Lexmark C522 Toner Cartridges

Lexmark C522 Printer Review

The Lexmark C522n is a color laser printer designed for the small or medium office or workgroup. It features good print quality and solid speeds in a compact and affordable package.

Many office environments fit into a gap. They are too big for a small office printer, and too small to afford a large office printer costing thousands of dollars. The Lexmark C522n is designed to fill this niche. It has the capacity and speed of a larger, more expensive printer, but manages to stay fairly compact and affordably-priced.

The Lexmark C522n is a little larger than a small office printer, measuring 19.1 inches by 17.3 inches by 20.2 inches, and weighing 57.1 pounds. Still, it is movable by two strong people, and takes up significantly less space than the average large office machine. Its initial paper capacity of 250 sheets can be expanded to a maximum of 750 sheets with an optional 500-sheet drawer, and its monthly duty cycle of 45,000 pages means there is plenty of room to grow. The control panel is simple, but very functional, though its angle makes it a little more difficult to read and it has no backlight.

The printer includes an ethernet port for sharing it across a network, and it includes a built-in web server for changing settings, managing print jobs, and other tasks. The server can be easily accessed from a web browser on any computer on the network.

Though it's not the fastest printer in its class, the C522n is fairly quick. The single-pass printing engine means that all 4 cartridges print at once, therefore the color printing speed is the same as monochrome. Print speed is around 15 pages per minute for both. Print quality is very good. Text is especially sharp, and readable even at extremely small font sizes. Color prints are average, with a few inaccuracies and crosshatching in some prints.

Standard capacities for the Lexmark C522n toner cartridges are at 3,000 pages per color and 4,000 pages per black. This will suffice for a small office; but for a medium office or a small office with greater printing needs, the Lexmark C522n toner cartridges are also available in a high yield version. These high capacity toners have 5,000 pages per color and 8,000 pages for the black.

Overall, the Lexmark C522n is a great choice for a medium office that needs fast speeds and good networking support. Buyers who need to do a lot of color printing may be disappointed with the quality of prints.