Lexmark X264dn

Problems with scanner and macs

I had Lexmark take over my computer for three hours to try and get my scanning function to work and they were unable to do so. They don't tell you in their ads that the scanner will only work on a network, supposedly. The printing side of things worked fine, but the scanner would not operate. Instead I purchased a Brother 8890 and it worked like a charm.

Decent MFP For The Money

I purchased this Lexmark X264dn MFP for my home office because I needed a B/W printer, copier, scanner, FAX device (I use a dedicated HP color laser jet printer for all color printing). What amazed me about this product was amazon's PRICE which included free delivery (given the weight and bulk of this MFP this is not to be underestimated). Given this price, and Lexmark's reputation (we use Lexmark professional printers/copiers at work) I decided to purchase it.

My observations after three months of daily usage :

Printer/copier :

straight forward operation, excellent quality. Automatic duplex feature is very nice and saves paper.
I have had not problems with the ADF or the paper tray, i.e. no jamming whatsoever.

Scanner :

once you learn how to use Lexmark's "scan center" software, it is a straight forward operation saving scanned images to MS Word documents. The instruction manual is not very explicit about this and could be greatly improved

FAX :

getting the Lexmark X264dn to SEND FAXes is reasonably straight forward. However,
getting it to RECEIVE FAXes requires some work. For starters, the instruction manual is WOEFULLY INADEQUATE describing the FAX features; it contains no explanation whatsoever about receiving FAXes.
After I searched around on Lexmark's customer support web site I found several technical bulletins that explain the settings for receiving FAXes that have to be configured correctly (I use a single phone line with a separate answering machine which is the most tricky set-up). After some trial and error I was finally able to get the FAX modem to recognize FAXes AFTER the answering machine
has answered an incoming phone call.
If you want to receive FAXes, be sure to read these technical bulletins first; it will save you much time and frustration.

Bottom line : a decent MFP with a very attractive price, instruction manual is
inadequate for receiving FAX operation

Garbage product pawned as Mac compatible

This appears to be a well built printer. However, it is billed as Mac compatible - a flat lie. It comes with no Mac software, and customer support urges you to install it on Windows. Customer support readily admits it is not a good fit for Snow Leopard, but it won't tell you that on their website. They urge you to buy third party scanning software to support it, but can't name a software vendor that it works with. The driver is alpha-ready, if this. I love computer tinkering, but this is crazy.

With the built-in drivers from Apple, you can scan a single page at a time. Period. Use Acrobat Pro and it will scan 2 pages periodically before locking up the printer. Except as a printer, it is nonfunctional for all practical purposes with regard to any other feature.

The print quality is good on the rare occasion it works.

I have always thought highly of Lexmark when I used them with PCs. However, misrepresenting compatibility leaves me with a several hundred dollar lump of electronic garbage that has wasted time and resources for my business. This is not only marketing "puffery," but flat out dishonesty. Goodbye Lexmark, I'll be sure to pass it on.

Great Printer from Lexmark

This is a great machine for the money. Warm-up speed is quick and when it begins printing, it prints fast and quite. This machine is great for a home or office environment. The scan to email function is superior to all of the other multi-function machines I've owned. The scanning software minimizes the number of trips you need to make to the machine, so if the printer is in another room, you don't have to run back and forth a bunch of times. The duplexer in the printer works flawlessly. What else can I say, it's quiet, reasonably priced, fast, and has great print quality.

I did run in to a significant installation problem during setup. I set this machine up on 5 different computers. Everything appeared to go fine during the install, but after I shut down 2 of the computers at the end of the day and started them up the next morning, Lexmark's scanning software completely locked up 2 of them and would not let the operating system boot up. Since I didn't need scanning capability on these two machines, I ended up starting them in safe mode, removing the scanning software, and everything worked fine after that. I never called Lexmark's technical support to see if they had a fix for the problem.

For the price this is a great printer

Paying less than $300 for a good quality network printer is a bargain. Add that this printer prints and copies at a fairly good clip with excellent quality and you've got a winner.

Have not tried the fax yet, but otherwise I have had zero problems with either the print or copy modes. The ADF also works great and has not jammed at all for me.

It would be nice to have a second tray but then again we get into adding more cost to the machine.

This is perfect for the small office.

Disappointing toner capacity

I calculated toner consumption based on the price of their high-capacity toner, which they claim is rated for 9,000 pages. Don't believe it. The "low toner" indicator comes on at around 5,000 pages, and the printed pages look fairly washed out by then. By 7,000 pages, the printed pages look too washed out to even read anymore, even with lots of toner shaking.

This is with copying and printing text documents, many of which do not take up the full 8.5x11 area (e.g. photocopies of driver's licenses).

There are a few other minor problems. The network drivers consume a lot of resources and are a bit squirrely. The document feeder frequently pulls through multiple pages at a time and is difficult to unjam. Mostly, though, the main problem is toner capacity. Based on the claimed toner capacity, I calculated that this printer would have very low per-page costs compared to other printers. In practice it's not nearly as economical as I thought it would be.