Lexmark was touted to take over the market with its latest laser printer, C543DN which released a few days back. The printer is a boxy colour laser printer and consists of a number of enviable features such as excellent printing speeds for both standard and duplex prints, Ethernet option and professional print quality.

Printing quality for monochrome is simply unmatched with crisp and sharp texts. Business graphics is equally good. But, registration problems were observed when printing black text on coloured backgrounds. Regarding photo printing, as TR puts it – photo print suffered from this overzealous use of colour. On a positive note, unlike most colour laser printers, banding was not visible.

Claimed printing speed is 20ppm for both monochrome and colour. When tested, it was observed that the actual results were close to claimed rates at 17ppm for monochrome and 10ppm for colour. Claimed rate for duplex printing is 10spm and observed was surprisingly close at 9ppm.

Uncharacteristically, the cost per prints on this printer was on the higher side. It was estimated that the cost of a black print is 3.86p including paper and a colour print at a whopping 12.7p. These are by far the most expensive print prices we have seen.

Verdict : Good with prints and printing speeds, but bad with the economy. Does it balance evenly? We don’t think so. Price of prints always takes a higher stand especially in the times of recession. Lexmark needs to drastically cut down the costs of toner cartridges if they hope to stand a chance.