Home > Consumer Reviews > Lexmark Optra E210 Personal Laser Printer

I was looking for a giveaway deal to replace my inkjet which stopped feeding paper. It's possible to find steals on inkjets, in fact it can be cheaper to replace the whole printer itself than the ink cartridge (which is where the money is made). However when I saw a great deal on the Lexmark e210 and read countless positive online reviews about it, I couldn't pass it up.

Setup was simple- it was working in less than five minutes. This is in sharp contrast to my last laser printer (a Brother), which was nearly impossible to replace the ink cartridge and ended up with ink powder everywhere. This printer is solid and attractive and compact. The print is top quality and super fast. I was thrilled to have a laser again after suffering through the slow ink jet with far inferior print quality. No, I can't print color or pictures on the laser, but I have found it to be cheaper to send my picture files out for processing than the cost of the ink/paper to do it at home (they look way better that way too), so a laser is perfect for me.

I have been warned that the replacement ink for this model is more than double that of most laser printers, so that could be a downside for someone who prints frequently. The initial cartridge is rated at 1000 sheets and the replacements are rated at 2000 sheets. I'm not concerned since I bought it for home use, but this could be a factor for others.

This is a decent laser printer that handles text well and has only jammed once despite going through several thousand pages and numerous sheets of labels.

Pros
-Price -- I got mine for $75 from office depot after a coupon and rebate
-text quality

Cons
-Graphics quality: not the greatest, don't buy it if you have to print anything with graphics
-Ink cost: pretty high cost per page

If you can get this for under 100, go for it, otherwise, get another printer with less expensive ink

Also, if you do indeed buy this printer, install the driver for the Samsung 1200 series printers instead of the e210 -- since the printers are really the same but with different emblems on the outside, you can use the better Samsung driver which has an ink saver mode which definitely works driving down the cost per page by ~20-30% while keeping the text dark enough to read

Purchased the E210 as a replacement for my old HP LJ 5L, which is still a good desktop printer, but not much use as a network printer.

I installed the E210 on the print server port of my Barricade router, and had it up and printing in about 10 minutes. Output is crisp and clear. The engine requires a few seconds to warm up, but once it starts printing, it's noticeably faster than the 5L.

I would dock the printer a half-star for having such an expensive replacement toner cartridge, but that's really the only negative I can offer... The printer has an auto-feed slot with a capacity of 150 sheets of standard DP paper, although the output slot only has a capacity of 100 sheets. It also has a manual feed slot. Both imput slots are limited to a 9-inch maximum width, which is sufficient for my needs.

Lexmark claims that the duty rating for this printer is 5000 sheets per month, and lists it on their website as a Business-class printer, rather than a SOHO-class, which I question, but for me the bottom line is that the output is good, the price is great, and the unit has an acceptable footprint and is very quiet. If you're looking for a good light-to-medium-duty laser, at a budget-minded price, you're going to have to look pretty hard to beat the Lexmark E210.

I bought this printer and so far, I have not had a single problem. I was so sick and tired of my ink jet printer cartridge getting clogged up after not using it for a couple of days that I had to make a switch to laser.

It takes about 10 seconds to warm up, but after that it prints very quick. It prints black text perfect, with all fonts nice and dark. It even has the option of placing a watermark on the paper. Labels and envelopes print good too, with no jamming. Not too shabby for a laser printer that cost me ... (after rebate). I would not recommend this for anyone that wants to print graphics.

I couldn't imagine using an ink jet printer again; and with a price and performance like this Lexmark, I will never have to again!

This is a great laser printer - it's very affordable and performs like any other top-of-the-line printer. Toner lasts a long time, and it's very easy to set up.