stop printing if anyone of the 4 colours has reached the arbitrary number of 100 copies! Look inside where the cartridges are… Read more

located and you see a small chip for each colour. This is how Samsung's fiendish accountants have ensured that you have to keep a stock on hand of new expensive cartridges for whenever one colour reaches this limit. Since a set of cartridges is approx $200 or more - it's not hard to reach the conclusion that its cheaper to buy a new printer!

There is no screen indicator available on the printer screens showing the % of ink left in each cartridge available for this model, because when it stops printing, it's actually not empty!

Also the cartridges are heat sealed so you can't refill them unless you are prepared to literally cut a circular hole into the plastic and refill messy printer powder with a funnel, (in addition to having to purchase specially-designed "fake" chips from the internet, that you have to stick over the original counter chips for each cartridge, to fool the printer into letting you print!) Samsung brand only, otherwise.

Replacement bits – Best printer I have had in over 15 years The choice of lazer printer replacing our previous ink jet has been a good move. The Samsung is giving great results time after time. Recharging your own cartirdges with the supplier below has proven a price wise option with no probs so far. Be warned though, if you do like us and recharge your… Read more

own you need to get the printer "chips" to go with the recharging laser powder inks. Thought it to be possibly complicated but proved to be very straight forward.

The prices I found charged by retailers of Samsung branded bits though is beyond belief.

Have had great success with using toner, chips and also a drum from the supplier below with no problems so far. Been using their stuff for over five years now and still going well. Prices are more reasonable by comparison and I like to read most things in hard copy, so my printer gets a fair workout and as I am now on a pension every dollar counts

headache – I have had this printer for about 2 years now. I absolutely HATE it. There is a problem to do every single thing with the printer and it has been giving issues since we bought it. Firstly, they say it is a laser jet and will give you 100 copies. lies. It will give you 500, if you are lucky. It keeps jamming the papers every 2 minutes and even when… Read more

you clear the jam it still says paper jam and does not print. Sometimes it reads that there is a door open when all the doors are shut properly and no one can fix this issue that also cause it to not print. The toner photocopies very light it very hard to read when you photocopy even when the toner is new and it doesnt matter how many times you set the default to darkest for photocopy. There is no help, to replace the printer, samsung charges 2 what you paid for it. It just sucks and if one toner is out, it will not print, not even black plus the cost of the toner (that doesnt last very long) is 150% of the cost of the printer $285. Stay away from this trouble if you dont want a headache. I dont usually leave reviews but this is so bad I had to warn about it.

It would be great, if only it worked! – Initially when this multifunction printer was working well, I thought it was a great system. Within months, I was spending endless hours trying to fix numerous faults. When it stopped picking up paper, I spent hours trying to resolve it and eventually got in a technician who spent over an hour to find a small, internal plastic piece which had… Read more

snapped and required replacement. $150 later it was running again for a month and now I get "toner empty" messages even though I spent $172 on genuine cartridges and I still can't print. I even had an online chat with Samsung who posted out a software fix (which was nice but it took 2 weeks) and the software "fix" has alleviated nothing! Also you can't use non-genuine cartridges in it, so you have to pay top dollar to get the genuine cartridges. Do a quick google of the product and you will see the many types of faults which come up for this unit. It's your choice.

Great multifunction centre – This is the first multifunction centre I have bought and it is great. It is a large unit, but I am very happy with it. Connected to your LAN via RJ45 (not wifi). Printing - Printing is good, although a little slow for the first colour page to come out. Toners are not too expensive but after a few years I am now getting a little streaky in the… Read more

colour.

Fax - Faxing works well, I have sent a few faxes without problem. I haven't received any, but it has tel/fax option so I can quickly receive a fax if I answered on another phone as a call.

Scanning - This is where is excels. The auto document feeder (ADF) is invaluable, its a shame it doesn't scan duplex pages but its not difficult to flip the page and scan the other side. You can scan to usb or straight to a predetermined location on your LAN. You can scan in multiple sizes and to multiple types. I found oddly that scanning to jpg in colour was a smaller size than jpg in monochrome. I also found that converting colour jpg files to pdf is a smaller size than straight to pdf. When scanning multiple pages, the filename adds -2, -3 and so on so you know that the files are part of the multiple page scan.

You can also scan under the lid which works fine, except you can't scan multiple pages together like with the ADF.

One more thing, using the Samsung printing app on Android, I can print to the printer from my Android device as long as the app has a share button. Done it heaps of times and works well.

Toner empty message drives me crazy! – Printer is very flakey and obviously designed to drive you to high cost genuine Samsung toner supplies. If use non Samsung toners will often refuse to recognise the toner or only after many attempts. Printer looks good and at best works OK. Also loses wireless network settings and only way to reconnect seems to be to reload drivers. Not much… Read more

actually! Far too problematic and flakey and support is terrible Always gives toner empty message even when toner cartridge is replaced

Waste of Money – Complete rip off by Samsung - will never buy another Samsung printer. Paid good money for cheap, rickety plastic. Paper jams from day one. Called my supplier and Samsung sent a technician out who accused me of not placing the paper correctly inside the paper tray. Had to pay the $130 call out fee myself and almost two years on still get intermittent paper jams. Takes up a lump of about 4 pages each time. Not worth it. Worthless

Biggest waste of money ever – This is the biggest money wasting object that we have ever purchased. We are constantly being ripped off with all the various parts the need replacing, often without any warning. The ink doesn't last long & today an error message appeared to replace the waste toner tank (which is a bit of plastic that I have just emptied all our wasted ink out… Read more

from) and you can't print, scan or fax until this has been replaced. We will never purchase a Samsung product again. Very disappointing.

Save your money! – Folks. The old saying is true in this case: You get what you pay for. Samsung should be ashamed at the rubbish they put their name on. This is truly garbage. It hardly works at all and I have been troubleshooting it since i bought it. What is mistake this purchase was. Should have known it was too good to be true. It looks fancy. Its looks are the only thing for it. Would have been nice if it worked, too.

OK – It is a good printer but to pay extra for the Wireless is not recommended Support is also non existent The CLX 3185 is not available as a selection on Smasung Website It was inexpensive for a multifunction cloured laser. It is quiet and quick The FW function is a dud. If the printer goes to sleep you cannot wake it up by just clicking on the… Read more

printing icon on a software. You have to restrt the printer. If you leave it on it consumes electricity.

I conected it by USB and it works well.

I wish I had bought a different printer! – This printer is terrible. It constantly has paper jams - I have to say that mostly they are non-existent at least, but it is really annoying to have to stop what I am doing to find a paper-jam that doesn't exist every 2 or 3 print jobs. On the first print of every print job, it generally spits out sheet after sheet of pages full of jumbles of… Read more

letters and symbols. I don't know if this is because I am printing from a Mac, but I don't have this problem with any other printer that I have ever used with the same computer. I have learned my lesson with this particular problem - I'm pretty sure that it would run through an entire ream of paper like this, but I now stand right next to the printer ready to hit the cancel button if it seems like its doing this. The really annoying part about this problem is that I can't even re-use the paper afterwards, because it seems to cause the 'paper-jams' mentioned earlier.

I also can't get the wireless function to work.

The quality of the prints is also very unpredictable - areas of solid colour, particularly black, sometimes print ok, but sometimes come up really really splotchy.

I'm considering selling this printer on ebay as it is much more hassle than it is worth. Inexpensive Pretty much everything.

Wireless printing? Hardly! – Works as advertised when connected by USB cable. However the wireless network functionality is almost useless. I have set up the network connection on 5 separate occasions now only to have it disappear after a period of time (quickest was 4 days, longest it took to disappear was about a month). Their customer support was non-existent. … Read more

Considering it was bought so it could function as a wireless printer it is very disappointing. Cheap Poor support, wireless connection disappears every week or so

Doorstop with no visible means of support from manufacturer – I purchased the printer on the basis that it would work with Debian Linux. After several months of being unable to get it to work with Debian Linux, I have since found that it works only with obsolete versions of Debian Linux. Samsung do not know the model number, and their method of support is designed to be obstructive. What I have got for the… Read more

price, is simply a colour laser photocopier. As a multifunction device to run with Debian Linux, it is useful only as a doorstop.

Due to the obstructive and contemptuous attitude of Samsung, I have no confidence in support from Samsung.

I strongly recommend against buying this or any other Samsung product. It will stop a door from opening further than wanted, if put on the floor. It is useless for what the use for which it was purchased, and it was misrepresented by Samsung, and Samsung's level of support is extremely bad.

Excellent – I bought this item on e-bay for $500 ($480 + $15 shipping + $5 insurance). I'm happy with the product, easy setup, easy to use. Just need to bear in mind to assign static IP to the printer, otherwise, the computer will not be able to connect to the printer. If only this printer offer auto duplex, this printer will be the perfect printer in the… Read more

market. Its consumables are not too pricey like other brands. However, not easy to change its drum - I still have no luck in pulling it out or removing it. Generally, I'd recommend this product to others. Value for money, easy to use, good quality, easy setup Hard to remove drum, too much unnecessary tones to indicate completion of job, establishment of wireless connection is a little too long