The driver install went smoothly with no problems
whatsoever on two machines tested here (Celeron 550/Abit BH6, P3-987 Asus CUSL2)
on both the parallel and USB interfaces.
Once installed, each time you print, you will be greeted
by the Lexmark Control program.
Through this control, you can monitor the amount of ink
left in the cartridges, change buffer settings, enable or disable DOS mode
printing (since this is a Windows host based printer, there is no direct DOS
support), and even order supplies via Lexmark's website. The interfaces also has
voice prompts, with a male voice telling you things such as "Printing Started"
"Printing Complete" Please load paper" ect.. This little bit of "gee wiz" can be
turned off thankfully, although I do miss the female voice of my old Lexmark
1100. ;)
The printer has a maximum print resolution of
2400x1200dpi. It also offers a 300x600 fast draft mode, 600x600, and 1200x1200
modes. It's 15ppm/7ppm black/color print speed claim is for draft mode, and
although it's VERY fast, I was unable to get those speeds out of the printer
here. At best with a single spaced text document I was able to achieve just over
8ppm in black draft mode, and just over 3ppm color with an example greeting card
printed from PrintShop Pro. This is not suprising however, as I did not have
access to the "specific" documents that Lexmark used in their testing. Besides
that, it's a common practice apparently for printer manufacturers to either
overstate the speed outright, or use a very easy to print (i.e. double spaced
print text) document to achieve their speed ratings. *NO* printer I have ever
used has ever been able to reach it's manufacturers claimed speeds. Compared to
the HP932c, I can honestly say just from casual observance of the two, the
Lexmark clearly prints faster in draft mode, by a significant margin.
Next page: Printing
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