Lexmark 2030 Color Jetprinter: Avoid It!!
Written: May 31 '02 (Updated Jun 10 '02)
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Pros: for basic printing, this machine is fine
Cons: too many
The Bottom Line: I do not recommend the Lexmark 2030 Color Jetprinter to anyone.
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| 2of4's Full Review: Lexmark Jet 2030 InkJet Printer |
"Neither a borrower or a lender be." Hindsight tells me I shouldn't have accepted when a friend offered to lend me a printer. My trusty Canon 2100 had finally died and I was in the throes of "printer withdrawal". It was awful--nights spent remembering times I had let my printer sit idle when I could have been printing, uh, stuff. It's funny how you never miss some things until they're no longer around. And no, this is not a review of old, tired cliches!
In order to get the printer monkey off my back, I accepted my friend's kind offer, helped along by the fact that I was experiencing a cash flow problem, but that's another story. Anyway, that's when my troubles began.
The first thing I noticed about the Lexmark 2030 is that, at 18 inches wide, it took up almost double the desk space of my old Canon printer. But, this was nothing I couldn't deal with. In a pinch, I could always put it on the shelf in my closet and let the printed pages tumble down in a beautiful cascade to the floor of my bedroom. Quite an image, huh?
The next thing I observed was the sound of the printer. It sounded like a cross between a group of large gnawing termites and a city bus needing a tune-up--definitely distracting. Not only was the printer loud, it had the nasty habit of ALWAYS pulling through a stack of paper rather than one page. No more than one sheet of paper could be loaded into the paper tray at once without causing a mega paper jam. This made it necessary to manually feed paper one sheet at a time. The printer also went offline often and sometimes refused to print at all. When it did print, it was painfully slow, cranking out only 3 black text pages per minute and 1 color per minute.
Since I'm not particularly fond of writing things down and have a notoriously short attention span, I tend to print a great many documents. Naturally, I soon ran out of ink. That's where the Lexmark gave me my biggest shock. It did my sanity no good to find that I would have to take out a bank loan to buy ink cartridges. Even the black one (the printer uses a color and a black cartridge) cost around $35! I couldn't believe it. The black cartridges for my old Canon could be found just about anywhere and cost no more than $9.99 each. I know that's a low price but I would've been happy even if the Lexmark price had been twenty-something--but $35?--give me a break!!
Now I'm sure you're saying that I seem to be expecting a lot from a used printer. But, I consulted my friend about the performance of the Lexmark and was told that the printer had done basically the same things even when it was new. After hearing this, I began to wonder if the friend's offer of the printer was made out of compassion or a secret desire to torture me.
Considering all things, I cannot recommend this printer to anyone who wants to purchase an efficient, effective machine. However, for someone willing to ignore tried-and-true cliches (see above) and give common sense a slap in the face, this is the printer for you. Another good excuse is if you're dead broke and need a printer fast!!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): gift
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Epinions.com ID:
2of4
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Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 32 members
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