Thinking About Buying a Lexmark x4530?

OK… go ahead, just don’t expect the wireless scanning to work.  Well, maybe it will work for you, but it is really (REALLY) flaky for me.

Picture of dead sea scroll cave with "Support Mindfuel Blog on Patreon" shamelessly promoted on top

So let me drop some stats… I am running a Phenom 9850 2.5Ghz quad core with 4GB RAM and due to other drivers (Don’t know if Lexmark plays on 64 bit or not), I am running XP Pro (32-bit).

The Lexmark x4530 has been a pretty good unit, it prints and scans well, the software is pretty easy to use (the configuration/drivers are clunky because they bolted stuff together from previous models to make it work).  Where it starts to flake out is…well, the one feature that compelled me to buy it: Wireless.

The unit will print wireless.  That for me has been quite reliable.  But I do a fair amount of scanning for my meager DeviantArt page, and this thing is like pulling teeth. 

To get it to scan wirelessly the first time took about 30 minutes with a chat-based Lexmark technician, who had to remote into my machine and reinstall drivers.  After that it worked that one day.

A couple days later I went to scan and it was broken.  But I found if I went and changed the name of my computer via the “Lexmark Solution Center” (Advanced icon, networking button, then click the link “Change your PC name”), then I could get it to scan.  It always throws an error saying the new name I selected is in use – it is stepping on itself somehow…but it works so I do it anyway.

Of course this generated a laundry list of computer names…”Stix”, “Stix2”, “PajamaParty”, “PorkJoy”, “GrapeMadness” all of which were broken except for the current one I had created.

But then the day came when this trick stopped working.  It was back to tech support, and it took 90 minutes this time… and I was able to scan for? You guessed it, THAT DAY.

Here I am creating “PorkJoy2” and my printer scanned but I know this is the hell I will endure, unless I either buy a USB hub, or they fix their software.

So, if you don’t need wireless , then don’t buy this printer.  If you DO need wireless scanning, then don’t buy this printer, IMHO.  However, if you just need wireless printing it might be a good fit -and Lexmark inkjet printers/ink to date are still my favorite over comparable Canon, HP and Epson (although it has been a while since I bought an Epson, the Stylus I had pissed me off way too much to rush into trying them again).

Hope this prooves useful! Happy printing and scanning….

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *