Lexmark T634N

The fastest of Lexmark's small workgroup printers, and the most expensive, the T634N is a reasonably flexible mono laser. It uses a speedy 500MHz processor and has 64MB of memory.

So it's not exactly slow, and its quoted 43 A4 pages per minute (ppm) is not that far off the mark. The T634 managed to churn out 42ppm on average for text, pdf and mixed Word documents. That's impressive for something of this size, though we wouldn't expect anything less for nearly £1,300. Text quality was good, if not stunning, and images did suffer quite a bit.

The T634's rather tidy and compact outfit won't turn any heads, but is small enough to just about fit under a desk without encroaching on too much leg room. The base unit comes with a 500-sheet input tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose feeder. Among the various expansion options are a 500-sheet duplex unit and secondary drawer options with capacities up to 2,000 pages.

Besides the ubiquitous USB, the T634N has a 10/100Base/TX Ethernet port, and carries two extra internal card slots for extra expansion. The cartridge is a high-capacity number that doesn't exactly glide into its slot, but its capacity is a real bonus. Be aware, though, that replacing it isn't cheap.

The LCD menu is well laid out, and Lexmark has kept the number of buttons to five: just enough to make it simple to use and avoid the complexity of having one button that performs multiple functions and will confuse users.

Besides the drivers, there are various handy utilities including Markvision, Lexmark's web-based print management tool. It's very simple to use and, together with the blistering speed, makes this printer an excellent buy.

Contact: Lexmark
www.lexmark.co.uk

Specifications:

• 500-sheet input tray, 100-sheet multipurpose feeder, 500-sheet output tray
• 43 pages per minute quoted speed
• 1,200 x 1,200dpi
• Single cartridge
• 64MB of memory (expandable to 320MB)
• USB1.1, 10/100 Base/TX Ethernet
• 436 x 513 x 406mm (w x d x h)
• 19kg

See also:

Panasonic KX-CL500

A well-specified, network-ready product  20 Oct 2003

Xerox Phaser 3130

Impressive specs makes it worth the money.  03 Oct 2003

Samsung ML-2152W

The price includes wireless and other extras  23 Sep 2003

Kyocera-Mita FS-602ON

Low-cost A3 printing with a good level of specifications  08 Jul 2003

HP Laserjet 2300dtn

All you need from a workgroup printer  01 Jul 2003

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