Sharp AL-1655CS Digital Laser Copier, Printer, Scanner Review

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(More customer reviews)Sharp AL-1655CS
I have just purchased this Multifunction as a replacement to a 3-year old inkjet multifunction. It was 370$ after a $200 mail in rebate and a $30 on-line coupon.
Wow. What can I say? I've had this Sharp for only a week now and I am extremely impressed with it. I have to say, I was unsure of how it would be because the online reviews and even the Sharp site do a miserable job of telling you what its features are.
I was looking for a black and white laser that could print/copy/scan. I am tired of swapping out inkjet cartridges and paying too much per copy and polluting the world with plastic in the process. The fax function is, to me, better kept to a separate machine. I decided that I don't use color enough to warrant the expense of running a color machine - my old inkjet will now back up this Sharp and be used for the occasional color print. Further, I didn't want color laser because it strikes me that there are way too many parts (4 toners?) and that, in the long run, they are going to be difficult to maintain and be unreliable.
So when I saw this Sharp, I was interested. At 370, I was really interested. I had paid 350 for my multifunction inkjet, which did the job, but needed far too much babysitting.
My one week review of the Sharp starts with the setup -
There was a lot of packing material, so physical set up took 15 minutes - lots of tape and bits of foam to remove. For the software, if you want to USB it to your computer for all functions, it's simple and you'll be done with setup in a few minutes. If you want to hook it to a LAN for printing, as I did, it's a bit more involved, and it is not particularly user friendly. That written, it's not impossibly hard, either, and when I called Sharp on the phone, they were responsive. As it turns out, I was picking the wrong option to set up the networking, and once I figured that out (between the time I called Sharp and when they called back), it was easy and I had all five machines printing to the Sharp in a few minutes. I would describe the installation software as directed to a network tech guy rather than a home user. Unfortunate, but perhaps correct when you consider that this machine is really a horse that can easily handle all the needs of any small office. After I got the network printing set up, I connected the USB to my machine, and installation of the software for scanning and control was simple.
Printing - Fantastic. Quick start from almost completely powered down. The quality of print is high. They don't advertise this well, but there are two paper trays, and it takes a full ream between the two- awesome! I only use letter sized, so for me it's nice to put a ream in and forget about it for a week.
Copying - Fairly fast. The sheet feed is only 30 pages, which is, in my opinion, small. I think 50 pages would be better. The copying features are outstanding - you can two-side copy, for example. Another nice feature is that you can copy a 20 page document to make 5 copies, for example, and it will scan once and then make 5 copies, with each copy collated and physically offset about a half inch from its neighbors - Nice! The printing feature will also, I think, allow the offset stack feature.
Scanning - It took about 10 minutes to figure out the scan settings. After that, very easy. The software is solid. You open the software, click on imaging, click on new image, click on one of four presets (I use the OCR text scan setting at 300dpi), and click scan. The scanner scans fairly quickly, and then you have an image on the screen that you can save as a TIF file. The TIF file can be easily converted to other types of files, for example, PDF, with easily obtainable, free software. Also, the TIF can be viewed and printed on any Windows machine - the viewer is built in. I do a lot of scanning, and, because the advertising wasn't clear, I wasn't sure that this device would work as I needed it to - I am very happy to say that it has been great - no misfeeds, and quick, good image, easy.
Cost - I haven't done the math, but on the Internet the toner and drums for this unit are relatively cheap, so the per page cost of this unit is going to be very low.
Summary - I love this thing - it is quick, efficient, and, best of all for me, I do not have to baby-sit it - I load a ream and I forget about the paper. The output area can hold almost a ream, so you could almost print 500 pages and not have to add paper, toner, or remove the copies. The scanning features are more than adequate if you don't have to scan hundreds of pages a day. In short, for heavy personal use or as an exclusive unit in a small office or as an additional unit for a large office, I very highly recommend this unit - plan on a bit of time to get set up, and then, after that initial investment of time, this unit will be a horse for you - get on and ride it. I love it so far - will update as needed . . .


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