Lexmark T420d Monochrome Laser Printer: Humble Office Worker

Frankly speaking, testing black-and-white laser printers is not interesting. It's been a while since they learned how to correctly print the text of 1 pt height, deal with very complex graphics and very accurately reproduce the radial lines so that the human eye no longer captures the differences between different models. Using a microscope makes no sense - the pages produced by laser printers are usually looked at just with the naked eye.

All that remains is estimation of satellite features of the machine, e.g., the delight of watching the casing, the importance and functionality of the trays, and the length of the power cord. Majority of the rating modern laser printers acquire within the tests comes from the auxiliary features.

Luckily, Lexmark T420d has no difficulties with the auxiliary functionality, as well as with everything else.

First, pay attention to the print speed. 21 pages per minute is enough for virtually any small or even not so small offices. The declared first page out time looks impressive, too. The 272 megabytes of memory, which may be installed in this printer, are huge, but the most important highlight of this printer is that even the most basic version includes automatic two-sided printing unit. In general, there is little remarkable in the unit itself, but its usefulness is difficult to overestimate, and it usually costs pretty money. So its presence in not very expensive devices with very decent performance is impossible to remain unnoticed.

The Lexmark T420d cannot boast of high input capacity, but with optional trays the capacity can be expanded up to 850 sheets. The printer can produce up to 50,000 impressions per month, and has a toner cartridge with large resource. This is advantage, as you'd have to change it more rarely. There are standard USB and LPT interfaces that can be accompanied with interior print server. Amidst other characteristics, the printer makes little noise and has compact size.

The impression of the printer is ordinary: a cube similar to many other. A4-sheet feeder resides within the base, non-standard media is input from the front; the ready pages are gathered on top. Such arrangement of elements is common for this level printers. On the T420d, there are two buttons, 'Continue' and 'Cancel', with obvious functions. There are six LED indicators: 'Ready/Data', 'Low toner', 'Load/Remove paper', 'Paper Jam', 'Error', 'Press continue', and their functions are evident, either.

Included are several types of drivers: only PCL, only PS, and PCL and PS together. All of them are installed and work seamlessly. Their functionality is good, too -- all that should be configured, is configured. By the way, range of potential users of the Lexmark T420d is not limited to fans of Windows OS - there are drivers for even such exotic operating systems like UNIX AIX.

The out time of first page is actually about t10-11 seconds. Given the 5% sheet coverage, the speed of printing do not match the specification, it fall behind for one page. The machine prints twenty ppm at 600 dpi resolution. In double-sided printing mode, Lexmark T420d spawns whole seven full-color pager per minute.

As far as printing quality is concerned, it's hard to say something significant. The produced impressions are great and pleasant for the eye. Even at 300 dpi resolution the low toner density, the quality of printing is very good. The distinction between the 300 dpi and 600 dpi modes is well noticeable, but the page printed at 1200 dpi with IQ Technology is a spit image of the page produced at 600 dpi.

It does smell ozone (and quite significantly) when printing, but there is no noise during work. Well, actually there is some, but not so much, and definitely less than from other printers in this class. Normal paper is served without any problems, we never managed to get the printer to jam it. However, it's not the case with rumply paper: it remains in the printer, and you'd have to give it some effort to get it. Thick paper is no problem, the printer swallowed it without issues.

Lexmark T420d may stand low in office the corner, and consume toner cartridges towards do its role quietly. Those who save paper and time will enjoy the duplex unit, and those who want to use it as main printer will be happy with swift printing. If you need a Lexmark cartridges powered fast printer, go with T420d.