Product Reviews

Laser printers aren't renowned for setting the design world on fire, but this latest series from Lexmark deserves praise for trying. Built solidly in smart black and silver, the E323 makes a welcome change from the usual graceless beige box.

Looks aside, there's a lot to recommend the E232. First, setting up the printer is a breeze. There are just two points of access to the machine: one for clearing paper jams, the other for replacing the toner and fuser. The toner cartridge will need replacing after 1,500 pages, while the fuser unit, which bonds the loose, powdery toner to the paper, will last for around 30,000 pages.

At this price, it's common to see these two elements moulded into one part, and at first glance it looks as though the E232 does the same. This has the benefit of making it extremely easy to just slot into the front. Slide a catch, though, and the toner drum separates from the

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fuser, making replacement not only cheaper, but far less cumbersome.

The Lexmark offers some nice touches, too. We particularly like the status lights on the front, which give a straightforward indication of what's going on. Also welcome is the ability to add a further paper tray underneath - a great feature for only £130.

Then there's speed. Printing out a 24-page document allowed us to test the print rate, and even on our complex mix of text and graphics, the Lexmark managed an impressive 20 pages a minute. The first page landed on the output tray after a reasonable 15 seconds of processing time. A second, smaller five-page job began 10 seconds after pressing the print button.

We have no major complaints about quality either. We'd expect any laser printer to cope well with text, and the E232 had no problem reproducing even very small characters. What was a little disappointing was the quality of pictures. Detail was reasonable, and at 1,200dpi there wasn't too much graininess. But laser printers aren't designed to print pictures.

Graphics quality is good enough for the kids' homework, but it isn't flattering on graphs or newsletters - we'd be happier presenting our business report printed on an inkjet printer like HP's Deskjet 5150.

Good as the Lexmark is, our current Top 50, the OkiB4300, manages a slightly better showing on both images and text, and prints pages at exactly the same speed. For this reason, the Lexmark just misses out on a Top 50 award.