If the magicolor 8650DN was a consistently excellent all-round performer, the Lexmark C935DN proved to be something of a curate’s egg. It was, admittedly, the fastest off the mark when it came to printing 50 copies of our Word document, coming in at 1 minute 18.27 seconds. However, that turn of speed was offset by the decidedly messy method for replacing toner. This involves removing a small, sliding cover from the cylindrical cartridge – exposing the toner – before inserting the cartridge into its corresponding (cylindrical) holder in the printer, twisting the cartridge clockwise by about a quarter of a turn in order to lock it in place. In practice, it took a more than a little effort to avoid toner spillage, and even then we ended up with grubby fingers on a couple of occasions.

Colour reproduction was also a little on the muddy side: in standard quality, on 80gsm paper, our Kodak grey-scale merged into a single murky smear at the dark-grey-to-black end of the spectrum. However, Lexmark’s driver allows comprehensive adjustments to be made to the colour and tonal balance, so with a little experimentation and calibration we’re sure output could be improved. We found build quality to be a little on the flimsy side too, especially the adjustable sliders inside the paper tray, which needed to be treated with more
than usual care.

On the positive side, the C935DN was one of the three printers on test that included Gigabit Ethernet (the others being the Konica Minolta and the OKI). For a Mac-based workgroup this makes perfect sense, as even the humblest Mac mini has Gigabit Ethernet as standard. And if you’re in the market for a colour laser capable of fast mono output then this is certainly the product – then again, if that’s what you need, why not go for a mono laser?

If we sound a little less than wholly enthusiastic about the Lexmark, it is by no means intended as a slight. However, there were a few shortcomings that needed addressing before the C935DN could be recommended.