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Technology tends to fall into two categories: cutting edge and mature. Cutting edge stuff is cool, shiny, new and scores high on the 'wow!' scale.

 Mature technology is tried and tested, and actually works. Laser printers fall into the latter category. They may not stir your imagination but they will help you get things done.

 Lexmark may be a bit behind the leaders of the inkjet printer market, but the company is well established in the laser printer market.

 Its products have a very good reputation and the Lexmark Optra E310 attempts to continue that legacy with one or two new touches.

 The E310 is a rather petite 600 dots per inch (dpi) laser. The base measures 28 centimetres by 34 cm and the chassis is only about 20 cm high.

 The paper loads through a hopper in the top, rather like most inkjet printers. This setup might not have the appeal of a paper tray, but it is quicker to load and will most likely reduce the possibility of paper jams.

 Beyond size, the E310 continues with the unobtrusive theme when actually printing. The machine is extremely quiet, having a maximum noise level of just 47 decibels.

 The E310 was connected to my computer with a standard parallel printer cable, which I would expect to create a noticeable slowdown in speed.

 When printing text, the E310 was impressively quick. Even on the highest quality, which supposedly imitates the quality of a 1200 dpi printer, it took just a couple of seconds before pages started to pop out.

 Images were quite a bit slower. Though that is the norm for laser printers, the parallel cable dragged out high-resolution image print times from several minutes to more than 10 minutes.

 Lexmark is one of several printer makers that can lay claim to offering a simulated 1200 dpi resolution, mainly because of the limits of toner and paper.

 There are printers on the market that offer a true resolution of 1200 dpi, but the type of toner and plain paper available cannot really handle that kind of resolution.

 This means users can produce text which is very similar in quality to a 1200 dpi printer when using a machine that prints at only 600 dpi.

 What you cannot achieve is the greater number of shades of grey that a high resolution printer can create when printing images and graphics.

 The bottom line is that the E310's 1200 dpi mode will work well with text and line graphics, but do not expect it to match a 1200 dpi machine when printing images or shaded graphics.

 The E310 combines its ersatz 1200 dpi mode with fast on-board Postscript. The print quality of text in this mode was quite impressive. Even under a magnifying glass, small text had a razor-sharp edge.

 Images in any mode did show banding, as did some shaded graphics. The banding is something that one would see in output from most inexpensive lasers, but it would be less noticeable or non-existent in a work group machine.

 There is one further feature on the E310 that I particularly like - it has a universal serial bus port. This port is faster than the parallel port which should mean faster graphics printing. It also means that this printer is Mac compatible if you happen to have an iMac or a blue and white Apple G3.

 At $3,100, the E3101's price is comparable to some inkjet printers. Considering the speed, quietness and price, it is hard to beat.

 My only niggles with E310 are fairly minor. If you print a great deal of elaborate graphics or images, you probably want to look at something a bit more upmarket.

 The second niggle is with the paper tray. Users have to be a little more careful when loading paper or the machine may take in more than one sheet at a time, as often happens with inkjet printers.

PROS AND CONS Product: Lexmark E310 laser printer Price: $3,100 Pros: Very quiet, high-quality printer Cons: Not good at delivering more elaborate graphics 



Lexmark's quiet achiever has eye for detail