Colour lasers for small businesses spend most of their time churning out monochrome business documents.

But they also need to be able to add colour and, on occasion, produce professionallooking colour presentations and photographs.

The Lexmark C534dn can do all this with speed and ease – and at a price that won’t break the bank.

With a 100,000-page duty cycle, the C534dn is a heavy-duty device designed to be shared on a small business Lan, despite being light enough (just) to be lifted by one person.

It also comes with the toners already fitted so installation is just a matter of sliding it out of the box, removing the packaging and connecting it to power and Lan outlets.

USB and Ethernet interfaces come as standard on this model, along with an integrated multi-protocol print server, with the usual web-based interface for remote management. A duplexer, for double-sided printing, also comes as standard and works well.

However, the built-in, 250-sheet paper tray isn’t up to scratch on a laser designed for shared network use, and we’d strongly recommend the optional extra 550-sheet tray designed to fit underneath.

Note though, that when configured to take A4, the paper trays protrude out of the back increasing the footprint by a good three inches.

On the positive side, the front of the main tray folds down to reveal the 100-sheet multi-purpose feeder, which is a very neat feature. The four toners are readily accessible from the front.

Those shipped with it are rated for up to 6,000 pages, with a choice of yield on replacements of up to 7,000 pages for colour (£111.14 ex Vat) and 8,000 pages for the black toner (£95.27 ex Vat).

Photoconductor units for the black and colour cartridges are also required every 20,000 pages. These only cost £70.47 (ex Vat) for a full set. We calculate running costs at about 6.2p per page in general use (excluding paper and power), which is competitive with other colour lasers. And while the cartridges are easy to replace, the process can be quite messy.

When it comes to quality, it’s important to stress that, like most business laser printers, you shouldn’t buy the Lexmark C534dn solely for professional graphics printing. For day-to-day business documents, however, it’s excellent and, when needed, it can also produce impressive colour presentations, with lots of controls to help tweak output.

Having said that, however, we found it best to leave these alone rather than waste time and paper trying to improve on the defaults.

Another feature of the C534dn is its intuitive user interface, with a large colour display and associated keypad. Using these, it’s possible to hold documents on the printer securely, then have them print by typing in a suitable Pin code. There’s also a USB port for walk-up printing of Pdf documents from a memory stick.

On the performance front, the Lexmark laser acquitted itself well. The first page took about 11 seconds to appear, after which monochrome A4 pages are ejected at up to 22ppm and only slightly more slowly (21ppm) where colour is involved.

On the downside, printed pages are all dumped into a well on top, with no finishing options available. Nor is it possible to add a custom envelope feeder, which could be an issue for some buyers.