PRINTING. The Dell S2825cdn prints using laser technology, which picks up powdered 'toner' on a roller and fuses it to the paper with heat. It prints Good color photos that are fine for casual users, typical performance for a laser printer. Its text quality is Excellent, as we've come to expect from a laser printer. Text printing was very quick, 17.6 pages per minute, costing 2.2 cents per page. It prints color graphics such as charts and web pages beautifully, in presentation-quality, with no noticeable defects, at 5 pages per minute, costing 19.6 cents per page. It has auto-duplex printing to print both on sides of the page, with no loss of quality. If any color ink runs out, it stops printing—it can't be set to just use the remaining black ink. If the black ink runs out, it stops printing—it can't be set to just use the remaining color ink. The capacity of the main paper tray is 250 sheets, a generous size. There's a second tray for full-size paper, allowing you to load letterhead paper, for instance.
SCANNING and COPYING. Scanning performance was Very Good, fine for general-purpose scanning. It can scan or copy an area up to 11.5 x 8.3 inches (letter size). Copying performance was Excellent, producing copies very close to the original. It has an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) for easily scanning/copying a stack of pages. The ADF can duplex--it's a DADF--which can scan/copy both sides of each page. Includes OCR (optical character recognition) software, useful for making scanned documents editable in a word processor program.
CONTROLS and DISPLAY. The printer has a large, 4.2-inch display screen with a touchscreen that can preview each photo in a 1.1-inch window.
CONNECTIVITY and NETWORKING. You can connect directly to a PC with a USB cable, or to your network router with an Ethernet cable. This model has built-in faxing, can store incoming faxes if the paper runs out, and can send faxes from an attached PC.
COST OF OWNERSHIP AND TONER. When this section was last updated, the printer's purchase price was about $480, expensive for an all-in-one color laser printer. Printing uses up toner. Over time, as you print, the costs add up. This printer uses 4 cartridges. The Dell toner cartridges used in testing were the H5K44, 4Y75H, 4NRYP, and 1MD5G. At the time, their prices were $109, $141, $141, and $141 respectively. We estimate the cartridges to last an extraordinarily long time: around 2.6 years. After 2 years of typical use, we estimate the total cost to be $713, high for a color laser. The estimated yearly cost is $116, typical for this printer type. So the 3-, 4- and 5-year estimates are $829, $946 and $1062 respectively.
NOTE. The printer takes up a lot of space and might be more suitable for an office than a small desktop.
PRINTER FIRMWARE. Firmware is software that exists inside the printer. All models are evaluated using the latest firmware version available at the time of testing. The firmware version of the Dell S2825cdn was 201509290650.
SOFTWARE. The collection of software accompanying the printer may include: the printer driver, printer applications, electronic user manual, (and for all-in-ones:) scanning, faxing, and OCR apps. These get installed on your personal computer. All models are evaluated with a Windows 10 PC using the latest version of printer driver and printer support apps available at the time of testing. The software version was 6.7.0.17.
