EXCLUSIVES

By Bill Troop

Lexmark has always defined the state of the art in monochrome laser printing. Lexmark was years ahead of its competitors in the two milestones that brought high quality output to knowledgeable users: true 600 dpi printing in 1991, and true 1200 dpi printing in 1994. In the years since, Lexmark has been continuously evolving its base technology, bringing users better and faster performance at lower prices.

The $899 T522 reviewed here is one of the best values in the line. The base features include 25 page per minute printing, 32 MB of RAM, true 1200 dpi resolution, USB and ethernet connectivity, 500 sheet paper capacity, paper sizes up to 8-1/2 x 14 inches, full PCL and PostScript Level 3 compatibility, and Lexmark's patented envelope enhancement technology, for the most phenomenally high quality envelope printing you can get without your own letterpress shop. And there's no need for Mac users to worry about drivers. Lexmark has always been a faithful supporter of the MacOS -- it was even one of the handful of printer manufacturers to support Apple's GX technology. Lexmark laser printers always work out of the box with Macs.

Paper Handling & Envelope Enhancement

The T522 maintains Lexmark's traditional paper handling strengths. No other manufacturer comes close to matching them. They include special settings and trays to optimize printing on high quality rough paper, labels, and heavy card stock, and envelope conditioning. The T522 gives you the ability to create a large range of individualized, high quality printed products which wouldn't be feasible if you had to go to an offset printer. Custom reports, unique placards, labels, and envelope designs are just a few of the possibilities.

A traditional weakness of laser printers is envelope printing. For example, some top law firms still have their envelopes manually typed, believing that no laser printer can produce wrinkle- and crease-free results. But all Lexmark's premium printers since 1991 have boasted Lexmark's patented envelope enhancement technology. When an envelope goes through the printer, you hear a distinctive thumping as air is forced into the envelopes to prevent creasing. It works like a charm. If you want to produce impressive, distinctive envelopes that look as if they had been hand-printed at enormous expense, this is the machine to have. You have to see a 1200 dpi envelope to believe it.

Expendability and Configurability

The Lexmark T-series line is phenomenally expandable with myriad input trays, output bins, sorters, stackers, finishers, staplers, mailbox options, memory, hard disks, duplex options and network options. The great thing about Lexmark is that you can buy a product and then upgrade when you need to instead of being locked into a purchase from the beginning.

Upgradeability

Where most printer manufacturers vaguely promise upgradeability, Lexmark consistently delivers it. Most Lexmark printers support most of the expansion cards and accessories used in its previous generation of products, so you don't have to go out and reinvest in those peripherals when you want to upgrade.

Technical Support and Warranties

In the ten years I have been evaluating Lexmark's technical support system, it has been a consistent industry leader. Your call is usually instantly answered by a living dispatcher who takes your name, phone number, and a problem description. Then, depending on how urgent your problem is, and how busy the support staff is, you are either connected immediately or given a call back anywhere from minutes to a maximum of three hours later. I have always gotten callbacks in less than ten minutes. The great thing about this system is that you don't spend any time on hold, and you don't have to pay for the call unless you are connected immediately. A one-year warranty (which includes an exchange service) is standard, and there are many options for extension and on-site service.

Power Saving and Duplexing

Lexmark was the first laser printer manufacturer to offer power saving technology. All Lexmark laser printers have advanced power saving capabilities, plus two other ways to save resources: an intelligent toner-saving mode, and the ability to print up to 16 pages. Lexmark's phenomenal duplexing technology also saves paper and provides highly professional looking pages, not to mention huge convenience. Two things distinguish Lexmark's duplexing options: (1) they never seem to jam and (2) they work at full printer speed, while the competition's duplexers work at half printer speed.

Can Style and Upgradeability Co-exist?

The ideal of combining beauty with function in innovative industrial design was born in 1907, when the electrical conglomerate AEG hired Peter Behrens to be the world's first industrial designer. Behrens's influence can still be seen in many of the cars, tools and appliances made by European manufacturers today. But there is seldom anything in laser printer design worth noting. Laser printer design has traditionally been bare-bones functional and unfriendly, with minimal aesthetic intervention, or none. Lexmark revolutionized that paradigm in the mid-90s with a talented design team lead by Pete Mendel and John Gassett. Though other manufacturers have tried to emulate Lexmark's stylistic successes, the results are as unconvincing as when some clueless PC manufacturer tries to copy the latest design success from Apple. Only Lexmark, like Apple, really seems to see the picture. None of this could have happened anywhere but Lexmark, because Lexmark is the only printer manufacturer that makes everything itself and centralizes development. It has marked a turning point for the entire industry, resulting in printers that are more pleasurable to own and use than anything we've seen in the past.

Rationalizing the Workflow

In the end, printing is about productivity. Having solved the mechanical problems, Lexmark is now focusing on how it can boost productivity by reducing the cost of the workflow. This is evident in some of the new options available for the T-series, which is built on a modular approach so customers can invest in new features on an as-needed basis. One example is the multifunction add-on. This is being used in hospitals to make patient admissions more rapid. You check in, all your paper work is scanned, and moments later the documents are available to the doctor or radiologist who is treating you. Another example is the new $250 Image Quick Card option, which lets you print PDFs, TIFFs, webpages and most other graphic formats natively, without even opening the associated application, potentially saving huge amounts of time. You can even set up bookmarks to urls on the printer's operator panel and use them to access preprinted forms, and wireless bridges are on the way.

Summary

Alone among laser printer manufacturers, Lexmark controls every aspect of the manufacturing process, from the plastic case to the software, from the engine to the toner. The end result is a printer family that is subtly but significantly ahead of the competition. What good does this do you if you need a magnifier to appreciate it? It means you can now produce originals at your desktop that are sharper than ever, and compare favorably with imagesetter/offset printer output. The difference is especially visible in greyscale images. Also notable is Lexmark's achievement in controlling toner particle size, which results in consistent pages from the beginning to the end of the toner lifecycle. By contrast, HP's toner typically gives a light impression at the start of the lifecycle (when the lightest toner particles are used up) changing to a much darker impression at the end of the toner lifecycle (when only heavier toner particles are left).

Catch-up and the Future

Lexmark and HP have been engaged in heated competition for years. Lexmark usually leads in features, quality and price; HP leads in marketing and market share. At press time, HP dramatically announced its 4200/4300 series of printers, intended to undercut Lexmark's T-series. Although the Lexmark-inspired styling of HP's new products is heavy-handed, the features and price points are attractive. How will Lexmark respond? According to the printer industry's watchword, The Hard Copy Observer, "A quick price reduction is likely to occur, but, if Lexmark follows its historical pattern, it will not be long before the firm introduces new machines that are faster than the LaserJet 4200 and 4300 with comparable prices. This means that it may not be long before the market sees a sub-$1,500 machine that operates at 50 ppm or maybe even faster."