Lexmark T520 Toner
Optra T520 Toner Cartridges

Lexmark T520 Printer Review

The Lexmark Optra T520 laser printer is designed for the small or medium office environment. It produces sharp, clear prints reliably and fast, and it has the capacity and expansion capabilities to keep up with even the busiest office environment.

The Lexmark T520 laser printer does not have the most compact frame in its class, but its slightly larger frame is a tradeoff for its many solid features. For example, it has a standard paper tray with a capacity of 250 sheets, but also a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, for loading alternate media types and sizes. It also has high-capacity toners, which help out-shine the competition, such as the HP C4096A toner printer. This is more capacity than one might expect for the price. The unit measures 13.4 inches by 15.7 inches by 19.1 inches (HWD) and weighs 37 pounds.

Automatic duplexing, or two-sided printing, is not included, but users can do duplex printing manually, and the driver software walks users through the process of correctly feeding the paper back into the paper tray. While not as convenient as an automatic duplexing option, users who don't particularly need this feature will be happy not to pay extra for it.

Lexmark T520 toner cartridges have a capacity of 20,000 pages, which blows away the competing Brother TN650 toner. While a large capacity makes the Lexmark Optra T520 toner cartridges more expensive upfront, it results in a much lower cost per page than smaller laser toner cartridges. Using the included toner save mode will also help get more from each printer toner cartridge, and reduce the cost per page even lower.

Print quality is generally very good, ranking much higher than the HP Q5949A toner printer. Text quality is sharp and dark, as expected for a quality laser printer. Graphics and photo quality is a bit below average, but still good enough for most users, who only print occasional graphics and photos. Print speed is fast, at up to 20 pages per minute.

Overall, the Lexmark T520 stands out with its fast speeds, excellent text quality, and very low cost per page. Expansion options are a nice bonus, but a bit expensive.