Best Network Printer

Lexmark's Optra LX Wins Our Favor

PPrinting is typically a series of trade-offs. If you want high quality, you sacrifice speed. If you want networking, you give up control. Lexmark offers the most compact, yet versatile printers for the network, and the Optra Lx is our favorite.
Networking is superb on the Optra Lx. Lexmark has advanced one step beyond Hewlett-Packard's ease of configuration. Network administrators can configure Lexmark printers via the as-yet unratified Network Printer Alliance Protocol (NPAP), which provides a general configuration and management interface that spans a variety of platforms--DOS, Windows, Macintosh and Unix included. NPAP is a bidirectional protocol, so with the correct connections, you can view any portion of the printer's status and display panel-- even while it is printing, and over a parallel connection. With support for NPAP, Lexmark printers hold the promise of compatibility with network printer management of the future.
Print quality on the Optra Lx is superb, since it's a 1,200-dpi printer. The Optra Lx prints that quality at impressive speeds, eclipsing many of the lower-resolution printers. It also allows for user-selectable resolution and supports those resolutions in PCL or PostScript mode. Few other printers actually provide their own PCL driver; Lexmark makes the extra effort to provide the best driver for its printer.
The Optra printer line comes in a variety of speeds, footprints and protocol support. At the low end is a personal laser printer. At the high end is network support, duplexing, multiple paper trays and high duty cycle. The line also can be customized with the proper features to suit your needs. The Lexmark also offers many paper handling features that many others don't.

Lexmark Optra Lx, $2,999, Lexmark
International, 55 Railroad Ave.,
Greenwich, CT 06836. (606) 232-2000;
(800) 891-0331; fax (606) 232-2380.

Runners-Up
HP LaserJet 4MV,
Hewlett-Packard Co.,
Direct Marketing Organization,
P.O. Box 58059, MS511L-SJ, Santa Clara, CA 95051. (800) 752-0900;
fax back (800) 333-1917.

LaserWriter 16/600 PS,
Apple Computer, 20525 Mariani Ave., Cupertino, CA 95014.
(408) 996-1010; (800) 538-9696.