Lexmark B2338dw Review - Review 2022

As a small-workgroup mono light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printer, the Lexmark B2338dw ($199) provides adept speed and paper capacity (including lots of optional trays and accessories). Output quality is mixed, with good text and slightly below-par graphics. Running costs are on the loftier side for standard cartridges, but you tin can recoup a chip by getting cartridges through the Lexmark Return Program, which mandates cartridges exist sent back to Lexmark, bans refills or unauthorized cartridges, and in result provides an expiration appointment later on which your cartridge will not office. Overall, this is a solid budget-minded laser churner for moderate monthly certificate loads, though we'd still opt for the Dell Smart Printer S2830dn in this price class.

Laser Churner With Roomy Paper Options

This two-tone (off-black and off-white) printer measures 10.2 by 15.seven by fourteen.seven inches (HWD) and weighs 30.6 pounds. The angled front panel includes a tiny, two-line monochrome display for navigating the printer'south menus and changing settings. Below that is an OK button flanked by back- and forward-pointer buttons. Low-toll mono lasers are not known for their spacious displays, merely this one felt even more cramped than usual.

The B2338dw comes with an automated duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of newspaper—in fact, the printer is set by default for duplex printing—and a paper capacity of 350 pages between primary tray and feeder. Optional 250- and 550-canvas trays are available, including a lockable tray for the latter capacity, for a maximum capacity of 900 sheets. The plain 550-sheet tray goes for $199 (the lockable version is $249), while the 250-sheet tray is $129.

Lexmark's rated maximum monthly duty wheel is 50,000 sheets, with a recommended monthly book of upwards to half-dozen,000 pages. This pegs it for upwardly to medium-duty printing in a small workgroup or a micro role.

Lower Your Running Costs (With a Catch)

Based on Lexmark'due south price and yield figures for its standard consumables (for the B2338dw, this includes the toner cartridge and an imaging unit), cost per folio comes to 4.2 cents, which is high for a mono laser. The Canon imageClass LBP151dw's costs run 3.5 cents, while the Editors' Selection Dell Smart Printer S2830dn has costs as low equally two cents per page if you employ its highest-chapters cartridges.

Lexmark actually sells the same consumables for less (which would lower the price per page to as little as three.one cents), but there is a catch. Cartridges sold nether the Lexmark Return Programme tin can be used only in one case and not refilled. As well, they volition cease working after they reach the end of Lexmark's rated life, and the cartridges may automatically update the memory in your printer to protect against the introduction of counterfeit and unauthorized products. If you're willing to bide by these restrictions, you may relieve some money, provided that you aren't locked out of using your cartridge if yous don't utilize it upwards speedily enough.

The B2338dw ships with a starter Render Program cartridge. It's rated for 1,500 pages, half the yield of a normal cartridge, so you'll exist jumping into this official-or-unofficial cartridge conclusion earlier long.

Connectivity and Setup

The B2338dw offers Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and USB connectivity, which is typical for its class. I did our formal testing over a USB 2.0 connectedness using our Windows ten PC testbed. I besides did some ad-hoc speed testing over an Ethernet connection, which actually proved a little slower than printing over USB.

You can install three drivers when setting upwardly the B2338dw: Lexmark's Forty universal printer driver as well equally a PCL commuter and a PostScript driver. When installing the drivers over a USB connection, just the first driver (40) installed automatically, although the setup wizard had indicated that the software for the others had seemed to download. To install one of the other drivers, I had to click Add together Printer from the Windows Devices and Printers page, cull the Add a Local Printer option, select the Virtual Printer Port for USB pick, and scroll through a long list of printers sorted by manufacturer. The Lexmark B2338dw was listed under an alternative name, the MS320 series (which, fortunately, I was enlightened of). All three drivers were listed there, and I was able to select the ane to add.

One other driver quirk to notation: In the settings menus on the printer's display is an item called Printer Languages, from which you tin switch between PCL Emulation and PostScript Emulation. Ignore this setting. To switch to PCL or PostScript, you need to modify the driver you're using from within the Print dialog box in Windows or in the awarding y'all're printing from.

Zippy Enough, Sharp Plenty

You should have no complaints virtually the B2338dw's speed. Lexmark rates it at 38 pages per infinitesimal (ppm) for simplex (one-sided) printing, and 19ppm, or 38 images per minute (ipm), for duplex press, where each side of a page counts equally one canvas. Rated speeds are based on printing text documents; in printing out our 12-folio Word test file, I timed information technology at a zippy 44ppm in simplex, and 19.7ppm in duplex. On our full 25-page test suite, which adds more complex pages (with graphics and mixed content) to the Word document, it tested at 17.4ppm in simplex, and thirteen.4ppm in duplex. Both are good times.

Overall, output quality was a tad beneath par, based on our testing, with average text and photograph quality and slightly below-par graphics quality. That said, have this with this modifier: "Average text quality" for a laser translates to beingness good enough for nearly any general concern use except for those requiring very small fonts.

Graphics quality is slightly beneath par for a mono laser. Generally, charts and other graphical material looked practiced, although some very thin lines that were in colour in the original Excel file were hard to distinguish confronting gray or blackness backgrounds. In press a PowerPoint file in the default grayscale way, one slide—which in the file shows a gradient ranging from night red to light crimson and back to dark—printed every bit a near undifferentiated black, while a 2nd slide's background—which also showed a slope, which in the file is dark-green—did non print at all, although the text did. This was the instance with all iii (XL, PCL, and PostScript) drivers.

It's not uncommon for mono lasers to drop out backgrounds (many seem to be prepare by default for grayscale), and in many cases this may be an improvement over having difficult-to-read text against a muddied background, which is how the slide looked when I switched to Colour fashion (although, of course, output was notwithstanding in black-and-white). In the latter situation, not merely was some of the text poorly readable, merely the slope was also inconsistent, rather than transitioning evenly from dark to light and dorsum again. The other gradient, which was red in the original art, was better in Colour mode, though still not particularly smooth.

These issues are commonplace among blackness-and-white printers in printing from color sides. Some printers default to Colour manner and print the backgrounds, simply you can always switch between color modes (Color and Grayscale), which I suggest yous do if y'all buy the B2338dw, to see which is better for slide printing.

As well, y'all can experiment with the printer drivers. Although the pages showing the gradients looked a chip different with the PostScript driver than with PCL, neither looked particularly proficient. The takeaway, though, is that this printer is a little beneath boilerplate for a mono light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation in press out graphics. The Dell Smart Printer S2830dn , for 1, had amend-than-average graphics quality for a mono laser in our testing.

Nobody buys a mono laser for photo press, but still the B2338dw printed decent photos in testing, good enough for printing visitor newsletters or spider web pages containing photos. Particular was lost in the night areas of some prints that were on the dark side, and dithering (graininess) was an issue in two of the prints.

Solid Budget Laser Output

The Lexmark B2338dw is a fast mono laser for minor-workgroup employ, with very good paper capacity including optional trays. Setup proved a petty trickier than usual, but once information technology was upwardly and running, it worked like a dream. Output quality was perfectly fine for plain documents in our testing, although graphics quality was slightly subpar.

Our overall pick for top lower-end mono laser remains the Dell Smart Printer S2830dn, just the B2338dw remains a capable choice, and is the preferable one if you lot need to boost your paper chapters past adding an optional tray.

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/laser-printer-reviews/29786/lexmark-b2338dw-review

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