Lexmark E120n review

Gallery

Verdict:

If you need a printer that you can share easily between users on a network, the E120n is ideal. It's expensive to run, though, and the Oki B4100's reduced price means the E120n just misses out on a Budget Buy award in this test.

Review Date: 21 Aug 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Simon Handby

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

For its price, Lexmark's E120n is unusually well specified.

It's the only printer in this test with a wired Ethernet port as standard, so you can use a network cable to plug it straight into a broadband router at home or share it easily with an office workgroup. It has a built-in web server, so network users can access advanced configuration settings via their web browser.

The E120n's paper input tray is the smallest in the group, but it's the only printer with a multipurpose tray that accepts more than one sheet of paper. This could be useful for addressing a few envelopes at a time. The E120n is one of only a few printers here that can print envelopes without creasing them, although each makes a worrying crackling noise as it passes through the printer.

Installing the E120n over our network was no more complicated than installing the other printers using a USB cable. The printer automatically produced a status sheet with useful network information, but we didn't need it. Lexmark's excellent install program was able to find and install the printer without our help.

The printer's physical setup is simple, and involves removing some packing material from the consumables and refitting them. You'll soon exhaust the measly 500-sheet starter toner, though, and each replacement costs £40 or so. The separate drum is rated for 25,000 pages, so light or medium users shouldn't need to replace it.

The E120n isn't the quickest printer in this group, but it managed to keep pace with all but the fastest printers here. It performed particularly quickly when printing our two photo documents. The E120n produces bold black text. Its graphics were free of banding and showed subtle and accurate use of shading. They did have a more visible, granular dither pattern than most, though.

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