Lexmark C530dn review

Felisa Yang CNET

Published: 28 Feb 2007

The Lexmark C530dn is a fast, high-quality colour laser printer that we recommend for any small office or home with high-volume printing needs. For around £255 (ex. VAT), you get a network-ready printer with a built-in duplexer for automatic double-sided printing. If you need increased paper handling options or more toner cartridge choices, check out the C532n (no duplexer) or the slightly more expensive C532dn. Lexmark also has taken laudable steps to improve the eco-friendliness of its laser printers by reducing power consumption and material waste, which benefits both your wallet and the environment. We're curious to see whether other vendors follow suit. The Lexmark C530dn's print speeds and quality are on par with the more expensive OKI C5510n, which lacks a duplexer, making the C530dn a better buy.

Design

The Lexmark C530dn is a behemoth of a printer, as colour lasers tend to be (individual toner cartridges take up a lot of space). The C530dn's toner cartridges are stacked vertically, resulting in a tall unit: 48.4cm high by 44cm wide by 51.2cm deep. It weighs a back-breaking 25.9kg, but two hand wells on either side help you get a grip if you need to move the printer around.

The control panel is very basic. A four-line text LCD is the centerpiece, although it's not backlit so it can be difficult to read in bad lighting conditions. Only eight buttons adorn the panel: Menu, four direction keys, plus Check, Back and Stop keys.

The C530dn comes with a 250-sheet input tray that can expand to hold legal-size paper, as well as a 100-sheet multipurpose feeder that folds out from the front panel of the paper tray. You don't get any paper expansion options on this model, but it should be sufficient for small-volume requirements. If you need expanded paper handling, the Lexmark C532n model offers the same 250-sheet tray plus an optional 550-sheet drawer, although you lose the multipurpose tray in favour of a single-sheet manual feed slot (for an 800-page maximum capacity). The next step up is the C532dn, which offers the 250-sheet tray, the 100-sheet multipurpose feeder and the optional 550-sheet tray, for a total input capacity of 900 pages. The C530-series machines lack straight pass-through printing, a potential problem if you're using paper that has a tendency to jam when curled. The Oki C5510n does include this feature.

Features

All three models in Lexmark's C530 series come with a 375MHz processor and 128MB of RAM, expandable up to 640MB. The C530-series printers also come equipped with a USB connector and an Ethernet jack for network printing. You can opt for a Wi-Fi adapter, too, for wireless printing. Using the printer's Menu option, you can change settings including brightness, contrast and saturation, make collated prints or fit multiple pages (up to 16) onto one sheet of paper.

Lexmark's C530 series is part of what Lexmark calls its 'green machines' — that is, printers that reduce their impact on the environment. The most obvious such feature is the built-in duplexer that comes standard on all but the C532n model. Duplexing, or automatic double-sided printing, reduces the amount of paper consumed, which is good for both the environment and your wallet. Lexmark also is touting its new laser scanning units, which are smaller and have fewer moving parts than traditional units, making for lower power consumption. Finally, Lexmark has separated the toner cartridges into two units: one piece is simply the toner and the other is the photoconductor. Most vendors use a single-unit toner/photoconductor cartridge. Lexmark's C530 series photoconductors are generally good for about 20,000 pages and the toner cartridges that ship with the C530dn will last for about 1,500 pages, so clearly, the photoconductor will outlast the toner. By separating the two units, you don't waste a still-good photoconductor unit. All this should save you some cash and ease your mind somewhat about your contributions to landfills.

Lexmark's toner cartridge options are a bit convoluted, but you do get a lot of choices. The C530dn ships with starter 1,500-page black and colour cartridges, while the C532n and C532dn models ship with 4,000-page black and 3,000-page colour cartridges. Replacing the cartridges is where your choices may get confusing. Lexmark has a return cartridge program: it offers a price discount to consumers who agree to use the cartridge only once and return the spent cartridges to Lexmark for recycling or manufacturing. For the C530dn, the regular 4,000-page black cartridge costs £77.60 (ex. VAT) and the regular 3,000-page colour cartridges cost £85.27 (ex. VAT) each. Under the return cartridge program, the same units cost £55.99 (ex. VAT) and £63.08 (ex. VAT), respectively. Costs per page are 1.94 pence and 1.4p for black using standard and return-program cartridges respectively, and 10.5p/7.7p for colour.

Performance

Among the colour laser printers we've reviewed in the £200 to £350 price range, the Lexmark C530dn made an impressive showing. It was fast across the board and made high-quality prints. It printed black text at a speedy 17.02 pages per minute, behind the more expensive OKI C5510n (17.92ppm) and Lexmark's own C500n (19.86ppm). It was quick with black graphics prints, too: 16.36ppm, again, behind only the OKI and the Lexmark C500n. It really impressed us with its fast colour prints, though. Even printers that excel at mono prints usually slow right down with colour, but not so with the Lexmark C530dn. It cranked out colour text at 15.94ppm and colour graphics at 13.56ppm.

Sometimes, you get fast prints at the expense of quality, but the C530dn delivered in both areas. The black text was clean, sharp, and dark — everything we expect from a laser printer. The same goes for the colour text, which also suffered only minimally from the cross-hatching that often plagues such output. The black graphics print showed excellent greyscale handling, sharp details and, again, minimal cross-hatching. The colour graphics print also showed sharp detail and smooth colour gradients, although we saw some banding in what should be a smooth greyscale. The colours were also overly red, resulting in a ruddy skin tone among other things, but that was the only issue we found with the print. Overall, we liked the Lexmark C530dn's print quality better than the OKI C3400n and found it to be on par with the more expensive OKI C5510n.

Service & support

Lexmark backs the C530dn with a one-year warranty. Telephone support is available for the length of the warranty. Lexmark's Web site includes a knowledge base, downloadable drivers and a resource center to help get you started on new printing projects.

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