» Lexmark Optra M410 Laser Printer (Pc/Mac 4K00252)

Lexmark Optra M410 Laser Printer (Pc/Mac 4K00252) Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Sharp, Speedy, Reliable
Comment: Never have I had a problem while continuously printing enourmous amounts of paper: it just goes and goes and goes. It has a 4 MB memory that can handle all texts documents without a pause and speedily prints up graphics and web material as well. I have a 500 page paper tray that comes in very handy, especially when printing three different worksheets for each of my students. I have printed thousands of pages with the Lexmark Optra M Print Cartridge that came with the printer and it shows no sign of giving out. Highly recommended.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: Workhorse that delivers superior results for Mac, PC
Comment: I have an office full of Macs, and PCs running Windows and Linux. I asked a colleague what to buy, and Lexmark was the first name off his list. Why? Because they really do Mac printing right, which was of paramount concern.

This printer delivers out of the box with great software for all platforms for configuring it. The front panel display is quite well designed for programming directly, but, even, better you can configure its Web-based interface to enter the most complex settings.

The print quality is very high, and its processing speed for complex, multi-page documents, including large images and PostScript surpasses expectations. By the time I walk to the printer down the hall from my office, it's already started spewing pages.

Recovering from jams has been a breeze as well compared to previous printers.

Another reason I chose this model: its envelope handling feature that doesn't require a separate, expensive tray. Coupled with Stamps.com's Internet postage system, my printer is a regular production machine.

As a computer book author (see Real World Adobe GoLive 5, for instance), I often have to print out hundreds of pages of previews. We ran through 10 reams of paper (over 5,000 sheets) in the space of two months when proofing our latest book, and the Lexmark never disappointed: no errors, no jams, no bad pages.

(We shredded the proofs when finished and fed it as bedding for worms - see Worms Eat My Garbage, a book on home vermicomposting. I get to eat my words, indirectly but literally. Not the worms, but via the vegetables grown in the soil the worms produce.)

The model I purchased is the M412n, which is virtually identical to this machine except that it has an Ethernet module for networking, including the AppleTalk support required to handle Apple-style printing.

I used to wrestle with printers before getting this Lexmark model, and my only two complaints are this: 1. It sometimes falls off the AppleTalk network, requiring a minimal amount of tweaking via its Web interface to reset the AppleTalk port; 2. the toner cartridge stopped producing good prints after several thousand copies, but a simple shake added hundreds of new, perfect sheets. 3. Feeding envelopes in batches requires a small amount of care. Although you can stack, for instance, ten #10 style envelopes, if they are at all sticky, the printer can feed multiples and result in one or more being poorly printed.

Hardly anything to carp about, and I highly recommend it for an office that needs to produce even several hundred pages a day of output.

---