Compact styling and design- The Samsung SCX 4521 printer has great compact styling and design. It weighs a feather light 10 kilograms and boast with compact overall dimensions of 14.5x17x14.7 inches. The smaller the footprint especially in home or small business environment the better. The customers' or clients' goal is to invest in a product that can print, scan, fax and copy without taking up all the space of each item individually.

Quality control- Unfortunately quality is compromised by the incredible price of US$250.00 for this multi-function device. It really is not a good investment if the products' quality suffers in order to make the product as cheap as possible. Text quality is okay for everyday printing with characters being clean and clear at even microscopic size. If you need to print to impress in the form of a presentation or other formal document, rather invest in an extra printer in another model or make. Graphics and photo quality is poor with flaws visible to the naked eye. Dithering is a common occurrence.

Paper accepted- No need to worry about the printer not accepting certain paper sizes and types as it compatible with all well-known and regularly used paper sizes including Legal, A4, Letter, Folio, Exec, JIS, A4, A5 and A6 and types Plain, Transparency, Labels, Cards and envelopes. Prints are produced at above average speed of 20 pages per minute. The same rule applies with copy speed. Printer resolutions are at 600x600 dpi. No warm-up time necessary with first print or copy popping out at a super fast 11 seconds from standby mode.

OS Compatibility- You name the OS and the printer is most likely compatible with it. The printer is really not fussy and will accept Windows 98/ME/NT4.0/2000/XP, Linux and Apple Mac. Designers have struck a good balance between old and new technology.

Noise- If you hate printer noise rather steer clear from the Samsung SCX 4521 printer as it one of the noisiest printers on the market. Unfortunately there's no long term solution or quick fix for reducing or eliminating the noise, you will either have to get use to it or not buy it at all.

Port options- The printer comes with the latest as well a bit of outdated technology in terms of connectivity. On the one hand you have USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 compatibility and on the other hand Parallel port option. No cables are included with the printer. Ethernet connectivity is available as an extra if you plan to use the machine in network environment,.

Common headaches The printer unfortunately comes with a couple of headaches. If scan quality is important rather avoid the device as contrasts on scanned documents are uneven and just plain awful. Get use to paper spillages caused by a flaw in the output tray design. Paper jams are extremely common. Luckily the problem is a quick one to fix by a mere pushing of a button with no need for total printer dismantlement.