Lexmark E230 B & W laser printer
i just bought myself a lexmark E230 laser printer today. $198 from dicksmith. (+$4.80 for a 4 > 6 pin USB cable)
i picked this up today when i got my tax cheque cleared. that and i needed to buy a printer.
all started when i picked up the printer at DSE for $198. realised that i needed a usb cable. not a problem, they hooked me up with a 3m 4 > 6 pin USB cable for under $5. cant complain at all.
when i got home, i cleared away a small area on the desk. has a footprint of about 4 A4 sheets. not to bad. when you open the box, there is a nice 9 step diagram for quick set up, some foam packing, cord, CDs and a thick little booklet that is totally unreadable.
getting the printer out, i plugged in the USB cable to the printer, and then my machine (its in my ADC LCD actually), then i connected the power up. dropped some paper in the tray (it has a 250 sheet capacity)
NOTE: BEFORE TURNING IT ON - there is a little piece of a paper that is sticking out the front of the printer. you have to open the access door for the toner cart. the toner is wrapped in foam and this needs to be removed.
pull the cart out and remove the orange straps, and the foam, and then stick the cart back into the printer and shut the door.
then youre ready to go. fire up the printer. it will do some first run start ups and all the little LEDs on the front will flash in a cool pattern.
open up your printer prefs in system prefs and it will ask you to add a printer. click add, and the printer will shop up nicely. how cool is that?! no need for CDs or drivers. its just automatically detected. from there, you can choose to share it over a network (using one machine as a localhost) which is the route i chose (since my airport express module is not close to the printer yet)
the printer is fast, quiet and crisp. it did a 5 page document in under 20 seconds (it does ~21 pages per minute), it also has a 600 x 600 dpi and its rated for 1500 prints on the first cart, and 30,000 prints before you need a new photoconductor kit. it also comes with a nice wad of built in memory (16Mb). there is also support for a secondary paper tray (as if one isnt enough) that can support 550 sheets (bringing total support for 800 sheets)
id have to say the only let downs are the lack of a USB (it supports parrallel too
) cable, and no built in ethernet support (you can buy an add on interface module).
anyways, ive yet to get it hooked up to the Airport Express Module. so i dont know how it will go over a wireless network, when being run from the router. so far its just running on localhost, and then onto the network. ill post up some more after i give it a go on the wireless network.
anyways, thats my review for now. Lexmark reckon its a suitable printer for small to medium businesses, and at this price its also suitable for a student who needs to print alot of stuff for uni/highschool or the SOHO setup. for the price, i must say its cheeper than running a cartridge based ink jet. at $200, it pays for inkjet carts well before you ever hit 1500 pages.
i give it
out of 5.
W2ttsy
PS: i bought this after seeing iSlayers printer in action (he has the same one)
