On Tuesday 28 December 2004 02:14 pm, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> At 9:34 AM -0500 12/28/04, Louis LeBlanc wrote:
> >On 12/27/04 09:46 PM, Parv sat at the `puter and typed:
> >> Lest somebody gets the wrong idea that all Lexmark printers
> >> behave as descried above, my Optra E310 laser printer --
> >> US$[23]00, 199[89] -- is still going strong. It worked/works in
> >> Windows 9[58], Me, XP. It of course just works, like a PS printer,
> >> in FreeBSD 3.x, 4.x, and sure would in 5.x.
> >
> >Some few from that time period (very few, if I remember the weeks of
> >research I wasted on my particular model) used standard protocols
> > and could be easily made to work with any OS. The majority of
> > Lexmark printers up to around 2002 (I think) used a proprietary
> > protocol, and they guarded it like it was Microsoft code. I don't
> > think they even released MacOS drivers. I believe most of their
> > printers now use standard drivers, but that's still no guarantee
> > they'll work with *nix systems. Some are explicitly supported
> > through the various methods, but unless it was, I wouldn't even
> > bother, myself.
>
> Sigh. We have a few hundred Lexmark printers here at RPI, covering
> a variety of models. We have been buying them since Lexmark was
> created as a separate company (a spin-off of IBM). They have all
> worked fine, printing from a variety of systems using standard
> protocols. In our case, we tend to buy Lexmarks for black-and-white
> laser printing. We have a few of their color printers too, but we
> have not been happy with the printing-results. Which is to say, they
> do *work*, but in general we weren't too happy with the color output,
> compared to the output we get from Tektronix (now Xerox) Phaser
> printers.
>
> We print over two million pages a year on our various Lexmark
> printers. They seem to do just fine for us.
>
> > > Mind that i am interested mainly in sharp and clear black/white
> > > text currently.
> >
> >Which would probably be a deciding factor in changing printers. My
> >guess is you'll get another year or two with good maintennance. I
> >vaguely remember reading somewhere that those standard protocol
> >printers were decent quality, but the proprietary protocol models
> >were mediocre at best. That might have been a factor in their
> >abandoning it.
> >
> >I'm glad your experience with Lexmark has been better than mine.
> >Myself, I'm pretty brand-loyal. When something works well for me, I
> >stick with it. When a brand burns me, I avoid it like the plague
> >unless circumstance forces me to take another chance.
>
> My experience is that Lexmark is really best at the higher-end
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I generally hear nothing but good things about Lexmark printers for
business; and very few, if any, good comments about Lexmark retail
(home use) printers.
I used to have a great Okidata OL600e. I bought it used "as-is" for $50
and it lived 5 years without any problems. After breaking it during a
move, I replaced it with a cheap Epson C82 that work flawlessly through
the warranty period. 2 months later, the printhead died. We then bit
the financial bullet and bought a new Okidata B4350 (black and white)
laser printer with the postscript option. It works great; and the
postscript option makes configuration painless. Okidata has printers
with internal print servers; but I opted for a cheaper, external print
server that can serve multiple printers.
If you research Brother laser printers, you'll find that they get great
reviews during the first 6-8 months. After that period, most reviewers
complain about having to replace the drum, which is expensive. If
you're looking at Brother printers you should add the price of a new
drum into the purchasing price for decision making purposes.
Good luck,
Andrew Gould
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