Lexmark's X544 is a traditional small-office workgroup printer: it's beige, squat, heavy and designed to pump out an average of around 3,000 pages per month and a maximum of up to 55,000.
It has an excellent range of features, including an automatic duplexer, duplex ADF, 250-sheet paper tray and a native print resolution of 1,200x1,200dpi.
The X544dn has been around for a while, so doesn't come with Vista drivers. Fortunately, these can be downloaded from Lexmark's website. To install it over a network you should ensure that DHCP is enabled on the printer or that you've assigned it a fixed IP address.
Print speeds of 20.3ppm for mono text and 5.5ppm for our mixed-colour document are fast. Its automatic duplexer was surprisingly swift. We printed a full-quality duplex version of our 24-page mixed-colour document in five minutes and 19 seconds; that's 4.5ppm.
The prints looked glossy and professional. Overall print quality was excellent, with solid black text and smooth reproduction of illustrations and photographs, with only slight graininess and a faint magenta tint on pale backgrounds.
The 600dpi scanner produces banded images with too much contrast. This can make for some atmospheric photo scans but is a disaster when it comes to archiving or photocopying illustrations. Unfortunately, you can't control the scanner across a network, although a few network presets are available once you've configured a target directory using the web interface. To use the scanner fully, you'll have to connect the MFP via USB.
The X544dn is expensive to run, particularly if you plan on doing a lot of colour printing. A single page of colour costs 10.9p. Add the cost of black toner, and the full mixed-colour page cost is 12.8p. If you need duplex scanning and an automatic duplexer, the X544dn is one of the cheapest colour lasers to have these features. If not, Epson's Aculaser CX21NF is a better printer that will save you a lot more than the difference in its purchase cost during its life.
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Basic Specifications |
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Rating |
*** |
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Maximum native print resolution |
1,200x1,200dpi |
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Max optical resolution |
600x600dpi |
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Output bit depth |
24-bit |
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Quoted Speeds |
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Quoted speed, mono A4 |
23ppm |
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Quoted speed, colour A4 |
23ppm |
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Tested Print Speeds |
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Time for two 10x8in photos 1.0 |
1m 21s |
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Time for six 6x4in photos 1.0 |
1m 20s |
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Physical and Environmental |
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Standard printer interfaces |
USB, 10/100 Ethernet, PictBridge USB |
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Size |
463x440x537mm |
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Weight |
27.2kg |
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Noise (in normal use) |
48dB(A) |
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Duty cycle |
55,000 pages |
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Power consumption standby |
20W |
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Power consumption idle |
30W |
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Power consumption active |
749W |
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Paper Handling |
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Maximum paper size |
A4/legal |
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Standard paper inputs |
1 |
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Standard paper input capacity |
250 |
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Maximum paper inputs |
2 |
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Maximum paper input capacity |
930 |
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Duplex (code, cost if option) |
Yes |
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General |
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Printer technology |
four-pass colour laser |
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Language(s) |
PPDS, PDF 1.6, Direct Image, Emulations: PCL5c, PCL6, PostScript 3 |
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Supported operating systems |
Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/XP-64/Server 2003/Vista/Vista-64/Server 2008, Mac OS X 9.x/10.x+, Linux, Citrix MetaFrame, Novell Netware 5.x/6.x, Sun Solaris SPARC 8-10/x86 10, HP-UX, IBM AIX |
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Maximum printer memory |
640MB |
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Other laser features and options |
6,000 page black return program toner 0C544X1KG, £116, 4,000 page cyan return program toner 0C544X1CG, 4,000 page magenta return program toner 0C544X1MG, 4,000 page yellow return program toner 0C544X1YG, £109 each, 2,500 page black toner 0C540H2KG, £93, |
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Buying Information |
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Price |
£504 |
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Price per mono A4 page |
1.93p |
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Price per colour A4 page |
9.0p |
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Price of 2nd paper cassette |
550-Sheet Duo Drawer with 100-Sheet MPF, 3000551 |
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Warranty |
one year onsite |
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Supplier |
http://www.morecomputers.com |
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Details |
www.lexmark.co.uk |
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Tested Scan Speeds |
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Full scan area preview |
11s |
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A4 document at 150dpi |
11s |
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A4 document at 300dpi |
19s |
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6x4in photo at 600dpi |
17s |
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6x4in photo at 1200dpi |
N/A |
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Single 35mm negative at 2400dpi |
N/A |
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Tested Copy Speeds |
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Time for single A4 mono copy 1.0 |
19s |
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Time for single A4 colour copy 1.0 |
20s |
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Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.0 |
43s |
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Copy Features |
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Maximum number of copies |
99 |
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Copier zoom range |
25-400% |
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Max mono copy resolution |
600x600dpi |
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Max colour copy resolution |
600x600dpi |
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Fax Features |
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Fax modem speed |
33.6Kbit/s |
Basic Specifications
Quoted Speeds
Tested Print Speeds
Physical and Environmental
Paper Handling
General
Buying Information
Tested Scan Speeds
Tested Copy Speeds
Copy Features
Fax Features
