E232

The Lexmark E232 is an entry-level mono laser aimed at home users with an eye on speed. If you need fast delivery of mono text or graphics documents, the E232 should be on your wishlist. Despite its low specifications we coaxed decent performance from it in our tests, making it a great choice for first-time buyers looking for complete ease of use.

Silver and black and housed in a compact frame, the E232 feels robust enough to withstand the rigours of family use. This is helped by the location of the 250-sheet input tray underneath the frame so there's no paper sticking out.

On the right-hand side of the printer sits the operating panel and, although the E232 lacks an LCD menu system, this panel offers enough print job information for the average user.

The E232 has 16MB of memory and a 600 x 600 maximum resolution that can be bumped up to 2400 x 2400 with software interpolation--but this is unnecessary because the maximum hardware resolution does a good enough job. Our only print problem involved a rather dark finish on shaded graphics printed at over 600 x 600dpi. Lexmark should be praised for not overstating speed and, while we couldn't match the claimed 21ppm (pages per minute) we did manage a close 18.5ppm for text documents on the lowest resolution setting.

The 1500-page starter cartridge is paltry and the 2500-page replacement cartridge doesn't offer great value for money. But the cheap, 6000-page replacement toner cartridge keeps running costs down.