By Ben Pate

The Dell 1700n makes for a good printer. It combines a low price, is ready to be networked, looks good in the office and is easy to install. It gives you just about everything you need for a Windows-based small office network or personal-size printer. There are also other Dell printers available for high-output operations, so shop wisely. The Dell 1700n toner cartridge is easy to find and use, too.

Things to Remember. This is a printer made mostly for home or small office use, but it's also able to handle nice volumes of work usually only seen in printers a bit more expensive. It can print over 15,000 pages in a month, in fact, before it would need service or replacement of its imaging drum. Graphics aren't world-class, but for a printer of this cost, they're more than adequate. You might want to consider higher-line machines if you need detailed, graphics-rich printing found in letters and such.

Specifications. Weighing less than 27 pounds, the Dell is easily movable, and at a bit more than 1 foot deep by 1 foot wide by 10 inches high, it won't take up too much space. It also has a single 10/100 Ethernet jack and USB 2.0 ports for ease of use. There are even parallel ports, which are increasingly rare these days. All of these ports are located at the rear of the printer, by the way. As with most of these machines, you can feed in paper manually or within the feeder tray. It holds about 250 pieces, and capacity can be expanded for a small price.

Costs of Ownership. The Dell uses a standard toner cartridge (1700n) which sits above an imaging drum. Each cartridge is good for thousands of pages (about 3,000), which should be more than sufficient for any home-based business or small network in an office. There are also higher output cartridges, again for additional cost.

Capabilities. The Dell 1700n is capable of about 32 megabytes of storage, which is more than enough for most home business applications. If you need more memory, it's expandable to 160 megs. There are also interior slots for added DRAM, which is very inexpensive these days. It's also compatible with Windows 98 or higher computers through either its modern USB 2.0 ports or the last-generation parallel ports in the back. It'll also email you if it starts running low on toner.

Quality of the Print Job. With available 1200dpi capability, most documents will come out looking clean and crisp. If you have double-side or more complicated printing to be done, there are easy-to-follow menus on the unit itself. If you need documents watermarked, the 1700n can do that as well.

Dell 1700n Laser Toner. Dell makes getting new laser toner easy and pain-free through its online order system. Cartridges are also sold by aftermarket companies, too. It comes with a one-year 24/7 service plan that can be increased up to 5 years if you'd like. That's extra cost, but some people want it. Also, those cartridges aren't too expensive, for the most part.

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