Lexmark Unveils 7 New Printers For Businesses

Printer manufacturer Lexmark released seven new machines Monday, increasing its lineup of both A4 printers and smart multifunction printers in its 700 and 800 series and widening the doors into the small, mid-sized and large business markets.

During the first week of February, Brian Henderson, Lexmarx’s director of global channel marketing, the company will visit 10 cities across the U.S. and Canada, inviting solution providers to view the products and offering deals for those that place orders.

The company's new A4 printers bolster the Lexington, Ky.-based vendor's capabilities in both the satellite office space as well as the large enterprise market as Lexmark looks to use its 700 series A4 device in small offices and introduce its new, CX860 multifunction printer as an A4 or letter-size paper replacement for its traditional A3, or tabloid-size paper, machine.

[Related: Brother Jumps Into Amazon Dash Program]

"These are two very different strategies," said Ron Wells, global product marketing manager for Lexmark.

Lexmark's new 700 series A4 represents the company’s answer to increased demand from corporate "mother ships" for their satellite offices. The printers are built to give smaller offices more capabilities without making their operations more confusing or increasing the space and energy the machines consume in those locations.

"When you look at how business is being done today, all these satellite (offices) are getting told they need to be doing more," Wells said. "They are going to be scanning and printing at a higher volume, instead of sending them to the mother ship."

The printers feature ink and toner cartridges similar to those found in smaller, home-office printers that are both familiar and easy to use, and they have access doors located at the front of the machines to make the printer's paper paths easy to access in case of paper jams.

"In those smaller locations, you don’t have IT. These solutions need to be familiar and easy to use," Wells said.

Lexmark also released a self-proclaimed "champion offering," the CX860 MFP.

That printer, also an A4, is aimed at replacing the traditional A3 offering in large businesses, Wells said, adding that most companies are looking to buy an A3 for its functionality rather than A3-sized paper.

"People just aren't using it," he said. "Some places I've (seen) thought the A3 tray only printed on legal-sized paper."

With more electronic movement of information, Wells said, people don’t print on the larger-sized paper as often because it's simply too large and unwieldy. However, the use of A4-sized paper is still strong and used often.

However, many customers are buying the A3s for other reasons, like the advanced finishing capabilities (stapling, binding and hole punching) and high-yield consumables, which the CX860 has.

The new printer provides a lower total cost of ownership thanks to the fact that it prints only on A4 paper, Wells said, saving users the price of the larger paper and the consumables that go with it.

The printer comes with a toner bottle that will print through 55,000 pages. And it can print and scan up to 60 pages a minute.

"Nothing comes close to it in the A4 market … and it is superior to many printers in the A3 category," Wells asserted, adding that the printer has many of the in-demand components of an A3 printer while taking up less space and offering a lower cost of ownership.

All of the new printers released by Lexmark come with a new, tablet-like touchpad that decreases the time it takes to learn how to use or program the printer, thanks to the familiar interface.

The pad is adjustable and can download different applications from Lexmark's application database, which acts similarly to an app store so printers can have functionality specific to their uses.