Several weeks ago, I was talking with a Dell sales account representative about printers. The next thing I know, he offered to send me a Color Laser Printer 1320c to evaluate.

As soon as the printer arrived at my office, I unpacked it and attempted to set it up. Unfortunately, setting up this printer was an ordeal due to an unfortunate situation. The printer was damaged upon arrival. The damage was not obvious; otherwise, I would have immediately asked Dell for a replacement printer.

In the box with the printer was a CD containing Windows software. A rather thick booklet with directions on how to use the Windows software in several languages was also included, along with the printer and a power cable. The booklet provided step-by-step directions on how to use the included software to set up the printer on my network. This printer has an Ethernet port and a USB 2 port, but neither type of cable was included.

My goal was to set this printer up on the network in my office at work to allow my colleagues and me to print to it remotely. To accomplish that, I had to set up the printer with a static IP address, so I connected the printer to a network switch in my office with an Ethernet cable.

According to the manual, in order to assign an IP address to this printer, I had to run the set-up utility that was included on the CD from a Windows machine. Obviously, asking a Mac person to use a Windows utility to set up a printer did not sit well with me, but I tried it anyway. I installed the set-up software on my Windows Vista virtual machine on my Mac Pro. The set up utility ran all the way to the end without any errors. It found the printer on my network and it allowed me to enter the IP address I wanted it to have.

After the set up process concluded, I was presented with a window that contained a button to print a test page. I loaded some standard 8.5"x11" paper into the printer and then I pressed the button to print a test page. Nothing happened. I opened up a terminal window and I tried to "ping" the printer's newly assigned IP address. I got back a "host unreachable" message. This told me that the set up utility never sent the printer its intended IP address.

A Google search yielded information that if I hold down the "continue" button on the front of the printer for three seconds; it would print a test page that has its default IP address in it. The manual said its default IP address was 10.0.0.1, but that address did not respond to a ping from my Mac Pro. When I pressed the "continue" button, several amber lights started to blink on the front of the printer.

The manual told me that the blinking lights indicated a paper jam. That was strange, considering the printer never actually moved any paper out of its paper tray. I finally opened up a tech support request with Dell. The next day, a replacement printer was waiting for me. So I unpacked that printer and I sent the original printer back to Dell.

After using the Windows set-up utility to configure my IP address on this second printer, I got the same results where a test page didn't print and the printer didn't accept my preferred IP address. This time; however, when I held down the "continue" button on front of the printer, it did print a test page. That test page showed a temporary IP address of 169.254.145.147. Nothing in the booklet told me about this 169.254.145.147 address. That IP address did respond to a ping from my Mac Pro.

I fired up Safari on my Mac Pro and I typed 169.254.145.147 into the address bar. The next thing I knew, there was a Dell printer management menu staring me in the face in a Safari window. The web-based printer management tool is easy to use and nicely designed. It allows me to see toner levels and set up different printer configuration parameters, including having the printer send me email status updates when one of the toner cartridges is low or if it runs out of paper.

So I entered the IP address I want this printer to have. As soon as I did that, I was prompted to enter a userid and password. I consulted the manual, but it said nothing about what the userid and password were, so I guessed that the userid is "admin" and the password was blank. My guess was right! Had I been wrong, I would have called Dell to ask. I then gave the printer a new password and it let me put in my preferred IP address.

In order to set up this printer for use from my Mac, I had to download a driver for Mac OS X from Dell's web site, but doing that and installing it was easy. Once I installed the driver, I was able to set up the printer from the printer preference panel in Mac OS X without any problems at all. So, as it turned out, the Windows software wasn�t necessary for me to set up this printer and put it on my network. In fact, if you go to Dell's web site and look up the specifications for this printer, it doesn't mention that it is compatible with Mac OS X, but it definitely works. In fact, this printer is easier to set up from Mac OS X then from Vista, just by using a web browser.

Even though the initial printer Dell sent me was a dud, I have to give kudos to Dell for providing me with first-class technical support and offering to give me this printer in the first place. I called Dell to find out why the printer wasn't working right. The gentlemen who handled my call was very professional and courteous. The next day, a replacement printer was delivered via FedEx. The replacement printer is working fine.

The Dell Color Laser Printer 1320c is intended for small businesses. It weighs 38 pounds. It takes up a little less than two square feet of desk space and it's 14.5" high. The input paper tray can hold up to 250 pages and it prints up to 16 pages per minute for monochrome output. Color output can be printed at 12 pages per minute on standard size 8.5"x11" paper. Monochrome and color output is printed at 600dpi. Several types of paper media can be used, such as envelopes and a variety of different types of paper. This printer also uses four different toner cartridges.

I have printed Microsoft Word documents on it and photos from my Mac Pro's iPhoto library. All the output looks extremely clear and crisp. The quality of the photos it prints on standard paper is impressive and so is the printer's speed. This quality comes with a price though. Dell branded toner cartridges cost around $80 for toner cartridges that can print an average of 2000 pages each. Fortunately, there are some third party companies that offer toner cartridges for around $20 each. You can check Amazon.com for toner cartridge pricing if you are considering buying this printer.

This printer is great. The only reason I am giving it a less than perfect rating is because the directions on how to set it up on a network are useless. Using Google to figure out how to set up this printer was far more helpful than the manual. Dell clearly put a lot of thought into designing this printer, but the technical writers who designed the manual need to be more thoughtful about who their audience is.