Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
some problems, March 19, 2007
This is possibly the most complex hardware/software combo you will ever own. It's not like a car or a refrigerator where you turn it on and it does what it's supposed to. From the control panel and the computer there are hundreds of options for you to choose from. This will be an excellent purchase once all those options work.
You have read about all the good features already, and there are many. Let me mention the problems I had.
Wireless: it just plain didn't work with either the Mac or the PC, which have been networked and on the internet wirelessly for years.
The manual is useless except to tell you to use the 'wizard' to set up your wireless system. There is no additional information at the web site. I discovered that there are several undocumented diagnostic functions available through the printer control panel. I wish they would just publish a proper manual that explains everything.
At times I was able to use some printer functions connected by an ethernet cable and I was able to use the scanner connected via USB--but neither connection system was reliable and much of the time I couldn't use either computer with the printer by any method. Over 2.5 months I spent around 100 hours trying to make this work.
Tech support exchanged 18 emails and three hours of 2nd level phone support which were no help at all. Support seems to come from India. You can't call the 2nd level people. You must wait for them to call you and hope that you are there to receive the call- it may be many days before they call again. They try to help but as I said- this is a complex system.
My suggestion on the wireless option- if it works the first time it's probably OK, otherwise return the unit before you waste 100 hours trying to fix it. I happen to know that many people had no problems with this wireless unit.
I usually choose duplex printing, but this unit jammed about 27% of the sheets, requiring the entire print job to be restarted. Repairing the jam requires turning the printer around, removing the duplex unit, and yanking the paper out firmly. Additionally, duplex printing caused ink to smear on the back of sheets passing through, making the paper look dirty. This could be the result of pulling out jammed paper.
One-sided printing was acceptable although dull on plain paper. Once I set up a template for Word and another program, I was able to print envelopes reliably. I was able to print on legal-sized paper and I seem to recall that I scanned a legal sized sheet once.
Copying and scanning worked much better than the leading competitor but colors were not reproduced correctly. The few sheets I put through the automatic feeder went well, but small items like photographs must be individually placed on the scanner.
Optical character recognition worked surprisingly well, considering that the software was a free extra with my purchase and doesn't seem to be mentioned at Amazon. This OCR software was on the Lexmark install disk and there are versions for PC and Mac, so I guess you will get it too. There were many other programs included in my purchase (not from this site) which weren't interesting to me. I didn't test the fax.
I plugged my camera into one of the ports and the printer allowed me to view them on the color window and I could print one or many. Nice, but I would never print a photo without cleaning it up in the computer first.
I love this printer. It is exactly what I have been looking for. It breaks my heart that I had to return it. The main competitor has a seriously flawed unit with poor customer support and currently no wireless option. If Lexmark can fix the software (I'm sure my duplex unit was a rare defect) and the documentation/support, it will be nearly perfect and I will buy it again!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The worst thing I have ever purchased!!, June 27, 2008
I have never taken the time to write a review for anything, but I hate this all in one printer so much, I want Lexmark to feel just a tinge of the pain their product gives me. When we first installed the lexmark printer software it created such havoc, I should have taken it back right then. This printer was made to go through ink like water, these guys have made this thing to sell ink and that's it. I am going though a cartridge a week minimum. The warnings come up when the cartirdge is still half full. The cartridges get gummed up with ink and only print every other line of what you are needing, then when you clean it it wants to run an allignment page which just about uses half a cartridge to print.
The wi-fi is intermittent at best, and paper jams are continuous. I read PC Mags review and searched the net when deciding to make this purchase and obviously found reviews to be favorable. Now upon owning this the reviews simply were misleading and missed their very purpose, to warn consumers of poor products in the market!
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Really, really unresponsive customer service, September 4, 2007
Setup of the product is really, really easy... but my printer has a problem recognizing the ink cartridges. I have *twice* replaced the cartridges (correctly, of course), and the printer still insists that it has unknown cartridges. I have been trying to contact Lexmark for support, but so far I have been unsuccessful. Calling the 800 number yielded a 1/2 hour wait (so far) and I can't even get their email submission form to load in my browser (times out). I am *very* unimpressed so far, and will be off-loading this product as soon as I can manage. A shame, really. Lexmark was reputed to have good support, but my experience thus far does not support that reputation. Sigh.
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