Lexmark MB2236adw All-in-One Wireless Printer Laser

After years of buying and scrapping colour inkjet printers we finally found this monochrome Lexmark laser printer on Amazon.ca for $129.95. The price is without a doubt unbeatable and b&w documents and letters are better quality than we have had before and the unit is very easy and straightforward to use – but ONLY as a printer/copier. Those are the good points.

If the ability to scan documents to your PC then this is not for you. The printer simply does not have the industry standard abilty to place a document on the scanner glass and scan directly into “My Scans” on the pc.
If all models came with the front panel USB flash drive connector then this could be a work-around.
As it stands I must now connect an old scrap printer just for the scan to pc function.
It should be noted that I did not (nor do I plan to) set the printer up for fax access or wireless connectivity!

Very disappointing omission on an otherwise great printer!

I expected this printed to work out of the box, but there is one issue that breaks this whole experience. When you connect via WiFi and finish all the setup you are presented with the error “SMTP server not set up. Contact system administrator” and a constant flashing red light on the right side of the printer panel. I did all the connection steps correctly and had to spend some hours trying to research the problem online. After finding no solution in the manuals or online I decided to email Lexmark. It turns out you need to connect to the printer via your web browser to turn off a specific setting so this error goes away. This was quite irritating for me as I wasted almost half a day trying to figure out the problem. The printer works fine without addressing this error but there will be the constant red light flashing and the error on the screen which can be annoying. I think the Lexmark software guys should have had that printer setting activated by default out of the box so customers wouldn’t have to go through these extra steps.

The last negative I have found is the power button light. On my unit there is a subtle flicker which you can notice from afar. This is also a little annoying at least for me. I have attached a video of the problem. I’m not sure if all units are like this or just mine.

Now to the good things. This printer looks great. I love the aesthetic and someone gave me a compliment for it when they saw it sitting next to my desk. It looks modern and I prefer the white and light tones over dark plastic printers that sometimes look very ugly up in person. The printer is very compact for being a multi-function printer. The print quality is great from what I saw on sheet. When you put paper inside the tray it does extend about an inch from the back of the printer to accommodate the standard letter size so bear that in mind.

If Lexmark did not program the printers to show the SMTP error by default and if the power light did not flicker I would have given it a higher score.

TIP: to fix the SMTP error you need to press the wrench button on the printer panel > Reports > OK > Network > OK > Network Setup Page > OK. This will print out the printer’s IP address which you will need.

On the page that prints out, the IP address will be on the top. Now go to your web browser on your computer that is on the same network as the printer and type that IP address in the address bar and hit enter. The printer’s Embedded Web Server or software should show up. Click on E-mail under Settings and check the box that says ‘Disable “SMTP server not set up” error’. Click the save button. You are set. That pesky error will go away and the dreadful red flashing light too.

PROS: There is a lot of value in this printer. I got it for $133. Very nice that it scans, copies, faxes, and can print on both sides of paper. It comes with starter toner. It’s not very noisy and it prints fast. Also it shipped fast even though I only get the standard free shipping.

CONS: The only way to scan is to run a program on your computer. You have to start the program, select the device, meddle with settings, click scan, maybe have to select the right hostname, THEN push the shortcuts button on the printer, select Scan to computer, select the profile, wait for the scanner to scan the item, then tell it you don’t want to scan another page, then it save to your computer. There is a “Start Immediately” option in the program which gets rid of all the button-pushing on the printer except for telling it not to scan another page. There’s no option in the menu on the printer to scan to file, which makes no sense. I’ve used all-in-one printers before where you just put what you want to scan on the flatbed, push the scan button, and it saves a file on your computer. Also, the scanning flatbed doesn’t scan near the very edge, so make sure you leave at least 1/4″ in order to scan the whole item. I suppose if you scan a piece of paper it wouldn’t be an issue because of the margins, but I use it to scan cards and checks, so you have to leave space near the edge of the flatbed.

It is needlessly complicated to get this printer working in Linux. The driver page says this model is supported (shorturl.at/vyX25), but the OS compatibility page says it’s not supported (shorturl.at/oCFJ9). It took me hours to finally get it working. You have to download a special driver for CUPS (shorturl.at/iqz06). There’s no reason that the CUPS driver couldn’t have been included with the printer driver. Also, the included driver disc doesn’t include anything for Linux, only Windows.

The duplex printing isn’t aligned right because it doesn’t print both sides at the same time. It prints page one, pulls the paper back inside, then prints page two. Doing this makes the paper a little bit crooked. It’s not extreme, but it’s definitely noticeable. Make sure you have plenty of margins on what you’re duplex printing or it will get cut off.

The screen will always flash a red light and display an SMTP error. The only way to stop the error and light is to either setup SMTP or disable it. There is no way to disable it in the menu on the printer. You have to access the printer settings in your web browser and disable it there.

All in all, I’m satisfied with this printer. It was a great price and it’s all-in-one. However, it was a huge hassle to setup and the way to scan is stupid. I recommend this printer if you’re on a budget and need a lot of functionality, but can handle inconvenience.

Good quality ,works great easy to hook up,

NO SE PUEDE REALIZAR EL ESCANEO Y EN EL DISCO QUE VIENE PARA DESCARGAR LA CONFIGURACIÓN . NO ESTA EL ESCANEO.