Отзывы о Мфу Lexmark B2338dw

30 years of using computers in the office and this is the most useful printer I have ever bought. It is as fast as a home grade laser printer (except for first page out, maybe), it is the easiest to refill (no holes to drill!), it is quiet, it can take a 2nd tray (and if the paper in the other tray is of a different size you don't even need to select the tray, the printer will know from which tray to take the paper. When the output bin is full, it will pause until you empty the bin, which is a neat trick. It can download software to do a variety of useful jobs, for example start one program and it will scan it to a hard drive, e-mail the scan, and copy it, all with one push of a button.There are about 60 different little programs, including one which turns the touch screen into a calculator. It scans and prints two sided. In short, to get a laser printer with all these features, you have to spend more than $1,000 according to our research. You can print from a flash drive or a chip. It can be used wired or wireless or both.As to consumables: the black ink is good for 2600 prints, and I can attest to that, and it's only $36 for a cart, cheaper than my laser printers. There are over two ounces of ink in the black cart. Now given that, many of you know today's ink jets use a little color ink always, and as for my office we print about 1400 sheets a month on this and the color carts need to be refilled about every 3rd time the black gets changed out, even though we print little color. This is typical for a modern ink jet. If you refill using the best ink from a reputable vendor, it will cost about $12-$14. If you buy carts only, each page will cost about 3.5 cents, counting that all colors are used even on black only prints.The construction is outstanding. The trays are made from thick, heavy plastic, and the lid is spring loaded and similarly made from solid materials. There is no need to treat this like other inkjets or cheap laser printers, worrying about this or that plastic doodad snapping off. Closing a paper tray produces a sound not completely different from closing a car door, it feels and is SOLID.One minor annoyance: if you are used to "dumb" printers and you switch papers frequently, note that when you open the tray the software asks you to either confirm you are using the same size paper or to use a menu to pick the size of paper you are inserting. Also, there is no single sheet feeder. If you are someone who needs to rapidly switch between paper, envelopes, and labels, this will not be the printer for you, UNLESS you get the 2nd tray.

I have now had the Lexmark Pro901 for almost a year, so I feel very qualified to finally review it at this point. I really want to like this product and give it high marks, but all-in-all this is not a good product and I would strongly steer you away from this printer and maybe even Lexmark products in general. I replaced an old and very well used HP Officejet with this product as an upgrade and hopefully to save on some ink costs.Maddening and frustrating having to deal with this product's printing and communication issues. I had my old HP Officejet for for 7 or 8 eight years and never once had these kind of problems. I will switch back to an HP product after this experience with Lexmark, I just hope that I can save you some of the pain I have had to deal with. Please buy a better product than this one and save yourself the trouble.PROS:-- The black ink cost is cheap and I do like that. I keep my printer set on draft quality and print in black only, so this has helped keep my ink costs down in addition to the cheap black ink price (the color ink, not so cheap).-- The touch screen interface is nice and easy to use, definitely a step up from my old printer.-- Print quality is good for text, photo quality is just average.-- I like the scan quality on this machine better than my old HP.-- It is more compact than my old HP, although most of the machines out there now are about the same size.CONS:-- If you have a phone line connected into the printer for FAX, the printer will come out of sleep mode and make alot of noise (even if it is not a FAX coming in). Then a few minutes later when there is no FAX, the printer goes back into sleep mode with a load starling noise. I finally just disconnected the phone line and plug it in whenever I need to FAX, which is infrequent.-- Setting up the printer to work on your network is not particularly user friendly. But the biggest problem is that I constantly lose communication with the printer over the network. Not just occasionally, but repeatedly. This drives me insane! I have had to reinstall the printer driver software 4 times over the past year to solve this problem.-- The printhead became dirty after about 3 months, so I had to pull it out and clean it off. Otherwise you get black or colored block marks all over your page when you print. I have had to do this several times over the past year to keep the printed page clean. If you are not technically savvy, you may feel uncomfortable doing this yourself although it is a fairly easy procedure. Nonetheless, this never happened on my HP and should not happen on this product either.-- To feed in an envelope to the printer, you must entirely remove the paper tray, pull out all of the paper that currently sits in it, adjust the paper guides in the tray for your envelope, print the envelope, entirely remove the paper tray again, return the paper guides to where they were, put the regular paper back into the tray, and replace the paper tray into the machine. It is a ridiculous setup, the designer should be fired.-- When lifting up the cover of the machine to copy or scan a document, the whole upper section tends to lift off of the machine. I am not sure why this happens, but it feels like you are about to break the top cover off of the machine when lifting it up. I am used to it now and know how to baby it, but it is a very poor design.BIGGEST PROBLEM:My biggest problem occurred after about 5 months of use. Paper started to jam in the printer, it got worse and worse, and then finally would not print at all. After about a week of interfacing with the Lexmark technical team, they decided the machine was broken and replaced my printer.......of course with a refurbished model and not a new printer. That was another instance where I had to uninstall and reinstall the printer driver on every computer. I did not have a printer for about a 2 week period, not even a free ink cartridge or discount coupon on ink for all the troubles with this new printer that had to be returned.

Going forward, since I am stuck with this printer until I have the time to research a good one and money to invest in a good one, I am going to post each time I have an issue so HOPEFULLY NOBODY else will buy this printer....well unless it was like 40 dollars...then Id say it MIGHT be worth it!2/15 - and this has been an on-going issue-when I select to take 2 sided printing off, it doesnt. I have to turn it on and off about 5 times so it will set.2/20 - Communication error with the printer!!!!2/22 - spooler stopped working2/25-Printer cant communicate with the computer2/27-Put new ink in and now it will not print anything!!!!!!!!!2/28-3/7- A few things have occured like cant communicate with printer, printer is no longer working on wireless network and others...just been to busy add themI needed this printer because I am in school, and I have to print out endless amounts of journal articles. Plus I write a ton of papers in which I like to print as often as I can to edit. Long story short-I was running to the store to re-fill my ink almost every three weeks. The salesman told me this printer would be awesome because you literally get 500 pages to an ink cartridge. On top of that, 4 ink cartridge were only like 20 dollars. Then, on top of that, the printer was on an awesome sale, and I purchased it for 100 dollars.I hooked it up, and from day one I have had issues. Something went wrong when I (even following the directions) tried to set up the wireless connection. What a great feature, but I stopped fooling with it. Since then, the internet connection has been functioning improperly as. The lack of time I had when I first purchased this limited me from calling to get it fixed. On top of that, every week I have some sort of error message. Sometimes it can't communicate with the printer, and most of the time the spooler isn't working. From what I have read, this can happen when you print a lot. Why would I get a printer that allows me to print a lot and not print a lot? During those times, I had to take the time to research what was wrong and get it fixed on my own.Today, I am frustrated more than anything because the errors will NOT go away, and I had to call customer service because I am unable to resolve the same issue I have been having on my own! I have been trying to get this thing fixed for at least an hour and a half today (I am currently on hold). This is valuable and I mean VALUABLE time I have wasted today!I think this product is AWESOME except for the fact that there are far to many error messages and time wasted trying to determine why. If they could make this product flawless, or closer to flawless, it would most definitely be a 5. As for me, the time wasted on the researching how to fix the problem and my time on the phone is faaaaaaaaaaar more than the time I would have spent running to the store filling ink for my other printer!So, the lady on the phone was helpful. She fixed COMMON printer error after being on the phone with them for ONE HOUR AND TEN MINUTES! She told me how to fix the issue if it occurs again.Since I did not submit this yesterday, I can tell you that it is the next day and I am FAR more ANNOYED!!!!!!!!!!! I have a communication error this time!!! And every time I try to print I get that message and it makes word not responding! I say DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT GET THIS MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Update- 2 weeks later-I am unable to ensure my document is printed using black ink only. After selecting to use black ink only and I am suppose to click "OK", nothing happens!!! :( So, now I am forced to print in color when I do not want to!!!!!Oh how I wish I was one of the lucky ones to get a printer with no issues!

I purchased this printer after an exhaustive search for a replacement printer to an older laser that was a workhorse. Since that time (about 2 years ago now) I can say I wish I had another for my home printer. This thing has been awesome.SCANNING - I am a CPA and I wanted to scan all of my client files into my computer and then securely store them online for a number of reasons. So I began the process. Since then, I have emptied about 7 FULL filing cabinets, and about 120 full 2.5 inch binders into my laptop and ultimately to the web. Lexmark has an "app" you can set up to your specs and then have a one-touch way to "handle" your scan job. Sure there have been a few snags in the beginning. But after that I have not had a single issue. And i bet I have run between 150k-200k pages through that ADF over the last two years.PRINTING - I print a lot. And this thing does a great job of printing. Color looks great, but I don't use it too much. But when I do it's quick and it looks really good for client graphs and reviews of retirement plans and investment portfolios. (Which is when I do most of my printing of color items). The black print looks great too! Most tax software has specialized fonts built in and so sometimes it is hard to find a printer that will handle it (in Alabama we have a bar code on our printed tax returns - so it has to be right). Incidentally, I just bought an Epson Workforce 645 and returned it within a week. Scanning was horribly (1 MINUTE PER PAGE.... UNBELEIVABLE!) but not only that i spent six days on the phone with tech support trying to get it to print tax forms and it never would so i took it back yesterday. But anyway, back to my Lexmark...The cost of printing black prints is extremely cheap. I pay 5 bucks for a cartridge that will print 500 pages. Hmmmm... a penny a page. I was in a bind at the condo and needed to buy a printer so I could stop carrying my Lexmark Pro 905 down there (my family REALLY loved that) to the beach. So I bought a HP3050 wireless all in one. Walmart had a deal on them I think I paid 60. So I later found out the high yield cartridge (which yields about 500 pages) is 29.00. That's five times more than I pay for the Lexmark.COPYING - I don't use this much but when I have the copies turn out fine. Not great but satisfactory for a copy. It is not too fast at copying either. Unsure why it scans SO MUCH faster than it copies but it doesn't really matter to me because if I need more copies of something I just print more. It is a lot faster than when copying.FAXING - Haven't even set it up yet.SIDE NOTE - Environmentally this thing is sound. Being someone intimately familiar with the world of finance I cannot be a Democrat. So that means I must be a Republican, so I know some of you are scratching your heads thinking "How can this be?" How can it be that some conservative could possibly give a rat's a$$ about the environment I thought they were all evil...." Well I am not the Easter bunny and while he may or may not exist, environmentally conscious/concerned conservatives do!! And I am in that boat.... and here to tell your that the folks at Lexmark are doing a great job. Not only do they make recycling these print cartridges EASY, but they even encourage it by giving me free ink when I send back 5 cartridges. What a deal! I can print cheap black copies, fast, for some of the lowest cost i have seen and also recycle. It is a homerun.

I had a great experience with this printer for the first several months, then printing through a network router suddenly stopped working. I spent 3 hours on the phone with a consultant who concluded that the network card was faulty. He said he'd send a replacement part. Two days later, a new printer arrived, but it was not really a replacement: it came with a warning about unpacking the new printer carefully, taking certain items out of the old printer and putting them into the new printer, then putting items from the new printer into the old one, packing up the old printer the same way that the new one arrived, sealing it up with shipping tape, and then calling UPS to pick it up to ship back to Lexmark --within 5 days, or Lexmark would send an invoice for the cost of a new printer. When I realized that this was more trouble than it was worth, the Lexmark employees I spoke with became belligerent. I told them that it wasn't a big deal if I couldn't print from another room, so I wanted them to take back the new printer they had sent. The kept telling me --employee after employee-- that that was how the warrantee worked, like it or not. When I said I simply wanted them to take the new printer away, they argued with me. They argued with me! Instead of accepting a CUSTOMER's choice to live with a defective product that they had sold, they insisted that I do what they said with a printer I never asked for. I called the main office in Kentucky, and the head of complaints, the "ombudsman," was the most unhelpful, unfriendly, insulting, and argumentative of them all. This so-called "ombudsmen" even refused to call UPS to have the printer picked up, so I ended up PAYING UPS to take the printer away --a printer that I never asked for in the first place.I have had training in customer service, and when someone complains about problems, it is a last opportunity to KEEP a customer or LOSE a customer. Lexmark, for some reason or another, prefers to LOSE customers, inconvenience them, irritate them, and insult them, rather than try to fix the problem. I WOULD NEVER, EVER BUY ANOTHER LEXMARK PRODUCT AND I RECOMMEND THAT NO ONE ELSE BE FORCED TO DEAL WITH A COMPANY WITH SUCH AWFUL CUSTOMER "SERVICE."

As far as features and function the Pro205 has served me well for over a year now. I really have not found it to be an ink hog per se, however, the printer prematurely indicates a low ink status and will stop printing if you do not change the cartridge in question. That is a problem, especially since Lexmark has instituted a firmware change that mandates use of only OEM cartridges which are very expensive.After going through the included "100" style cartridges which indeed empty quickly, I began to use the "100XL" cartridges which have a reasonable life-span. One of the selling points for me when I purchased this printer at OfficeMax was that I was told that the cartridges could be refilled and OfficeMax would be able to do this. This proved to be patently false as these cartridges cannot be refilled. Apparently Lexmark does sell a compatible cartridge (100A) that can be refilled but where you can find that service I don't know and I don't believe it will measure ink levels for you upon refill. Read the fine print on the "100" and "100XL" boxes.The real killer is that Lexmark recently instituted a firmware "update" that must represent one of the most despicable acts of corporate greed I have ever witnessed. When I purchased this printer, the manual recommended OEM ink cartridges but did not require them. When trying to search for a source to refill my spent cartridges I discovered truly affordable third-party cartridges online for one-third the cost of OEM cartridges. I purchased these and they worked beautifully. The FW update in question came up multiple times in the past few months and I could never seem to connect to obtain it (if only it never had!). Last week I printed some items, noted the FW update notice again and clicked on it and it downloaded. I never thought twice about this until I received a call from my daughter while I was at work, telling me she couldn't print her school project (talk about poor timing!). A Google search after trying the usual reboot, etc. maneuvers revealed that the error message "unable to authenticate ____ cartridge" was a direct upshot of this FW update, rendering my previously functional third-party cartridges and the printer inoperable.Go to Lexmark's FaceBook site and under "Notes" you will see their admission to this and in fact, their pride in what they call their "global citizenship", hiding behind the apparent legality of their maneuver, despite the highly unethical behavior this truly represents. While this was another item like the single-use nature of their OEM cartridges that is buried in the fine print, it is another example of a flimflam or pulling the wool over the eyes of the public.The true solution for this would be a corrective firmware update that would once again allow the use of competitive third-party cartridges. Lexmark's "solution" for my "defective" cartridges was a one time replacement of a set of cartridges. I'll give them credit for compensating my financial loss for the perfectly good cartridges that were rendered obsolete, though they still have not sent me the correct complete set. Hopefully package number three will complete that.The final kicker was the discovery of the problem I noted above about inaccurate ink level monitoring. While talking with the off-shore Lexmark CSR about the problem, she requested that I remove the ersatz cartridges no longer being "authenticated" and replace them with old OEM cartridges "even if their dry". I did this and they were immediately recognized, which was no surprise, however, they all now indicated substantial ink levels and are all printing fine. Thank goodness I recapped these, as they have been sitting on a shelf for months. I don't know why all of a sudden the printer is recognizing the ink that is present but I have read of others online who discovered that these empty cartridges are far from empty. I have asked Lexmark about this and await their answer.Bottom line is Lexmark is ripping off the public. If you buy one of these now, at least you do that with the knowledge of what you have bought into. If you bought it prior to the FW update then you, like I, were baited and switched after the deal was done. Too bad because otherwise this would have been a 4-5 star review.Come on Lexmark, be a true global citizen and allow the truly ecologically sound practice of ink cartridge refills on a local basis and the use of third-party cartridges. The latter is simply restoring the function of the firmware you originally sold me.

For the most part, I really love this printer. But as with most ink-jet printers, it doesn't last.We purchased this printer about six months ago for a business since this is a Platinum Pro business class printer. We had been tired of the average $50-$100 printer that would only last 6 months, and this one came with a 5-year warranty, so we thought it'd be worth the $250 (at the time) investment. Besides, the OEM black ink cartridges are high-quality, high-capacity, and truly the cheapest ink jet ink on the market.About 2 months after having it something went wrong. Upon changing the first black ink cartridge, the black would no longer print. We called tech support and they shipped us a replacement print head next-day that was easy to replace, as well as a return shipping label for the old one. I was highly impressed by the service and was happy I purchased something with a 5-year warranty.About 4 months after having it the second print tray stopped recognising there is paper in it when it was about half empty. Sometimes hitting the OK button that I had reloaded paper worked, other times I could open and close the tray, and other times I had to fill it up all the way with paper. 50 pages wasn't good enough, it seems.We called tech support. The first agent knew nothing and simply stated they'd replace the printer. My wife accepted her proposal. I was afraid that would void the 5-year warranty, and I knew there was troubleshooting that could be done, so I made my wife call back. The next agent simply power cycled the printer and it worked fine for a few days.Over the next 2 months the problem got worse and worse. It moved from the second tray to both trays. It also started failing to send a message back to the printer that the jobs were done, so we would have to manually delete finished jobs from the print queue in order to move to the next job. The printer is extremely fast when printing, but it takes about 30 seconds to send the first wireless signal to initiate the printing. When manually having to delete every job and wait 30 seconds when trying to print 30 different documents, it takes about 15 minutes of active interaction with the printer.The latest development to solve our problem was to link the two printer trays so that if one was empty the other would print. This specifically defeats our purpose of having two printer trays, as we have regular paper in one and shipping label paper in the other. This took about 3 weeks to figure out what they were trying to do and a bunch of supervisors working on the wrong issue because of the initial agent classifying it as the wrong problem.Today we called again and they did a firmware update. We had done this before and it failed to fix the issue, but there has been another update since, so we are hoping it will. When on the site performing the update, we noticed that this is a known manufacturer's issue for this printer, although they have not issued a recall or offered a repair yet.Personally, I'm quite tired of this and ready to throw the thing in the trash. Despite the high cost of a laser printer, I highly doubt I will be purchasing another ink jet. They are great if you are replacing them every year with free upgrades when purchased with other new equipment, but if using them in a business setting printing more than 100 different documents a week (even 1-page labels/packing slip like almost all of ours are), every ink jet printer I've owned, even high-quality professional ones that retail over $400, don't last more than about 6 months. The primary reason I bought this one was for the 5-year warranty, but a warranty with free tech support for 5 years who mainly troubleshoot and don't know how to solve complex problems isn't worth anything. Save yourself the trouble, and if you print more than 20 documents a week, buy a laser printer.

Let me start by first stating that this printer has really a lot of cool features. I bought this primarily for the following reasons:1. It is a wireless printer 2. It can scan; 3. It can do double sided printing; 4. You can directly email a scanned document to someone without having to save it to your computer 5. The ink was cheap.I do not print too much but this month my kids had some homework and I had some work that I brought home and so I must have printed about 50 pages a week for about 3 weeks.I do not use it to fax or for photo printing. So I had a cheap Canon Pixma 1600 that broke down on me after over 7-8 years of use. Was very happy with it. It was robust like a horse. When it broke I was looking for a basic wireless all in one. At Best Buy there was a Lexmark rep. who sold me on this printer and so instead of a cheap $70 Lexmark all-in-one I ended up buying this printer.Installation: It was a breeze to install and get it up and running. I have it running on Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac OS 10.6.5 ( I run Win XP on the MAC with Fusion 2.x and now under Fusion 3.x the printer works with both).Experience :Everything was fine the first week. It scanned, the paper feed works, worked wirelessly (woke up from sleep and printed etc etc. I was happy as a lark). After the first week, the print head went bad and I had to physically clean it to print properly again. Customer /Tech support promised to send me a replacement within less than a week. Guess what it did not arrive and when I called they just promised to replace the printer instead as the printhead kit was on back order. (But they did not proactively let me know that, I had to follow up on it). Ok so I get the replacement printer and voila what a pleasant surprise. They shipped me the Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 and informed me to keep that instead and send the Lexmark 901 back to them. Now I was really happy that they did this and the printer arrived on time!!Guess what, within less than a week the printhead went bad. This time it could not even be cleaned !! I chatted again with Tech Support (now Lexmark really has neat tech support. They remotely logged into my computer and ran a scan and took a copy of my printhead and saw how it was damaged). They said it was a known issues that the printheads heat up excessively causing the ink to stick. They said the entire batch/few batches were bad batches and they would ship me a new printhead from a batch where the known quality issues had been fixed !!That was a surprise. Apparently Lexmark has not bothered to do a recall or let the customers know about this issue but have instead let the customers experience this problem and then call them to get the issue fixed.So once again I am out of a printer and this time I cannot even print as the printer gave an error that the printhead was bad and would not let me print (but would scan). Of course Tech Support once again promises to ship me a replacement printhead within 1-2 business days. Of course once again it does not arrive and I have to follow up and they said how about we send you a new printer instead. Boy I said this is Groundhog Day!! I have been through this and no please do not ship me a new printer as this will not solve my problem as I am pretty sure the printhead in the new printer will also be bad. Why not just ship me a new printhead kit where the quality issues have been fixed. So they say ok, but will take 2-3 weeks before this can be done. I am frustrated as hell, but said ok, I will wait (its the holidays and I do not have any urgent printing to do).Now as luck would have it, Lexmark had also shipped me a replacement printhead and luckily it just arrived so I replace the printhead and I am able to print once again. But guess what, this time it would not print RED. It would print all the other colors but not RED. Instead of RED it would substitute Yellow. Boy was I mad. I had replied to a survey that Lexmark had where I mentioned that it would be good if some one were to call me and followup on the issues I was having with my printer.They were very prompt about it and sure called me at the appointed time and walked me through the issue and asked me to replace the RED ink with the ink sent with the new printhead kit (remember I was still awaiting the replacement kit from the most recent printhead on the new printer gone bad and they had simultaneously shipped me a replacement kit for my original Lexmark 901 printer). So luckily I had the spare ink and voila the printer works fine now. So this time I had a bad RED ink.So at this time it is now over 30 days and I cannot return my printer.I do like this printer do not get me wrong. I just want it to work like my Pixma did without any issues. But my life seems consumed by the number of issues.Granted it may be bad luck on my part that I had to have so many issues with Lexmark products all in one shot. I am willing to work with Lexmark and they have been good about support and I do not have complai

I love this printer when it works. My first printer wouldnt set up because the ink cartridge was bad (which kept the black ink from working even though the magenta was the only one not set up properly). Then it kept jamming every time I would print after two months of working great. They sent a replacement and it worked great. Then, it quit printing wirelessly.Frustratsion aside, the print quality is excellent and the replacement ink cartridges are only $5. Amazing. It is currently up and running great (and has been most of this semester of school). I was going to give it 4 stars, but remembered my frustrations and had pause. I would say if you are willing to have to possibly send one back to get one that works right, this printer is probably worth the money. It is inexpensive and the ink is super cheap.Update: 2-3-2013I give up, this printer is awful. Let me be clear, when it is working, it is AWESOME. I mean that. My girlfriend has one that has been excellent. I have not been as lucky, I mention my original frustration with the bad in cartridge, then the replacement printer, because it jammed repeatedly. Then how seamlessly Lexmark replaced it. Then I got the new one, and it was great... for a few weeks. Then it wouldnt print wirelessly for a period of time, so I uninstalled and reinstalled software until it finally worked... Then the new printer went on a jam fest. First I had to remove the secondary tray of paper, because it couldnt feed paper up the backplane without jamming... every print. THEN, it started jamming the paper at the printer head so it would jam, bunch up, then the printer head would shread the wadded paper and get ink everywhere. Then... just when I was ready to throw if off the balcony, it cleared up and worked stupendously for a month or so. Now it wont print wirelessly or through a USB cable. It's ridiculous, and I am sure I wont get a refund for this piece of garbage. Not to mention the excess ink cartridges I bought (since the ink was so cheap) Now I know why the ink is cheap, they cant give it away... because the printer will refuse to print, therefore the ink is unnecessary. Hate this printer and would advise everyone to stay away.

Summary: Could be very good, but marred by repeated spooling and printhead problems.I replaced a broken Canon all-in-one I'd been very satisfied with. I was initially attracted by the features and low ink cost.The inherent pros and cons, before the problems I'll describe below, are:PRO:1. Very low black and white ink cost. (Color ink is no bargain.) Additional free cartridges if you buy from Lexmark's online store.2. Duplex (two-sided) printing quality as good as simplex. The Canon all-in-ones lighten the print to a grayish tone when you request duplex, to avoid smearing the ink or getting it on the inside rollers.3. The touch screen user interface is well-designed.4. The included ABBYY OCR software is very accurate.5. Five-year warranty, if you register online.CON:1. No duplex *scanning* (the higher end Canons do this).2. No alternate paper feed. If I load a single sheet of thicker photo paper on top of regular 24lb inkjet paper, the paper picker invariably picks up two sheets. I must remove any other paper before loading photo paper. In addition, very thick photo paper does not make the sharp U-turn inside the printer easily, and I may get banding due to misalignment.3. Paper tray is difficult to close.4. The TWAIN control panel has a limited number of settings, compared with, say, the Canon equivalent.5. PDF scanning produces uncompressed PDF files, which are very large, even for bitonal (B&W) scans. I bought an inexpensive third-party product, Softi ScanWiz, to get around this problem.6. Scanning to different types of files when using "Advanced Scan..." is not intuitive. After scanning, you give a filename in which to save the scan. Depending on the file type (.jpg, .txt, etc.), different software will be run. For instance, choosing a .txt file will run the OCR software.Now the problems:SPOOLING FAILURES:On both Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit, on two different computers, print jobs sometimes stop spontaneously before completion. The progress bar displayed on-screen stops progressing. Any further printing attempts just queue up. The usual cure is to start a Command Prompt, right-clicking to "Run as administrator", and then do "NET STOP SPOOLER", and "NET START SPOOLER". Occasionally even this does not work and I must reboot. I have reinstalled and updated the drivers and firmware faithfully, to no avail. This problem happens irregularly several times a week.I have had multiple exchanges with Lexmark tech support about this, and recently had an on-line remote-access tech-support session, which found no issues that could be causing this problem. Later I found Lexmark knowledgebase article SO6683 (search on the Lexmark site), which describes the lxec_device stopping spontaneously. That's what's happening to me.PRINTHEAD FAILURES:Printhead issues are described repeatedly in other Amazon reviews. After about six months of initial satisfactory use, I started having wide swathes of cyan ink on printouts. Lexmark very readily sent me a new printhead and a new set of ink cartridges. Printing was fine for a couple of months, but now I find that after only a day or less of non-use, yellow and cyan do not print unless I do a printhead cleaning first. I probably need yet another new printhead.At this point, I am researching new printers. I have asked Lexmark for my money back or to replace the printer with one of their brand new comparable Pro915 or Pro715 printers. These new models have new cartridge part numbers and presumably a newer printhead design. Lexmark's tech support is responsive, and they are honoring the five year warranty, but it's clear there is an inherent design flaw in this printer. Interestingly, the new Pro915 and Pro715 have only 1-year warranties.

Like every accessory that Lexmark manufacturers, this thing is over-priced by a factor of 10. Its the only internal wireless print-server that will work with any number of Lexmark printers, so Lexmark has priced it monopolistic-ally. Its quality is also consistent with something for which a company has a monopoly. After putting it into your printer, you need to hookup a laptop to your printer over a USB cable to configure the print-server. This step is a nuisance, but since the computer will only be temporarily connected, its not a big deal. Next, you fire up their setup utility. After configuring the print server, the software will tell you that the printer was *not* able to connect to your network, even if/when it did connect to your network. It makes no difference if you use WEP, WPA,or a Radius server for security -- it will always tell you that it was not successful in connecting to the network, even when it does connect with no problems.You can't configure the print server's IP settings from the setup utility, which complicates things. To configure TCP/IP on this thing, you have to go through a bunch of menus on the printer itself. The only way to really tell if the printer is on the network is to run a report at the printer, or to try to connect to it from another computer over the network. If its not on the network, then you need to go back through the setup utility on the laptop connected to the printer, and/or re-configure IP settings on the printer's console. Its a real nightmare.This thing only supports WPA (TKIP), no WPA2/AES. So, if you have a modern router, you can't run wireless N beyond 54MBS because you have to configure your router to support WPA/TKIP, and most routers will fall back to 54 MBS for all nodes when they have to support WPA/TKIP. Also TKIP is not as secure as AES, so you have to open your entire network to those who can hack TKIP just because of this (very expensive) wi-fi print server.Next is the fact that Lexmark has not updated the firmware or the setup software for this since 2005! Their website implies that there is a newer software version, but its the identical version from 2005. Yet, they evidently have priced this and *all* of their internal wireless print servers at an obscene price-point. HP sells their internal HP-Jet connect cards for much less. There are much better alternatives to this. You can buy any number of modern wireless routers for $100 or less that have internal print-server functionality built-in, and hook it up to your printer's USB port. The only downside is that you have to have an external wifi router sitting somewhere near your printer, but at least you can do it and configure the router simply to act like an access point that talks to another router on your network.

This is a very nice business focused printer.As soon as you open the box, you realize you are opening a business oriented multi function print device. No questions about it and it is a nice feeling to open it.In the box you receive:PrinterUSB cableTelephone cable3 print cartridges (all required for printing)Quick setup, network setup, Quick Reference Guide, Fax Setup and warranty informationCloth (to clean finger prints off the touch screen I suppose)Software CDMy first impression looking through the documentation is that it doesn't seem as though any of the documentation tells you how to remove the printer from the box. Yes, it's a pretty simple process and takes little to no effort, but usually they try and make these things as simple as possible for everyone who uses computers (beginners to pros). Strange.As I wasn't sure if the unboxing procedure was included on the installation CD or not, my first step was to take the CD out and drop it in the CD tray and installed the software. Nope. Doesn't tell you how to unbox the printer. Yes, again, unboxing the printer is a simple, simple process, yet it isn't documented in an easy to see format. That's a single complaint so far.The software, while it doesn't tell you how to remove the printer from the box, DOES walk you through pulling all the pieces of tape off of the printer and installing the cartridges. It does this with a series of videos (both on the printer and on the computer for print head and cartridge installation, which is fantastic). It's very, very easy to set it up to print. This is just preparing the printer, not installation on the computer and usage which I will get to in a few lines. This is followed by the printing of an alignment page which it uses to automatically calibrate the print heads and cartridges. This alignment process did take a good 2-3 minutes though.The printer, the first time you power it on, can also provide you a video tutorial on using the printer. These short clips are useful for getting to the know the printer. This is a very nice addition and appreciated.To connect this printer to my computer, I used straight USB (easy, simple setup but required the printer be in the same room as the computer I was using, which isn't always something I do) and using Wi-Fi. USB connection essentially just required me to plug the cable in properly. Can't get much simpler than that.Wi-Fi setup also required you to use the supplied USB cable for initial setup. Once connected you can tell the printer to scan for wireless networks. As long as your network appears, it's fairly straight forward to set this up. I am using WPA security on my Wi-Fi network and it was astoundingly simple to type my security pass phrase and let the printer complete the setup. Again, simple, straight forward and easy. Everything in life should be this easy.I tried each feature one by one (sorry, don't have a phone that will allow fax capability; those looking to use this functionality, I am positive, given how easy the rest of the setup went, that this would be easy to setup but can't say for sure).First I tried printing. I opened a web page, pressed Ctrl-P (for print), chose the Lexmark and let it go to work. The page was mostly text with some color and it printed as quickly as I had expected. Printing a 4 page Word document, with color text and double sidede which the printer can handle automatically (you don't have to flip the paper manually) took about 45-50 seconds using the wireless connection. USB was about 15-20 seconds faster on the same document.Scanning over the network from the printer is easy as well. Put the document or picture you want to scan on the scanner, press the scanner icon on the printer's touch screen. Pleasant additions include menu options on the printer to scan to the computer, a memory card you install on the printer or scan directly to email. The last option requires you to walk through another mostly easy setup, as long as you know your email address and account password. This would allow you to scan a document without needing a computer on if all you wanted to do was email the image to say, a business partner who is traveling. You can also scan to your computer and have it opened automatically in email if you don't want to let the printer email the document to someone without needing the computer turned on. Scan speed was OK, but not blisteringly fast. Quality using the automatic quality setting came out crisp, clear and legible for a text document; the picture I scanned came out clear. No complaints here.Copying is about as simple as you'd expect as well. Put the document or picture you want to copy on the glass of the printer and close the lid. Press the Copy icon, choose color or just B&W, press the green button that appears on the right side of the display and BAM! Your document is copied. I first copied the text document I printer. The text wasn't as crisp as the original, but with a copier of any type this is expected and it was

Perhaps at home, or in an environment with a power user who doesn't mind spending a lot of time maintaining this thing's connection, I would consider this printer's performance nearly satisfactory.While I was surprised to find enterprise level security options in the wireless menus, the scan functionality was left wanting. I find the lack of WIA driver irritating, and the included scan interface seemed bulky and awkward. The included "manager" is mostly eye-candy and does nothing the web interface can't do, while somehow managing to be less user friendly and accessible than the web interface, although it uses more system resources.The deal-killer here has been the power saver options. While connected via Ethernet through a switch, once the printer hits sleep mode, there is no contact with it. Even with the latest firmware, it apparently turns off it's NIC when sleeping, requiring user interaction with the device physically to wake it, which may not update the print driver, showing the printer offline when left unattended for more than a few hours. Thus, enterprise level security options to connect wirelessly are utterly useless, when the device turns the radio off to save power.I'm all for going green, but the printer advertised itself as useful for workgroups, and I do not find requiring my users to touch the printer prior to each print job a workgroup feature. Furthermore, there is no option to opt out of the power saving features, meaning the printer has four hours usability at most before requiring physical interaction from a user.Finally, despite the literature claiming a 50% price savings over laser, I find it's closer to 20-30% when compared to most of our other laser models. This seems somewhat dishonest.Ultimately, unless you plan on powering this thing off between prints or connecting via USB, I'd go for a real workgroup printer, rather than a consumer model who wishes he could play with the big boys.

I'm very happy with the quality, functionality, speed, and per-page-costs of this printer Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro4000C Color Photo Printer with Copier and Fax. I learned about it from Consumer Reports which gave it a very high rating (just below a Canon all-in-one that costs about twice as much per page). The Lexmark OfficeEdgePro4000 does duplex printing very well (no paper jams so far) and can print from an iPad. It faxes and scans multiple pages well using the sheet feeder. The wifi also works well for multiple users from around a house or office.It can be a little complicated to set up the wifi and faxing and scanning directly from your computer. I needed help from Lexmark with the set-up of these things but since then everything has been working fine. The main negative is tech support which can be very difficult to reach. However there is a solution-if you can't reach tech support in a timely way by telephone, email LxkListens at Lexmark.com and a Lexmark Customer Advocate should be able to assist you. I had fantastic help from a Lexmark Customer Advocate who scheduled phone appointments with me, answered all my questions, and solved my set-up problems.This is a great small office/home computer, by far the best I have ever owned. It prints graphics well. However it is not designed to be a high quality photo printer. While it can print photos, you will be far better off with a dedicated photo printer. You could also buy a Canon all-in-one but you will be increasing your operating costs significantly.My final suggestion is that you shop around, including checking the cost of buying direct from Lexmark. The price has fallen and risen substantially in the past two months. However the purchase price will be dwarfed in the long run by the total of your per page printing costs. This printer starts with extremely low costs per page and allows you to save more by printing in black and white, draft, and duplex modes. I doubt that you will be able to find another printer of this quality and functionality that will be nearly as affordable to operate.

Ok this printer is possibly the worst piece of tech I've bought in the last few years... wait no, IT IS. Got the printer, set it up, alls fine except I can't add my email (to send emails of photocopies like it has as a supposed function). Of course the "tech specialist" couldn't help me after well over an hr (during which i believe i should have been eating pizza that night.1 month later...I begin getting printhead errors... WTF?? I just got this thing, really printhead errors? The most expensive piece of the machine just breaks like that?...I call "tech specialists" they make me turn it on to verify that the printhead still doesn't work. I am shocked that it was actually broken (I thought it was buggy firmware). They ship me a new printhead (with full set of ink). It arrived the next day, put it in, it works fine...Finals week was within the aforementioned timeframe, and I ended up getting a B- instead of an A in Abnormal Psych due to my inability to convey the info adequately in a handout on savant syndrome (its pissin me off man).Today (2 months later)...I try to print something off to see if the printhead still works (mom has been using the printer fine for 2 months and I assume it will be fine). It wasn't [connection Error] WTF!!?? really? i mean really?15min from now...I will have assembled a repair kit composed of the following items1. SOG Specialty Knives & Tools F01T Tactical Tomahawk, Black2. Estwing E45A Campers Axe Metal Handle3. Ka-Bar Black Kukri MacheteThe following scene will then play out in rapid (but with a gentle grace about it) successionME: (swaggers into the alleyway, all the neighborhood kids give me wide birth as I move slowly across the cobblestones)PRINTER: (sits on the ground in obstinate defiance to my ever so clear intent of his imminent destruction)ME: (pulls tomahawk out of leather holster fastened loosely to my weatherbeaten belt)PRINTER: (begins displaying [Connection Error])ME: Yer screams won't save your soul you worthless box of bolts! (theres an elegant grace about the raspy, guttural words that are akin to "in the colosseum" on Bone Machine )NARRATOR: The onlookers are held on the edge of unknowing, finding themselves shivering with fear at the horror of the events that are about to play out before them duh duh duh...PRINTER: (yellow ink cartridge begins bleeding out, forming a pool around it. The aroma that permeates the air around them is the pungent musky smell of urine)ME: Dude did you seriously just e-pee on my cobblestone driveway? Thats gonna take forever for me to get out of the white granite!NARRATOR: A Torrential downpour begins, all that can be heard is the sonorous plashing of rain droplets on the ground accompanied by the violent undulations of the oilcloth jacket worn by our esteemed hero (ME) whilst the wind howls like the hounds of hell...ME: (swaggers forward and takes a running leap into the air before the printer. Swinging forth the SOG Specialty Knives & Tools F01T Tactical Tomahawk, Black with luciferian power, into the printer the blade bites deep, red ink splashes up upon my brow as I swing again and again more and more red ink beads upon my grimacing face until it begins to drip down upon my white under-shirt. Forth from its sheath I draw the Ka-Bar Black Kukri Machete . With it I deliver the final death blow unto PRINTER, it's insolent malice towards me succumbed to my complete and utter hatred I had for it.NARRATOR: The scene exits with the flooded cobblestone walkway. Cowered over as if under the weight of the world is ME. Red ink has fully permeated ME's white under-shirt, ME's face drips solitary drops of watered red ink upon the Plastic flesh of the late PRINTER. The final vision we have of this scene is ME pulling his heavy-coat's hood well down over his brow concealing his eyes from the audience and the moon comes out as the thick fog rolls in, forever concealing ME.The EndLeave comment if you must, leave a "like" if you do...

The Lexmark S605 is a wonderful printer! The ink cartridges, however, have been designed in such a way that you CANNOT RE-INK THEM! You also cannot find a chip resetting tool to take care of the matter as you can with Epson printers. The Lexmark 100 series inkjet cartridges are on a "Return Program" and have been made, in my opinion, unusable. I WILL NOT USE cartridges that cannot be reinked! It's too expensive! The 100A series, I am told, CAN be reinked. However, they are hard to find and expensive, too. NOTHING was mentioned in the ad that this was the case (they could have at lease mentioned the "Return Program".) I realize that Lexmark wants us to buy their ink. TOO BAD! Until inkjet cartridges come down A LONG, LONG WAY, it is not cost-effective to continually buy cartridges. It's not like the cartridges have the print head within them. The print head is separate in the Lexmark S605. All of my previous printers had no problems with reinking the cartridges. In that regard I feel that I have been duped.Now, as for the printer itself, it is amazing. The photos it prints are studio quality. The colors match very closely with the original photo! (If you have been editing photos very long then you will have encountered the color matching problem between the monitor and the printer. It is normally VERY difficult to get the color you see on the screen to be the color you reproduce when the project is printed.)The wi-fi wireless connection works well. While I am a fan of the touch screen on my smart phone, I have not been very impressed with them when it comes to printers. I cannot be nearly as accurate using it versus using my computer when editing my photo for printing. I am sure that this point is obvious to most anyone. I have always wondered why anyone would want to do their editing on the printer, anyway. The tools provided on the printer are very limited, and, due to the usual size of the screen on the printer, are obviously going to be less able to do the job as would your computer, even using cheap or free editing programs on your computer. The Lexmark S605's touch screen is large, so, if you plan to edit from there, you will be more able to do a good job of it. The applets that you can get for it are an additional bonus.As I mentioned above, this printer creates beautiful prints. My previous printer, (an HP Photosmart), was okay, but not great. I had to use a Canon ip2600 to do my photo printing if I wanted great photo prints (that printer makes AMAZING photos considering I paid $29.00 for it at Walmart!) The Lexmark S605 is the only printer I have used that would do as well if not better than my Canon.Scanning with the S605 could be better. The scan preview screen is tiny and cannot be resized. My sight is not perfect and I am older, so I need to have a full-screen preview so that I can get the cropping right when I scan. And, as I usually do my initial editing in the scanning program, it comes up short. (Lexmark, you need to fix this problem!) Other than that, the scanner is respectable.Sorry for such a long review (and for ranting on and on about the cartridges!) About the cartridges, LET THE BUYER BEWARE! About the printer itself, run out and get one right away IF you can afford the cartridges or at least can find a reliable outlet that carries the 100A series of cartridges.

I am a regular Prime purchaser but I bought this at Depot.These rave reviews must be from people who haven't had them long enough. I bought mine in early 2011 and started having problems a couple months back.I like peripheral equipment that doesn't require you to install all their bloatware and Lexmark has plenty of that. If I reconfigure my system and try to take out any of the Lexmark software that is not needed at start up (to speed my computer up), the printer is not recognized so I have to keep every pop up and reminder that comes with it. If I add all their software back in to the start up, the computer still does not recognize the printer. Then I have to uninstall all the software and all the unnecessary modules that are actually annoying and put the Lexmark software disk back in start all over again. I am forced to go back to website and register product again. I tried not registering it once and that didn't work. I have to reregister and go through all the Lexmark web promptings about special promotions and programs I can be a part of.I don't know how long the computer will recognize the printer before it starts complaining it is not there. I have it hard wired not blue toothed.MY PREFERENCE with a printer is to only use black ink so I don't cycle through ink unnecessarily for work stuff that doesn't need color. I set the printer properties to use black only. Sometimes the printer resets and tries to put it back to all colors. When I do have the properties on black only, if any other color is low the printer won't let me do anything until I purchase the color that is low even though I am only trying to print a letter that only has black ink and I have a full tank of that. If the ink lasts so long why do I have to replace 100 XL color cartridges when I primarily use black? This printer is sitting at home and I am the only user!I have never owned a printer of any brand that demanded I refill a color cartridge when properties set on black ink only. Upon research of this problem, I found posts of other Lexmark owners complaining about this and taping the cartridges but that didn't work with this model.The OEM cartridges hardly ever go on sale so I have deal alerts set all over the internet to tell me when they do and I still manage to run out of ink before a sale comes up.As others who have preferences of control for good reason have stated, never a Lexmark again. I thought Lexmark was a good product but they want too much control over the owner and their need to sell takes precedent over the needs of the customer....and seriously ink quality clear and precise? I think I read that. I just had to replace color to get the machine to do anything. Then it had to run through all it processes of deep cleaning, extra deep cleaning special cleaning until it was happy with the amount of ink it used up. Then today after reinstalling the software again and starting all over it offered to print a color test page. I thought that looks pretty crappy. The ink saturates into the paper and warps it. I mean it is like the cartridges just want to empty all the ink onto one page if they can.Actually, I really only use black ink and in that case the paper is fine. Color printing probably the worst of all the printers I have owned.Faxes fine but can't get the setting to work so it will only recognize faxe calls and pick up so just leave it unplugged from phone line unless using.Scan to pdf has been a good feature but then any all-in-one does that so have no idea why I am trying to list the good features....

First of all, I need to say right off the bat that I do not have any emotional entanglements for or against this printer because I bought it used for 10 bucks. I belive this removes any emotional bias for or aginast the printer.Size: What I love about this printer is the compact size. It fits comfortibally in many office settings be that on a file cabnent or desk itself. The only problem I have with the size is the paper feed could have been designed a little differently. This model has a top feeder which I find makes the printer use more space then needed. Most compact printers I see have bottom feeders.Scan: This printer has "Pix Bridge" which is a good feature to have, especially for the budget price. The scan quality is great but keep in mind this printer DOES NOT scan directly to PDF. A little inconvienent but there are plenty of PDF conversion software you can get free on the web.When it comes to scanning, this model gives you the flexibility to scan directly on glass, or for the paper to be fed automatically. The scanning is a little slow for my taste, but it still does the job right. Keep in mind that this does NOT do double sided scanning.Ink: Goes through ink quick, and the ink is expensive. I would recommend you refill as compared to buy new.Lexmark ink always comes out vibrant and rich right out of the printer. But tests have shown that the ink pales in comparison to HP Ink. If your looking for photo printing, I would NOT recommend Lexmark, Always go with HP. But if your looking for Document printing, it really does not matter. Start focusing on features and price.Features: Again, for being a budget printer, I believe the features it offers are great. It offers what a printer SHOULD have. Fax, Scan, Print DONE. I wish this printer would have a Wifi Option, but it does not.Overall, this is a well rounded simple machine. I would not recommend this for OFFICE use simply because of the cost of ink, no wifi, no double sided printing. If your a casual printer, scanner, or fax user, i would recommend. There are comparable printers that would do a comparable if not better job then this printer, but again, do you shopping and compare price.

Leave a "lasting impression"? The lasting impression that I got was Lexmark does not care whatsoever about its' customers.I purchased this printer new and it was fine until it died 3 weeks later to the day. Because the printer was still under warranty I had to work directly with Lexmark customer service. Lexmark sent out a repair person but with the speed in which this printer expired I requested a replacement printer as I had no confidence that the original printer would last even a year given what happened in only 3 weeks. The Lexmark customer service refused.In the meantime I am making daily trips to my local copy store to print the materials and those trips quickly get expensive in time and money.So eventually Lexmark finally sent another printer. Guess what? No great surprise, it arrived broken. Hinge broken, scanner does not work and it makes such a grinding noise when printing that I cannot have a phone conversation at the same time. Lexmark customer service wanted to send out a repair person rather than replace the printer. I purchased a NEW and operational printer, not a repaired or refurbished, and I expected a new working printer.So I have now unpacked and installed two 40 lb printers. And repacked one printer for return (not an easy task to spend an hour trying to fit printer and packing material into the box.) And I am not out two times the purchase price as they refused to send the second printer until I paid for it as well.Oh, and did I mention, to add insult to injury, that the additional high yield toner cartridge I purchased as part of my first order came empty?No great surprise, Lexmark and I are now at a standstill and I am in shock with the shabbiness of their customer service, not to mention printer quality. I paid for a new working printer and that is what I expect to get.

I don't like writing a negative review because I'm a big fan of Amazon and I certainly don't blame Amazon for this disappointing printer. I blame Lexmark. After living with this printer for several months I've decided to ditch it and get one from another well-known manufacturer who I trust and have a good history with (and I should have never abandoned them even temporarily to have a fling with this Lexmark piece of junk).I wouldn't even feel good about giving this printer away for free. It would simply frustrate and annoy whoever I gave it to.I don't care how inexpensive the ink cartridges are, this printer/scanner has been nothing but grief for us since we got it. I can't comment on the FAX capability since we never used it.Printer: color ink runs out FAST. Printed pages often have white streaks in them. Printer takes a long time to warm up and is very noisy and "dramatic" when it's been sitting idle for a while and then you dare ask it to actually print something. This printer has also let me down at critical times by running out of ink right when I needed it most, in spite of the fact that the estimated ink remaining display showed over 75% ink remaining.Scanner: the scanner feed mechanism is cheap trash. It jams far more than it feeds. Had to use the manual flatbed scanning technique 99% of the time, which is very tedious. This model doesn't allow you to scan in legal size documents or really anything much bigger than 8.5" x 11". If you have a lot of double-sided documents to scan and/or odd-sized paper, don't bother with this one.Software: it nags you repeatedly to register it, even when you click cancel every time. This is a network printer, and many of us will likely be installing the drivers and software on multiple PCs. We don't want to be nagged on every single one of them. Let me register the printer ONCE and then get out of my face, Lexmark. Stop nagging me. Or at least give me the option to turn off the nag screens permanently after the first time and then respect that choice.I don't know if it's true, but I've also read online in more than one source that the Lexmark software constanly "phones home" to the motherhship with your printer usage data. If we want to participate in your passive-aggressive market research, we'll tell you. Don't be stealthy about it, jerks.I realize this is a very inexpensive printer with probably too many features packed into such a small sized unit. We get what we pay for when it comes to hardware. Shame on me for going the cheap route. It really does none of its "all in one" functions very well. I tried to use print, copy, and scan many times and it was always a nuisance. The FAX transmission may or may not work well--never tried it--but with scanning so difficult at least half of the FAXing process would always be a tiresome chore.There are at least two other printer manufacturers that are far superior to Lexmark. You probably already know their names. I strongly suggest you don't be fooled by the 'cheapest ink in the biz' advertising and pass Lexmark over for one of the better printers. It's not cheap if you have to waste your time constantly battling a device which should be a reliable silent partner that you don't even have to think about it other than to load paper and ink occasionally.In other words: just print or scan my freakin' document and let me get on with my life already. Stop nagging me, stop making so much noise, and stop being so high maintenance. We want to use our printers and move on to the next task, not babysit them day in and day out.

Bought this in June 2012 and in that time I must have called tech support about 5-6 times due to repeated malfunctioning of the device driver software/ firmware. Worked fine initially, but then the fax malfunctioned, it would not send faxes unless you powered off the machine & turned it back on. Then it would print goobly goop characters and continue printing without end until you took out the paper tray to give you a chance to cancel the print job. Happened most often with PDF files. Tech support said it needed an updated device driver, did that, but problems reoccurred. They then sent me a replacement machine, was assured this had the most up to date device driver. OK tried it out, worked for a couple of weeks, but then the same issue with goobly goop prints - again with pdf file print jobs, drove me nuts. Only thing that seems to cure it is to power off and then on. Spent probably over 10 hour on the phone with Lexmark Tech support over the life of ownership. After the most recent incident, I demanded a refund as this machine is too unreliable, wasted too much of my time and the software/firmware is programmed with too many bugs. They even seem to acknowledge it as they said they get many calls on those issues. I think another reviewer hit it on the head - any updates to windows or an application you run screws up the device driver. That shouldn't be. Piss poor programming by Lexmark in my opinion!Whomever wrote and/or approved the release of the device driver/firmware programming should be SHOT! The worst office product ever! Will never buy another LEXMARK product again! They deserve to go out of business for releasing a product so unreliable to the marketplace. 5-6 tech support incidents over 6 months is about 1 a month.LEXMARK = LEMON - stay away!

As the owner of a new startup small business, I knew I needed to make an impact to get customers' attention. Our product is market research and advice - only about a million other firms compete with us! we've emailed clients with copies of our reports, but these days folks get so much email that I wasn't sure it was terribly effective. We'd get confirmation a few folks had opened the emails but that was it. Very little response or feedback. On the other hand, the response to a few physical mailings (reports printed on nice glossy paper) had been very positive. Folks would send us polite responses even if they weren't interested in our services.So we put together a booklet with a cover sheet, a quick overview of our firm and some copies of our reports. To stand out, we put a ribbon of pictures relevant to our industry on the cover page.Well, not surprisingly, our 5-year old HP color laser spat out grainy cover graphics with plenty of banding. It also did an "ok" job on the color charts and graphis in the reports. A national office supply store quoted us $2/page for full-bleed cover pages and $1/page for standard cover pages. If we wanted color copies and supplied our own paper, they would charge $0.50/page. We share a floor with a few other small businesses and the office management company offered to do it for $0.35/page. Both the office and the national chain used giant 4' tall and 5' wide Xerox machines. We realized we were looking at thousands of dollars per mailing. So we decided to try this unit.I wasn't terribly hopeful until it printed the fruit bowl demo page. It looked great. So I tried our cover page with the photo ribbon. Stunning! The printer blew the office's Xerox and the major chains' Xerox machines out of the water at 600 dpi! We ran dozens of pages through with increasingly complex graphics at increasingly large sizes and it didn't blink. If anything, it showed up flaws in low-res pics. High-res pics took a little longer but still came out looking good. Color performance is running at the advertised speeds. Overall, we have absolutely no problems with it. I wouldn't use it as a photo printer, but it seems just fine for business graphics.We've estimated our cost for 5,000 pages at $350 for the printer, approximately $300 for extra toner and $250 for paper. Total of around $900. That's less than half what it would have cost us to run 5,000 pages from a commercial place. Even if we use $600 of toner we will come out ahead. Plus, we will have a printer we can use in the future. It has a rated duty-cycle of 55,000 pages/month so I'm not worried about durability. Lexmark also has a "return 10, get 1 free" program and a free imaging kit program if you register your machine.Overall, this has been a spectacular buy for us. We can now spend our money reaching more people and have our own in-house printer. No more $0.35/page samples or budget-busting mailings. 5 unequivocal stars.

The Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901 has gotten quite a bit of press given that it can use black ink cartridges that cost $5. Clearly, that distinction is unique among inkjet printers, most of which are sold at or near a loss so that the manufacturer can recoup expenses on the sale of (extremely) high-margin replacement cartridges. So, does that feature make this printer worth the purchase? Perhaps...but perhaps not.> Why?Sure, the black cartridge retails for $5, but the three color cartridges will set you back more than $50. Thus, your savings (and cost per copy) will very much depend on your usage. If you are careful to print and copy in black and white, then this printer will likely prove to be quite inexpensive for you - approximately 1 cent per page given that the black cartridge is rated for 500 average pages of text. On the other hand, if you print a mix of materials, your cost per page could actually be more than competing inkjets. HP has a white paper on their website that claims that their cost per page is actually *lower* than Lexmark's for *color* content. Amazon is not a fan of links in reviews, but fire up Google and search for "HP Officejet / Officejet Pro vs. Lexmark Cost-Per-Page Comparison" if you are interested.Oh well, no argument, $5 is a good deal for black and white output. So good, in fact, that the cashier at Office Depot did a double take when he rang up three of them for me, asking, "is this really the correct price?" Thus, if you limit your color printing/copying, the Pro901 (and related models, e.g., 905) really *can* represent quite a savings in comparison with competing models. If instead, you print significant amounts of color content, I would call it a wash.> So, how is it as a printer?In a word, decent. Text is dark and clear, unlike many competing models. Photographs also seem fairly decent...especially on photo paper. My in-store tests showed that it fared very well in comparison to the lauded Epson Artisan 810 on plain paper. That said, most reviewers claim that the Artisan is superior on photo paper, which one would expect given that the Artisan uses a 6-color cartridge system. Regardless, photographs looked good enough to my eye...and the Pro901's text quality is far better than the Artisan's in my opinion. Obsessable[dot]com has a detailed review that focuses on print quality if that issue is your primary concern.The printer also has a removable tray that holds either 150 sheets of paper (up to legal size) or photo paper...but not both simultaneously (as does the Epson Artisan line). You can add a second tray to the Pro901, thereby upgrading your 901 to a 905, but that option is fairly pricey (at the moment).The output tray is really just an extendable plastic arm, but it is fairly rigid...and seems about ten times more rugged than the flip-out equivalent on the Artisan 810.> How about scanning and copying?Scanning quality looks good. To scan, you can place the document directly on the glass or use the document feeder. Many have reported problems using the feeder, but it worked quite well for me. That said, the controls are where this unit really shines for scanning and copying...but more on that topic later.> What about faxing?Well, the fax uses the aforementioned printer and scanner for the fax operation, so the physical aspects of faxing are also decent, as one would infer from the discussion of those features. Once again, where faxing really shines, however, relates to the controls...which brings us to...> How are the controls?Well, the controls on the device can be summed up in one word -- fantastic.The device has a 4.3" full color touch screen that is really striking. Of course, a decent screen without a decent UI is a waste...and Lexmark did not waste the screen. The UI consists of beautifully rendered 3D controls that are laid out intuitively. The user interface strives to keep each screen simple and clear in purpose, yet also provides easy access to more advance features that are relevant to the current operation at a touch. In general, they allow quick access to all device features and do so in a manner that does not require a Computer Science degree to access all of the useful settings. The beauty and intuitiveness of the display and the controls must be seen and used to be appreciated fully, but perhaps it suffices to say that even the most non-technical user in my house is able to perform advanced operations with this device. I wasn't particularly looking for a touch screen, but there is no turning back after using this one.With regards to specifics, the controls allow you to perform simple copying and faxing functions as you would expect, but also allow you to initiate document scans that are sent directly to any computer on your network (provided it has the driver software installed) or to a recipient via email. Specifying recipients for either the fax or email can be either by direct entry or by using the device's embedded address bo

I only write negative reviews when I feel it's my duty to warn people. Here goes:I've had my Lexmark for less than three years and they've replaced it twice. At first I was grateful and impressed that they'd do that, but the second time I just wanted the friggin' thing to work -- no packing it up and sending it back again! And I've literally spent HOURS on the phone with technicians, HOURS. Today I had to call again because I'd (dumbly, I suppose, in retrospect) downloaded an update. Suddenly my printer, with its network light beaming green, would not print. I went to the setup manual, followed the reconnection instructions, and got to where it told me the connection had been made -- nope, it hadn't! The phone wait was 15 to 20 minutes so I did an online chat with someone who had me check ink levels, etc. -- I TOLD him it wasn't a printing problem but a connection problem, but he had to go through the steps. Then he sent me to a page repeating the instructions I'd already followed, mentioning that for *software* problems I had to pay for help. And they created the problem!Finally I went to a Mac page and decided -- with some trepidation since I'm no expert -- that I'd do what someone else had done with a similar though not identical problem, and un- and re-install the software. That worked, so now I have outdated software, but the machine is printing again.I SO want a new printer but can't do it right now. I would never, ever buy another Lexmark. Did I just happen to get lemons? Well, look at the stats on how people rated this product and draw your own conclusions.