Lexmark X204N Review June 27, 2011 10:59 by Matt Bird

Overview

The Lexmark X204n is a compact and versatile SOHO multifunction printer with a small footprint and a no-nonsense look. High speed and high quality text prints are its most impressive features. It’s equally speedy on greyscale graphics, though they’re less well printed. The feature set is broad and is well supported by the bundled software. During our tests, we discovered a PostScript driver error which needs to be put right. Otherwise, a good sturdy performer.

Ratings

Lexmark X204n

Main Review

The Lexmark X204n is a business-like multifunction mono laser with clean lines to its compact cream and grey exterior. A 30-sheet Automatic Document Feed sits above the ultra-slim Contact Image Sensor scanner unit, giving the whole printer a very trim appearance. All of the controls on the inset front panel are well laid out around the central 2-line by 16-character LCD display. Settings are controlled by five navigation buttons and a trio of mode buttons to change between copy, scan and fax. A fax keypad and related keys complete the array of controls. Just below the front panel is single-sheet, multi-purpose slot for special media and, below this, a 250-sheet paper tray. USB and Ethernet sockets and others for handset and phone line sit at the back of the machine. This printer comes with an extensive range of software including Presto! PageManager, Lexmark’s Scan Center and emulated drivers for both PCL and PostScript. The machine is compatible with Windows, OS X, several flavours of Linux, Citrix MetaFrame, Novell and UNIX. We found a problem with the PostScript emulation driver, where multi-page printouts paused for nearly 10 seconds between pages. Lexmark technical support experienced the same fault on their test machine, so you should check the state of the PS driver before buying. Once we’d been sent a replacement PCL driver, the printer ran without error and speeds were impressive. 5-page and 20-page documents yielded speeds of 15ppm and 17ppm respectively and a five-page text and graphic document was only fractionally slower. A photo print at 1,200dpi completed in 19 seconds. When printing at 1,200dpi, text is very dense, sharp and clear, but when it comes to greyscale graphics, only lighter shades are represented smoothly – everything below mid-tone comes out very dark. The same problem occurs on greyscale scanned copy, and photographs come through too dark, too. The photo print was better, although with some banding and most shadow details were lost. The consumables for the Lexmark X204n come as a two-part drum and toner unit. The drum runs for 25,000 pages, while each toner cartridge lasts for 2,500 pages and to renew the toner, you slide the whole assembly from the front of the machine and clip in a new toner cartridge. The page cost is 3p, which is higher than for some of its rivals in the same class. Maintenance costs, however, will be low because of the ease of changing consumables.