CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 07/03/2007
- Released on: 04/24/2007
A color laser multifunction aimed squarely at small offices and work groups, the $700 Lexmark X502n prints, scans, copies, and faxes, and does it all quickly and well. (If you don't need fax, the X500n saves you $200.) The X502n isn't perfect--it's missing some fax features that are often important to offices--but if you can live without group dialing, secure-receive mode, and a junk-fax blocker, the X502n is an excellent choice. It's one of the fastest lasers we've tested, and its excellent speed doesn't come at the expense of print quality. It's also one of the more affordable lasers to maintain, thanks to reasonable print-refill costs.
Design
The Lexmark X502n is a behemoth of a printer. It measures 21 inches tall, 19 inches wide, and 17.2 inches deep, and weighs a hefty 77 pounds. It's possible to move it yourself (speaking from experience) but not recommended, for fear of dropping the printer and breaking both it and your toes. The multifunction unit that sits atop the printer comprises a flatbed scanner, an automatic document feeder, and the control panel. The flatbed scanner is only big enough to scan A4/letter-size originals, but using the ADF, you can scan legal-size documents, too. The ADF can hold up to 35 pages.
The X502n comes with a 250-sheet input tray that can be configured to hold up to legal-size paper. An optional 530-page drawer is available, too. Unfortunately, there's no manual feed slot, so one-off prints still have to go through the main drawer. The output well, located below the control panel, can hold up to 250 sheets.
The control panel is basic and well-organized. Three buttons let you switch between copy, scan, and fax tasks. For faxing, there's an alphanumeric keypad, 10 one-touch dial buttons (and a shift key, for a total of 20 one-touch numbers), and redial, hook, and directory buttons. The standard reduce/enlarge, lighter/darker, image quality, menu navigation keys, and start and cancel buttons are all present and accounted for. Finally, the control panel includes a backlit, two-line text LCD for perusing menus.
The X500n uses four toner cartridges: black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. Each cartridge is offered in regular- and high-capacity versions. The regular black costs $90 and yields about 2,500 prints, while the high-capacity version costs $134.70 and yields about 5,000 pages. Each regular color cartridge costs $98.45 and produces about 1,500 pages, while the high-capacity versions cost $119.70 apiece and yield about 3,000 pages. Using the high-capacity cartridges for best value, we estimate that a black print will cost about 2.7 cents per page, while a full color page will cost about 14.7 cents per page. Both costs are low.
Features
The Lexmark X502n features a 366MHz processor and 128MB of nonupgradable memory. It offers both USB and Ethernet connectors, so it can be connected directly to a PC or on a network for a multiuser environment. The X502n prints, scans, copies, and faxes; the X500n offers everything but faxing for $500.
When copying, your options are standard: you can scale from 25 to 400 percent (preset or custom values); collate; and make 2-on-1 or 4-on-1 copies. There's no duplexer, though, so you can't make automatic double-sided prints.
Scanning presents a bit of a mystery. While there's a scan task button on the control panel, we couldn't figure out how to scan directly to a USB-attached PC. It turns out, you can't. Walk-up scanning is limited to a networked X502n. For direct-attached scanning, you must initiate the task from your PC, either using Lexmark's Presto PageMagic software, which offers a wide range of options or WIA- or TWAIN-compliant software, such as Adobe Photoshop. Using Presto PageMagic, you can scan files and open them in a variety of programs, including Adobe Acrobat, Word, Excel, and Outlook, among others. If you want to be able to edit the document, you can avail yourself of the optical character recognition component. And you can save files in a wide variety of formats, including TIFF, JPEG, and PDF.
The fax machine lets you save up to 20 Quick Dial (or one-touch) numbers and an additional 50 speed-dial numbers. Unfortunately, there's no group dial option, though you can send fax blasts to up to 100 numbers (you have to manually dial each number or choose a quick-dial or speed-dial entry). A group dial option is often important to work groups, so it's a puzzling limitation. The X502n also lacks a secure-receive mode and junk-fax blocker. The Xerox Phaser 6115MFP/N and the Samsung CLX-3160FN both offer a better set of fax features.
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Where to buy
Lexmark X502n color laser multifunction:
$669.95
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$669.95 | Yes |
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