Excellent price, Output good enough to hang on your wall!

Dell 3100cn arrived two weeks ago on the very day my Phaser 8200 ground to a halt after sputtering out it's last page.

Price:
A great buy at $325 delivered straight from Dell! Signed up for email specials, received $50 coupon a few days later, and made the purchase that day. (Toner on the other hand would cost more if I pay Dell retail as colors are about $90 each.) Ships with 64mb memory and CYMK toners each good for 4k pages.


Setup:
A breeze. Fairly intuitive if you follow the instruction print that comes packed with the printer. It was easy to network in to my main computer, although I have yet to link it my laptop and second pc. It mostly set itself up and I was able to put out a print in about 45 min which included rearranging my network cables.

The web based printer console gives toner and printer status in on line fashion by entering the printer IP address. Couldn't get it to work with AOL, but popped open when I used MS Internet Explorer.
I haven't figured out the email alert system yet but you need your SMTP gateway information.


Size:
The 3100cn is a little larger (taller) than the Phaser and forced me to rearrange my office. I do wish it had wheels for those times when it has to be move.

Noise:
It is quiet when not printing, clunks when printing but is acceptable.

Output
Printed a sheet of various size photos (6) on standard 8.5 x 11 size Domtar paper and received "out of memory" error. Added 256mb RAM ($35) and the whole sheet printed in photo mode. Not only did it print but the prints are fabulous. Color tone in the Print Fine Photo mode had great skin tone but was a bit overly red. I have not had a chance to try all the various settings since there are a myriad of options in the printer window under 4 or 5 separate tabs.
The output will not disappoint you. Still doesn't match fine inkjet output but the quality is good enough to hang on your wall! The output quality exceeds that of the Phaser. I might find it even better with a little tweaking/calibrating.

Memory:
Documentation for adding RAM is does not exist in the manual or on the website. I decided to just look myself and found the small door on the left side of the printer houses the single memory expansion bracket. Once the memory was inserted I opened the IE window changed the memory setting and I haven't had an "out of memory" notification.

Speed:
Color: might be slow, not a concern for me
B&W: printed a doc by mistake and it printed 7 pages before I could find the cancel button