Lexmark C510n

Compact colour laser printers can be picked up for under £500 these days, so Lexmark ensures its £549 device goes the extra mile. For starters, networking comes as standard, and it works with many operating systems out of the box (including Linux and Unix). Colour print quality is also first-rate.

The C510n has a 250-sheet paper cassette that slides in at the front. Behind the main door at the front lie the toner cartridges; the developer belt cartridge drops in behind. There's no multipurpose feeder tray or paper-level indicator: this is a very plain printer.

It is, however, very easy to use thanks to simple on-screen print dialogs and a logical and intuitive set of control menus on the printer itself, accompanied by a two-line LCD status window. The print drivers offer a good deal more than the basics, such as Print & Hold and Account Tracking - both important features for serious network use. On that note, you can print as PCL or PostScript as you wish, and access the C510n remotely using the supplied MarkVision utilities or a web browser.

Print speeds are good, but less than the quoted specification. Our tests suggest real-world black-only print speed is nearer 23ppm (pages per minute) than the quoted 30ppm, but results for colour output almost hit the quoted 8ppm on the nose.

The C510n routinely renders text as small as 3pt perfectly readable without any filling in or break-up. Gradients and colour transitions are clean and free of banding, while colour graphics and photo images are punchy and consistent, thanks in part to the colour correction and ICC colour matching (with selectable colour rendering intents) built into the drivers.

All this, plus a realistic provision of 128MB of memory and optional paper handling add-ons, means the C510n gives you more features and flexibility than most compact colour lasers.

Author: Alistair Dabbs