Lexmark E233 review

Lexmark's printers take the prize for sheer design chutzpah.

The black-and-silver cases, which are identical apart from the small product number badge on the front, are definite style statements that put platinum-plastics to shame. Whether you like the style is a subjective thing, but they're certainly distinctive.

The Lexmark E233 is the cheaper of the pair, being both a USB-only and a non-PostScript device. Neither of these points should put you off unless you know you need such features - for example, if you're going to use it to check professional DTP work.

In the standard text-printing speed tests, the E233 performed particularly well, with only its brother, the E323n, coming in ahead. The quality of the output also proved to be good. Despite this, things weren't all perfect: when we printed multiple-page documents with the collation option checked in the Print dialog, we noticed a bit of a quirk. The first set of pages was printed quickly, but then the printer paused for around half a minute before proceeding with the rest of the document copies. This doesn't happen when printing uncollated, where all copies of the first page are printed, then all copies of the second, and so on. If you don't print multiple copies of a document, this won't be an issue, but it could cause mild frustration if you do.

The default halftone screen was a little coarser than we expected, but this can be improved by choosing better imaging modes in standard Print dialogs. The best 'image quality' option emulates 2400dpi printing, and manages smoother results with relatively minimal impact on print times.

When we printed envelopes through the manual-feed slot to see how it handled non-standard media, the E233 produced a generally good print. However, it did crease the envelope a little at the far end as it pulled it through its rollers. At that point, around 4cm from the far end, it smudged the output a little. Curiously, when we printed envelopes on the wrong side to see whether it could cope with that, it didn't crease them at all.

Putting its minor collation and default halftone screen issues aside, the Lexmark E233 is a very capable little printer, and is certainly one to consider if you don't need the bells-and-whistles features that its big brother provides.