Lexmark B3442dw Black and White Laser Printer, Wireless with Ethernet, Mobile-Friendly and Cloud Connection with Automatic Two-Sided Printing CarbonNeutral Certified Office Printer (4-Series)

The first thing I noticed on setting up this new printer is that it came with only one page of pictorial setup info, and no manual. It did include a driver CD, but my iMac running Catalina couldnt find any files it could run on that. In addition, searching the Lexmark website found no useful information about this new B3442dw model (though I did find a brochure about its likely predecessor, the B2442dw.) Fortunately, I was easily able to set the printer up properly anyway. Just remove all the packing materials both around the toner cartridge and on the outside of the case, load some paper, and power the printer on. A built-in small display will talk you through the needed initial settings, including entering a password to join your WiFi network. From there it was simple to tell my iMac to add a printer, and chose that one from the bonjour list that appeared. Once set up, its Options & Supplies button in the driver allows all other settings to be seen and customized easily. Since I do also have a Windows 10 laptop PC (Dell Inspiron XPS 15), I WAS quickly and easily able to install a driver on that, using the included CD. Once a driver was installed, printing on both the iMac and the Dell was a simple matter of choosing the Lexmark printer for a document. The result was blazingly fast (Ive never seen such quick duplex printing before), and good quality. Overall, this is an excellent printer, lacking only a bit more attention to documentation to be fully ready for prime time on Macs in addition to Windows PCs. Update: Just discovered an interesting problem. For no obvious reason, the link to this printer at IP address 192.168.1.26 has also taken over the link to my Western Digital MyCloudEx2Ultra at IP address 192.168.1.2. Attempting to open a Web page at 192.168.1.2 shows the printers web page, the same as if Id opened the page at 192.168.1.26. And the MyCloud cant be accessed unless the printer is powered off. Those two addresses should NOT be in conflict, but somehow are. Ill update once I figure it out. Update 2: No toner is listed as available yet for this printer, either here at Amazon or at the makers website. Whether the toner for the earlier model B2442dw would also work on this new model is unknown. The printer comes with a starter toner.

I had no trouble getting this printer to connect to my computer. First printing was easy and legible.

Lets be clear, its a good printer. It was easy to set up, has decent features, and the print quality is good. Setup: cabled setup is easy, although if youre not going to go wireless, youll have to supply your own cable, whether USB or Ethernet. I wont dock them for that, although they could have said cable not supplied in their writeups. This just worked out of the box on my Linux system. For Windows, you should probably download drivers from the Lexmark support site. Not sure about Mac. Wireless setup is accomplished from the little display window on the printer. Ive always found this annoying but if you run Windows and want to install their software you can avoid this. But there is nothing hard about it, just a little tedium, and it works as it should, although I always prefer the Ethernet option. (Tip: on your router, assign a fixed IP address to the printer. This makes life easier for non-USB connections.) Okay, how does it work? Just fine. Double sided printing is wonderful, print quality is great, speed is about what youd expect today--- in other words, very good for a home printer used by a few people. (Dont expect to use this in a 20 person office, though.) Its a light-duty printer, very suitable for a home office. Build quality is good. Dont drop it off tall buildings, but dont be afraid to move it around or carry it around. It should stand up just fine. Now, the one gripe. Toner. It comes with the plague of printers in pretty much the last decade, the dreaded starter cartridge. This is a cartridge that is maybe 10% full, meaning you have to buy a real cartridge almost right away. And guess what, the cartridge price is in the same range as the printer price in most cases. Manufacturers dont have to make money on the printer, they make it on the cartridge. The starter is supposed to be good for 500 pages, about one ream. If that holds up, depending on your needs, you might get a week or two in a busy home office, and maybe a month or two of really casual use. So you better order that cartridge. You go to the Lexmark site and ... oh my, they arent selling them. Maybe a little later on? Better hope so, or pretty soon youll have a brick. This is 100% inexcusable. And comparing similar Lexmark printers, the cartridge will be over a hundred dollars. Wow. Usually there are 3rd-party cartridges, often for about 15% of the price. Thats what I always buy for my other printers; I find a reputable vendor and buy from them. But you cannot get the cartridge for this printer anywhere at the time of this writing (late March 2020). Im going to provisionally rate the printer four stars. After all, its a very good product. I would have gone five if the cartridges were available at a fair price. I will revisit this later. If in a month or two you still cant get the cartridge, the rating will be one star. Followup in June 2020: Toner is now available from the manufacturer (pretty expensive) and from at least one third party (a little less expensive but still not cheap).

The printer does not seem to come with a USB cable. Same with the ethernet cable; if you want to connect this way, you’ll need to have an extra one on hand or buy one. Or at least mine didn’t come with any cables other than power. That was ok for me because I am using Ethernet and I have a bunch of spare Ethernet cables, and there is also wireless connectivity available. But USB likely the easiest way to get up and running for non-techies, so if this is you, have a spare printer cable lying around, or purchase one with the printer. Same with the ethernet cable; if you want to connect this way, you’ll need to have an extra one or buy one. Once unpacked and set up following the crude pictograms included, it was necessary to download the drivers and install them. The unit does come with a CD installer disk, but even if you have an antique computer with an optical drive, it makes more sense to go to the Lexmark website and download the latest drivers. Who knows how old the ones on the CD are? After plugging the printer into my switch using Ethernet, and running the installer, the software could not find the printer, nor was it listed by my router as being connected (though the Ethernet activity lights on the printer were flashing). Eventually, I noticed that the small LCD display on the top of the printer had some questions about time, date, and language that must be answered on the printer before it will even show up on the network. After completing the setup on the small LCD screen, the printer was connected but the installer still could not find it. Instructions would have been helpful here, especially for people who aren’t technically inclined, but you can probably find help online. It was necessary for me to go to my router’s web page, get the printer’s DHCP provided IP address, and plug that into the installer manually in the “advanced set up” area. Also, it asks for you to manually type in the port name. I typed in “Ethernet” (no quotes) and it worked, the installer was able to proceed. After doing this on my main computer, I went back to the router and assigned a fixed IP address to the printer so that I will have no trouble finding it when I install the driver on my laptop and other computers. The software itself is nice and compact. I have a Canon printer that came with software that’s all up in your face all the time… meaning, it came with a bunch of bloatware like scrapbooking apps and card making apps and a bunch of docks and control panels that I had to carefully remove after writing the review. In the case of this Lexmark, it’s all business and it’s not in your face at all, and I appreciate that. The printer is fast and quiet. Over Ethernet, when I send a page the printer, it’s done printing before I can even start wondering how long it will take. Coming from an inkjet printer, this is really nice. Also, the network connectivity is indispensable these days. It certainly is if you have two or more devices in your life that you’d like to print from. That network connectivity also makes it easy to tweak the settings as the printer publishes a web page that you can reach from any web browser (if connected to from your local network). Just type the IP address of the printer into your browser and the settings page comes up. By the way, this is another good reason to assign a static IP to the printer; you can then just add a bookmark to your browser. That administrative web page allows you to change many parameters in several categories. Some of the settings are beyond my paltry comprehension, but there is a lot there that is useful to me, and some of it I’m sure is useful to IT personnel deploying these things on larger networks. There are a lot of IT tweaks and settings available here. The printer is handsome looking and compact, and it feels durable and professional. I think it will be perfect for my home office. Every computer I have can now print quickly and quietly from anywhere in the house. The unit comes with a toner cartridge that is described as a “starter cartridge.” It’s not clear to me how many pages we will get out of this; also, at the time of writing this, I couldn’t find replacement cartridges on Amazon or on the Lexmark site. No doubt they will be rolling these out soon; I just hope it’s sooner than my “starter cartridge” lasts. When available, I expect the replacement cartridges to cost well north of $100 each. I remember when laser printers cost a couple thousand dollars each, and then you had to pay extra for network connectivity. The price of this one is very appealing. In fact, it seems like a steal at this price. Just don’t forget that they get you on the toner, same as inkjet makers get you on the ink. There’s still no free lunch. Other than that, I’m delighted with this little printer. It really is quite perfect for a small office.

The Lexmark printer is a good solid made printer and has a nice small footprint. It does two-sided printing, and the monochrome laser printer is light, compact, and prints fast. Wireless set up was fairly easy. With the Wi-Fi makes one can print from mobile devices, as well as laptops or desktops. It also has USB and Ethernet connectivity available. It is capable of printing up to 42 pages per minute, I never printed that many pages at one time so I cannot validate that fact. It comes with a 1-GHz multi-core processor, 256 MB of memory, and 100-sheet multipurpose feeder, which is very convenient. I like this printer and can easily recommend it and give it a 5 stars rating.

Good printer

I ordered this printer to replace a much larger Canon printer I’ve had for five years that has become somewhat troublesome. A year ago the wireless connectivity failed, and more recently it’s been jamming a lot. This printer, although roughly half the size of the Canon, prints just as fast, and the print quality is just as good. It doesn’t hold quite as much paper as the Canon, but my printing volume is not so high for that to be a problem. It also lacks a scanner and FAX capability, but both of those features are becoming less necessary as we enter an era of on-line documents. It’s a good value

What I was looking for in a printer, was speed and duplex printing. This printer does both of those and does them well. it does this while providing incredibly sharp and crisp quality (1200x1200dpi) prints. This Lexmark printer is quickly becoming the workhorse in my home office, the printer I now have set as my default. Set up and installation went easily and the instructions proved very clear and simple to follow. I was easily able to set it up for my Mac and all the PCs in my house without any issue. I also connected my android phone and was able to print using google cloud print. Overall, I have to say this is a great printer (the only thing that could have made it better is if also printed color, but I knew what I was getting when I purchased it). Its connection over wifi is rock solid, and I have not ran into any print issues since installing it. The only small gripe I have is with the noise level. This printer is louder than some others I have tried, but I have to say, it is a fair compromise to get the speed offered by this printer. – I received a special deal on this product for providing my feedback.

Purchase a pair of these for my woodworking shop, and just was amazed at the difference. Purchased a pair for my brother and son after installing these in my shop.

I wish I had never purchased this computer. The only thing it’s good at is getting paper jammed. Purchase another printer, you can find better quality in this price range.