Lexmark X544dn

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Caractéristiques
Resolution	1200 x 1200 dpi
Speed B&W / color	23 ppm / 23 ppm
Ink drop size	pl
Number of cartridges	4
Number of base colors	4
Show all specifications

Scanner	yes
Copier	yes
Fax	yes
WiFi	no

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Nilofar Hadjanadjiboudine
Test date: October 13, 2009

Scanner and copier

A prescan takes 14 seconds and a full scan of a 4 x 6'' photo at 300 dpi takes 17. That's slow, given that a lot of scanners can do that in half the time, but still perfectly acceptable. It's the quality that's the real problem: the photos lack sharpness and have a significant red tinge. That means that this will only ever be a standby scanner, rather than your primary way of digitizing documents.

We had a nasty surprise when we tried the X544dn as a copier. Although the tech specs promise 23 pages per minute, we found speeds less than of half of that because copying the first sheet takes up to 25 seconds.

Handling

The X544 is a multifunction colour laser printer available in four different versions, all of which have an Ethernet port and support Windows, Mac and Linux. We tested the X544dn which has an automatic double-sided mode, a feature that's missing from the more basic X544n.

The printer ships with Lexmark Return Program cartridges with a lifespan of 2500 black-and-white pages and 2000 colour pages. Two other cartridge sizes are available: one that can print up to 1000 pages and a high capacity version with a lifespan of 6000 black-and-white pages or 4000 pages for each colour.

Speeds

The X544dn is fast with speeds of up 23.5 pages per minute (ppm) in black and white. The manufacturer claims that the printer can reach equivalent speeds for colour pages. We didn't quite reproduce those speeds with our test documents--we found it only managed21.5 ppm, which is still a very good result.

Speeds of around 20 ppm are pretty good, but some smaller printers run even faster, approaching speeds of up to 40 ppm. The same was true when we measured how responsive this printer was: printing the first page from standby took 14 seconds, but it took over a minute when we first switched the printer on.

Printing Quality

Our test documents were of a pretty reasonable quality with very legible text. There were, however, two small problems: the colours were a little too dark and that meant gradients appeared less smooth. A typical result is the bars on this graph, where the gradients are either too hard to sport or entirely lost in solid blocks of colour:

Compare the Lexmark X544dn to other printers in our Product Face-Off

Although printing photos isn't the X544dn's speciality, it does better than the average. While some laser printers produce rather odd results when you try to get them to print photos, this one will allow you to include a few illustration in your documents without too many problems.

Noise and Energy Consumption

Laser printers use a lot of energy when they're printing, and the X544 is no exception with its consumption of 500 W. But it also uses 21 W while on standby, which is something that Lexmark can definitely improve on.

Cost per page

The X544dn comes with a 2500-page Lexmark Return Program black toner cartridge, and three colour cartridges with a lifespan of 2000 pages. Once they're done, a range of different cartridges are available depending on how much printing you do, ranging from 1000 to 6000 black-and-white pages. All of the different cartridges are also available as part of the Lexmark Return Program (LRP). They cost less to buy, but the consumer must agree to return the empty cartridges to Lexmark for recycling.

Medium Capacity Cartridge

Cartridge	RRP	ISO Lifespan	Cost per page
C540H1KG (black LRP)	£63.35	2500	2.53 p
C540H1CG (cyan LRP)	£78.07	2000	3.90 p
C540H1MG (magenta LRP)	£78.07	2000	3.90 p
C540H1YG (yellow LRP)	£78.07	2000	3.90 p

High Capacity Cartridge

Cartridge	RRP	ISO Lifespan	Cost per page
C544X2KG (black LRP)	£199.65	6000	3.33 p
C544X2CG (cyan LRP)	£191.41	4000	4.79 p
C544X2MG (magenta LRP)	£191.41	4000	4.79 p
C544X2YG (yellow LRP)	£191.41	4000	4.79 p

With black pages costing around 3 p each to print, using either capacity cartridge, the X544dn is a little more economical than most of its rivals.

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Pluses

Good printing speeds

Automatic double-sided printing mode

Compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux

Good contrast

Minuses

Scanner quality

Colours too dark

Uses a lot of power

This is a good printer: not necessarily the fastest, but it's cheap to run and produces good quality output. It's not really a good multifunction printer though, with the poor scanner having a knock-on effect on the quality of copied documents, too.