12 Monochrome Laser Printers

Lexmark E350d

The Lexmark E350d is a big brother to the E120n in all the ways that count. It's bigger, faster, and trades built-in network connectivity for a duplexer to support double-sided printing. At an MSRP of $350, with street prices for less than $300, it's also double the price of the E120n. Let's see what doubling-up might do for an interested buyer.

The big block format in silver and grey lives on in the Lexmark E350d.

The 350d offers output speeds of up to 35-ppm single-sided, and 16 sheets per minute double-sided, making it the fastest of the printers in this group, aside from the $1,900 GCC Elite XL40. It comes equipped with 32 MB of RAM, expandable to 160 MB by adding a 128 MB DIMM to the single-open memory slot. It offers oodles of paper capacity, with a built-in 250-sheet output tray, and optional 250- and 550-sheet drawers. Though the network interface is dropped for a duplexer in this model, Lexmark offers optional Fast Ethernet, Wireless 802.11g and Gigabit Ethernet interfaces for this printer. Networked models of this printer include the E352dn, which includes 10/100 Ethernet via RJ-45 for about $100 more.

The E350d ships with a 1,500-page yield starter cartridge, and both 3,500 page-yield standard and 9,000 page yield cartridges are available for this unit. On the return program, the smaller cartridge costs $96, and the larger one $176; sans return, those prices are $120 and $201. This produces per-page-costs of 2.74 cents and 1.95 cents, versus 3.42 and 2.23 cents. Replacing the photoconductor every 30,000 pages is also recommended; it costs $37.50 and adds 0.125 cents per page to overall costs.

  • Maybe I am reading it wrong but this printer offers a separate image drum compared to its toner drum. They come apart and you can buy toner separately. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but the toner might last 2500 pages, but the drum is good for 10,000, so why replace the drum if it isn't ready? The other personal laser printer I was looking at only had one replaceable part, drum/toner together. This was the main reason I got one, I could control my cost better.
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  • Sorry, previous comment was for the Brother HL-2040.
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  • Brother HL Printers 2040

    Brother HL-2040 is a compact monochrome laser printer designed for both small office and personal use. Brother HL-2040 features a built-in memory of 8MB, 250-sheet paper capacity tray and affordable printing supplies. Compatible Brother HL-2040 toners are known for its quality and inexpensive price tag. As such, Brother HL-2040 toner cartridges are able to generate 2,500 pages of high quality printouts at top 5% coverage.
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