Lexmark W812

This laser printer offers fast, heavy-duty A3 mono output

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Price: £1538.08

Manufacturer: Lexmark

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Verdict

Pros:
A very fast printer that handles text well.

Cons:
Expensive to buy and run.

Overall:
If you require a fast monochrome laser printer with the ability to handle A3 paper then this is worth considering.

Leo Waldock, Personal Computer World 07 Apr 2003

Lexmark's W812 laser printer is a monochrome A3 business machine with very few frills.

There are three models in the W812 range. It starts with the basic W812 variant, reviewed here, and goes right up to the W812tn, with Ethernet and USB ports, but no parallel interface, 32MB of memory and a second 250-sheet tray.

In our testing the W812 lived up to its claim of 26ppm, and was also very consistent - at two minutes five seconds for 50 pages of output, whether it was text, mixed output or a pdf.

We were very happy with the quality of text printing, as it was clear, sharp and precise. That's no mean feat at just over two seconds per page.

Photos, on the other hand, looked streaky and unimpressive, but this is not the printer's purpose.

On the business front, Lexmark has included Markvision Professional network support software to ease any technical wrinkles.

We found it awkward changing from A4 paper in the tray to A3 in the sheet feeder, using both the drivers and the paper dial on the front of the printer.

Although A3 operation is very fast, the printer demanded that we press the Go button after every sheet, which was most unwelcome.

Once the 6,000-page starter cartridge has run out, you'll pay £158.99 for the replacement 12,000 cartridge. After approximately 100,000 pages you'll also need a new fuser kit at £387.75 (£330 ex VAT). This gives a running cost of 1.7p per page, plus the paper cost.

As the printer is quite expensive and the running costs are high, it's definitely one you should only consider if you regularly print monochrome A3 pages of text.

Specs