Dell V305w All-in-One Wireless Printer – an appealing and inexpensive triple duty printing tool

Wednesday, December 17, 2008, 4:26
Gadgets
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Dell has come up with an inexpensive, wireless printer, the V305W. At a price of around $129, the printer triples as a 1,200 × 2,400 dpi scanner and a full range copier. A printer with a simplistic design, the V305W is characterized by subtle, curvy lines, combining glossy white and matte black panels very elegantly. The basic control panel has seven recessed buttons, beneath the two-line LCD display, that let the user navigate menus and operate features on the printer. Two ports for memory cards (SD, MS, xD, MMC, CF, MD) and a PictBridge USB port for direct printing from a digital camera are provided directly underneath the two-ink cartridge bay. As its reviews, the printer cannot be used as a print server as it lacks an Ethernet port. But it has an internal network adapter installed into its back. The only available option for media input is the 100-sheet front-loading tray, as the printer lacks an auto document feeder.

Setting up the printer for wireless communication will take the user less than 10 minutes to finish, thanks to Dell’s step-by-step setup. Two separate cartridges for tricolor and black/white inks are used by the V305 and it ships with standard-capacity cartridges in the box. The user can buy high-capacity ink cartridges on the company’s Web site.

If one compares Dell V305w with other printers within the same category and price range, it can be easily seen that Dell V305w is the best and worst of the pack. It can be called the best because it prints black text at an impressive rate of 7.82 pages per minute (PPM). The driver gives the user the option of printing in either 1,200 or 4,800 dpi resolution. The driver automatically chooses the latter if the user loads photo paper into the feeder. But even at 4,800 dpi resolution, black-and-white text looks blotchy and unevenly spread across the paper. It can be called the worst because it requires a lot of ink refills as compared to other printers of the same category.

The V305w is covered with a standard one-year warranty and 24/7 on-call technical support. In a nut shell, the Dell V305w can be said to be appealing and inexpensive, but the output quality needs significant improvement.