PITNEY BOWES IM-3510 TONER CARTRIDGE

Pitney Bowes IM-3510 Review

Overview:

The Pitney Bowes IM-3510 is a modular all-in-one unit designed for expandability and to minimize downtime for office environments with substantial paper throughputs and extensive workloads. Though in some respects it has fallen behind its competition and it is quite large, for many applications it may still be a viable choice despite its age.

Pros:

The IM-3510 is a fairly large unit at 32 17/32" by 26 31/32" by 43 15/16" and 215 lbs. Given that it is almost four feet tall, the printer will require either its own credenza or to be treated as a standalone object, as it will not fit practically or even be particularly accessible or usable if placed on a desktop alongside monitors and other equipment. 

The IM-3510 outputs a maximum of 35 pages per minute for both its print and copy functions, well above the standard speeds of 20 pages per minute.

The IM-3510 has a standard paper capacity of 500 sheets and a 100-sheet bypass. By adding two optional paper decks, the capacity of the printer increases to 3100. It also has many options for paper handling, including a duplex automatic document feeder for two-sided scanning, a duplex printing unit, a saddle-stitch finisher built with a hole punch, a two-tray sorting/stapler finisher, and an 8-bin mailbox finisher. The included multi-purpose tray allows the printer to process transparencies, heavy stock and envelopes. 

The copier can reduce or enlarge documents between 25% and 400% in size. The unit can also print to and copy documents with a minimum size of 5.5" by 8.5" and a maximum size of 11" by 17", making it worth considering if your work environment regularly needs to process large sheets. 

Scanning and fax units can be added to the base printer/copier if necessary, allowing the 3510 to handle all paper processing functions in an office. 

The 3510 has 64MB of memory built-in, which can be expanded to a maximum of 320MB if desired. With a 5GB hard drive added on, the copier can store a maximum of 10000 pages in a single document. Do note, however, that an added hard drive does add a moving part and another potential point of failure to the printer, something especially worth considering given that this is an older printer and one for which parts may be scarcer in the future.

The 3510 supports networking via IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, and EtherTalk protocols, making it easy to connect to a number of network architectures. 

The fax machine add-on reads documents at 256 grayscale levels and transmits documents at speeds of either 2 seconds over Super G3 or 6 seconds over G3 and supports broadcasts of up to 300 destinations. The fax also has 2MB of its own memory which can be expanded to 10MB if desired. 

The scanning add-on includes scan-to-email, scan-to-desktop, and scan-to-file functions, consistent with other contemporary scanners included in multifunction units. 

Cons:

The 3510 has a maximum resolution of 600 dpi across all applications, behind the 1200 dpi and sometimes 2400 dpi available with more recent printing, copying, and scanning systems. To compensate for this, the printer function offers "smoothing technology" that Sharp claims is equivalent to 1200 dpi. 

The 3510 only includes an IEEE-1284 Parallel port, but does not have USB. Network support is available as an add-on, but without it, it will be impossible to connect this unit to non-legacy PCs, putting it at a distinct disadvantage over systems that are more forward compatible.