Reviewed on: May 2019
Suitable For
The Samsung M2026w Xpress printer is aimed at the small home office or small business that needs a reliable, efficient printer. It ticks these boxes well and you'll be more than happy with your purchase. If you print more than 750+ pages per month you'll likely need a printer that takes higher capacity cartridges, but anything below that and you're good to go.
Features & Connectivity
The M2026w keeps it barebones for a small office machine, giving you:
- Wireless and USB connectivity
- 150 sheet paper tray
- 64mb of RAM (good for larger print jobs)
- Very small footprint
That's it! Some offices may be deterred by the lack of auto duplex (double sided printing) which is understandable, but for those after simple documents like invoices the M2026w is more than suitable. The USB connection offers easy plug and play with Windows 10, and wireless connectivity is easy to set up so there's no problem there.
Print Speed & Quality
The M2026w Xpress Samsung printer is suitably quick for a budget printer, easily outpacing budget inkjet printers and matching the speed of other mono laser printers in this price range. Churning out a solid 20 pages per minute, you won't see any slowdown with larger documents as Samsung have smartly chosen to equip the printer with a 400mhz processor and 64mb of RAM.
Print quality is great as well, for the price. Text is sharp and accurate, with clear blacks on pages where other competitors may have slightly greyer results. If you're printing graphics and images you may suffer a small amount of over-darkness and occasional ghosting, but you experience that with nearly all mono lasers at this price level so it's not something to be too concerned about. Overall, a great little worker that is more than worth the price.
Cartridges & Running Costs
Samsung kept the M2026w unbelievably simple, to the point that it only takes one cartridge, and that cartridge only comes in one capacity! All you need is the Samsung MLT-D111S toner and you're good to go. It pops into your machine, has the drum built in and is the only consumable you need to monitor. Nice and easy. It has a lifecycle of up to 1,000 pages per cartridge (at the industry standard 5% page coverage) so its aimed at the low volume/small office user market.
Running costs are slightly more expensive than other mono printers, but not so far as to be prohibitive. You're looking at around 4.5p per page using the Samsung original toner. There is a money saving compatible option available at Stinkyink which slashes this running cost down to 3p per page, making it far more economical to run and elevating the M2026w into recommended-buy territory.
Who Should Buy This Printer
An easy to use, good quality, cheap to buy mono office printer... the M2026 Samsung machine ticks all the boxes for low volume printers that need reliability and quality when it matters. If you don't want to spend more upfront to get cheaper running costs, this mono printer is an ideal middle ground.
