Pantum P2502W Wireless Monochrome Laser Printer

Pros: This is a very fast printer optimized to efficiently use its modest 128MB of printer memory. Installation is just a breeze!….. unpackage, install toner cartridge, power up and use the supplied cd, voila’…up and printing. Faster than many of the high end postcript and pcl printers out in the market since all the processing is handled by the pc itself. Because this Pantum 2502 is a wireless design you can also capitalize on everyone in the household directing their printing needs to one device. Savings are obvious since you no longer have to stock different toner/inks for each of your various printers. Would be nice to have duplex printing but this is easily remedied by refeeding the printed simplex page a second time provided you manually reinsert the first side correctly. Pantum web site though slow appears to have drivers not only for windows but also Mac, Android and Linux along with manuals in pdf format. Cons: Complex print jobs with embedded EPS calls might not necessarily ender or print correctly but this is to be expected with a entry level printer such as this Pantum P2502. Replacement toner cartridges not readily stocked or sold by third party sellers as yet …. I suspect Pantum is following HP’s printer sales strategy….give away the printer at cost and make up for this with expensive toner cartridge replacements. Solid area coverage on printouts have a slight but noticeable strobing…again a trait of entry level printers. Searches on how to refill spent toner cartridges are non existent hence for me it will be a trial and error process just to see if I can successfully refill my own cartridges with easily purchased generic toner. Until this shortfall is resolved replacement toner cartridges in my opinion are a tad expensive, not readily stocked locally, and presently sold online by a few select vendors. Paper tray holds roughly 150 sheets of letter sized stock….far too small for large print runs. Top manual tray according to documentation states envelope printing is acceptable….wrong!…..continuous envelope jams which requires a convoluted way of clearing jammed stock. Whoever designed this 2502 printer should have thought possibly about a more elegant way of clearing jammed sheets of envelopes/paper stock. Overall Review: Delivery times by Newegg again is top notch, packaged well, and handled by UPS…what’s NOT to like about this? As of this date there are very limited vendors of replacement toner cartridges…even Newegg appears to be out of stock on this one…unusual!

Pros: PLEASE NOTE: At the bottom of both “Pros” and “Cons” are additional information that I wanted to include in the review that really I wanted to have in the “Other Thoughts” section but had to room. Just an FYI. + quick setup + easy to use admin panel + IPv6, Bonjour, SMTP, SNMP, WSD and RAW/LPD protocol support + prints fast! + e-mail notification support for specific triggers + Can enabled/disable wireless AP and wireless hotspot AP + Can see printer status from admin panel + Mobile printing + WiFi connectivity + Mac and Linux support + 1200 x 1200 dpi + Prints up to 22 ppm (pages per minute) for A4 and 23 ppm for Letter + Compact size + Sleep mode (can change the amount of time it will go into sleep mode via the admin panel) THE PRINTER AND TONER CARTRIDGE The printer itself is very compact in size, MUCH smaller than my Canon InkJet All-in-One printer and lightweight. A starter toner is included with the printer (Pantum PB-210 Toner (standard capacity: 1,600 pages for those interested)) but came in separate packages; even though the printer box said to “ensure the following parts are included in the box” showing a toner cartridge – safe to assume a starter toner is include with the purchase of this printer huh? As with any toner cartridge installation can be messy so be careful. Installation however is very easy – just follow the instructions on the toner cartridge box. The printer itself has a very simple interactive interface while having quite the interesting LED indicators. There may be only 2 LED lights (one for paper jam and WiFi connectivity and the other for alerts and info) each refer to something specific on their own and also something else based on which one is lit/flashing, its color, etc.; which is detailed in the digital user manual found by clicking on User Manual link upon auto-loading the included CD – troubleshooting section. Cons: – Makes no mention that an admin panel exists in the included paper user manual or setup guide which is very important to know! – it’s buried in the digital user manual located on the included CD – Forced to keep “Pantum-AP” in the wireless hotspot SSID – Not allowed to change the username from the default “admin” – Manual duplex printing – I would prefer to save paper and would be nice if it was automatic – Can’t change printing preferences from within the mobile app (locked-in at 240 x 320 DPI as per the digital user manual, section 6.1) PRINTER WIRELESS ADMIN PANEL There is an admin page that is not readily mentioned anywhere but is buried in the digital user manual under section 4.1. However, once you have installed the printer driver connect via the included CD from a wireless device to the Pantum wireless hotspot AP (I couldn’t connect without being connected to the wireless hotspot). After that you can access it via “192.168.223.1” in your browser (may be different than mine). There is a “Log In” menu item which you should immediately change the password (log in and it’s under “Admin Settings”). The username is “admin” and the password, by default, is “000000”. Once done you can explore the “Settings” menu item for the various bits of information and settings that can be tweaked. You can secure the wireless hotspot AP by going to Settings -> Wireless Settings -> Wireless Hotspot -> Wireless Parameter -> Authentication. Click “Apply” when done and viola! Secured. Even though you can turn wireless hotspot off I personally recommend leaving it on and securing your wireless hotspot because as far as I can tell from what I have tested the admin panel is only accessible wconnected to the hotspot. You can set up automatic email notifications for when specific situations occur (under Settings -> Machinery Settings -> E-mail Notification); paper tray is empty, toner is low, paper is jammed or catridge has expired. You can specify up to 4 email addresses. In the admin panel under “Information” menu you can view various bits of information such as toner remaining, printer status (ex/ sleeping), cartridge status (ex/ normal), serial number, etc. Also, I recommend setting up a static IP for the printer instead of using DHCP or “IPv4 ‘automatic’ address assigment” by changing it to “manual”. If you have a router that is capable of IP route reservations then you can assign it there instead; I personally prefer assigning static IPs from my router as all IP reservations are in one place. When your router decides to lease the printer a new IP address it may require that you have to setup the printer again for printing. So for example, when I look at the Pantum P2500W Series Properties -> Ports (tab) on my computer the printer was set up specific to IP address 192.168.0.102. When the IP changes the printer most likely won’t be available for printing…just a potential warning. Overall Review: PRINT TESTING By default the printer is set up to print at 600 dpi which will look great (subjective and depends on what you are printing) but is capable of printing at 1200. As with any printer already set up on your computer you can access printing preferences via the Windows Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Devices and Printers -> Pantum P2200-P2500 Series, right click with the mouse and select “Printing preferences” (sorry Mac users I don’t have a Mac but you can refer to section 3.2 of the digital user guide included on the CD). You will see the group box named “Resolution” with the options for 600 or 1200 DPI. If you want the “best” quality prints and not concerned with using more ‘ink’ then select 1200 and click the “OK” button. NOTE: You can also get access to said settings by simply double-clicking on the Pantum printer instead of right-clicking and selecting “printing preferences”. Once in the Pantum printer ‘page’ select “Adjust print options”. Printing actual pages takes a few seconds per page – extremely faster than a typical inkjet printer. The print quality is pretty good at 600. I set my printer preference resolution to 1200 and printed a large photo which turned out pretty darn good! You can expect professional I must say but I expected such as the specification of the printer is that it prints at 22 ppm. The printed image greyscales showed a wide range of shades with acceptible level of detail. As for the printing noise I can’t measure it exactly but it is right up there with my 2 year old inkjet printer. On several occassions once a page was printed I would quickly take the printed page and rub across it vigorously with my finger which didn’t result in any smearing or toner residue on my finger; this was the same for both printed text documents and pictures. I tried wetting my finger and rubbing the printed page and experienced no smears as well. Printing from my Samsung S5 using the “Mobile Printing App” the prints, both text documents and images, defintely lack print quality compared to printing from my laptop (limited to prints of 240 x 320 DPI as per digital user manual section 6.1). Honestly, being able to print from my phone is a major plus. FINAL THOUGHTS This printer performs very well for its price-range and is competitive to other laser printers out there. The prints of both documents and pictures are definitely suitable for the typical user who aren’t looking for or expecting professional prints (the prints are still very good). The admin panel availability is obscured without digging into the digital user manual as one reviewer apparently missed. The printer appears to be well built but the software could be better. However, I do recommend this printer if you do a lot of black-and-white prints and want a reliable printer. I do recommend secure

Pros: Prints quickly Good quality when printing documents Very small and compact. Fits in my office quite nicely Wifi Works on Android phones Cons: Quality of the toner is poor Comes with an open AP by default that I have yet to find the settings to disable Toner does not last very long Construction seems flimsy Overall Review: I would probably go with a more expensive printer from a name brand before trying Pantum again.

Pros: • Solid packaging for both printer and toner cartridge • Compact size = small footprint on desk • Sturdy build • Paper catch tray folds into a closed position to help keep out dust • Inexpensive ($50 at the time of this review) • Wireless setup with Win8.1 is flawless with most recent driver package • USB setup is extremely easy • Performs within range of specified speeds • Nice print quality • Company appears to care about their customers (I see responses to user questions within the reviews – great to see!) • Support site is laid out in a user friendly manner Cons: • No network discovery using included disc for setup on Win8.1 build • Replacement toner cartridge has been out of stock at Newegg since I received the device • Was only able to locate the replacement toner cartridge at one online site – it was really expensive at $83 • As mentioned in another Eggxpert review, hot spot is unsecured, HOWEVER – Pantum support responded with the needed information to resolve it – very nice. • Extremely slow support site (about as bad as the old Asus site – horrible) Overall Review: Setup of the 2502W was very straightforward with a USB cable, and the included driver disc. Setup was on a machine with Win8.1 installed. Had things up and running in less than 10 minutes. Wireless setup with the included disc was not as easy. The network discovery page yielded nothing when searching for available networks to connect to. This would be with the router 10 feet away from the 2502W. I went ahead and logged into the local support page to pull IP information, and setup went without incident using manual settings. At the time of my initial install, there were no driver updates on Pantum’s extremely slow support site. That has changed in the past couple of weeks, with full support for all modern operating systems. I DLed the newest Win8.1 driver, reinstalled wirelessly – and all available networks showed up just fine. Really pleased with the overall performance/features of the P2502W. The high majority of printing done in our home is of the document variety. Our Lexmark AIO burns through cartridges, even with “quick print” settings, so we have things setup where the 2502W handles all of our document work, and the Lexmark gets everything else. With economy ink settings, documents still look nice, and with higher quality settings – they look excellent. We’ve put over 300 pages through the 2502W during the past three weeks, and have had no smearing, no jams, and no lost document jobs – only excellent results. Speeds on the economy setting are right around the 24 ppm rate, and it’s nice to not have the printer shaking violently with that kind of continuous output. Definite advantage to a laser printer. Only real concern outside of device longevity (not a lot of history with the 2502W) is the cost and availability of the toner cartridges. Newegg has been out of stock for weeks, and I was only able to locate a single online site with available stock. Price was $33 more than the Newegg offering (standard yield cartridge). I list cost as a concern, NOT because output for the price is lacking, but because $83 is a larger than average chunk for a consumer to drop on a new toner cartridge in one sitting. I feel that you definitely get what you pay for with the stock toner cartridge, but when you can’t find one for the listed $50, and have to go spend a significant amount more than that – it’s definitely disappointing. Hoping Pantum is able to improve their cartridge stock levels in the future. I think the 2502W is a great choice for a quality, budget monochrome laser printer. Good print quality, ink savings, and build quality are definite highlights. Get that web site speed up to modern standards, and improve the in-stock position of the toner cartridges – and I think you have a definite winner on your hands. Easy “YES” recommendation from me. Give this little known brand a shot – you won’t be disappointed.