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Tour
The charcoal gray chassis should serve to keep dirt and fingerprints from showing up, unlike the white plastic chassis of most printers, especially toner printers.
Front
The matte silver control panel stands out among the overall charcoal gray of the Lexmark X342n’s chassis. This is positioned at the top of the printer, extending out from the front and angled for easy sight and use.
Above the control panel sits the top of the scanner/copier door, and above this, the side of the auto document feeder is visible. Below the control panel is the document output tray, a cave open in the front and the back. At the front of the tray is a scooped depression with a handle at the top that serves as the handle for the front cover. The cover opens to reveal the toner cartridge and inner workings of the printer.
Below this door is the manual feeder, a slim mouth where paper can be fed one sheet at a time. This is useful for single sheets of specialty papers.
The main and only standard input tray on the X342n sits at the bottom of the printer. A long narrow cutaway at the bottom serves as a handle to grasp the tray and pull it forward. On the left side of the tray’s front is a pill-shaped cutaway that reveals the paper level indicator, a spring-loaded plastic marker that shows the level of the paper at a glance.
Back
The rear of this printer shows the hinges for the scanner door at the top. Below this the output tray opens into its chasm. A door with a simple tab at the top sits below this; it allows access to the paper path for removal of heavier paper as it leaves the printer and presumably for clearing of paper jams.
The panel below this door features the manufacturer’s label and the AC cord port and power switch. The rear of the paper tray can be seen at the bottom of the X342n’s back. A separate plastic half-box can be attached to the back which shields longer paper, accommodated by extending the paper tray, from dust and dirt. However, the paper tray’s position at the bottom of the printer leaves it subject to normal tabletop dust and hair, which could easily enter through open slots in the printer drawer.
Left Side
The X342n’s left side is very Spartan, with only an indentation for the carrying handle seated in the upper center and the light gray button release for the front cover toward the front of the unit. At the bottom is another indentation from which the printer could also be carried.
Right Side
The right side of the X342n exhibits few features. The seam of the scanner door is visible at the top. The right handle, a simple indentation, sits in the upper center. Below this and to the right is a slotted vent for the escape of heat. Like the left side, an identical handle sits at the bottom of this side.
Top
The top of the X342n multifunction printer is made up of the scanner/copier door and auto document feeder. The feeder consists of the rollers encased in a plastic box. Documents are fed into the top at an angle and supported by the paper tray, which is extendable for larger documents. The tray below the feeder into which the scanned documents exit is ridged to allow for easier pickup of the paper.
Opening the door reveals the scanner platen, or glass, which occupies most of the space beneath. The only other feature visible is the lock switch on the left, which holds the scanner head in place.
The scanner glass, as well as documents and books, are kept safe from damage by the smooth, white plastic sheet backed by a foam pad that forms the underside of the scanner door. The left side of this pad is where the auto-fed documents issue forth to slide onto the platen and back.
Interior
The front cover opens to reveal the single toner cartridge with its blue handle. The cartridge is easily removed by pressing the release button below. Two conical rubber stoppers extend from the inner side of the door to brace against the cartridge to keep it form shifting when the unit is moved. The drum is visible when the cartridge is removed.
Components
Display (5.00)
The X342n’s display is a simple, two-line, 0.5" x 2" LCD screen, standard on most toner printers. These displays don’t make navigating the sometimes lengthy menus very easy, but this is what they’re offering us. Multifunction printers from Brother often have backlit, 5-line displays, a vast improvement over this pathetic little screen.
Paper Trays (5.50)
The X342n comes with one input and one output tray. The input tray can handle a maximum of 250 sheets, standard for many printers in this class. This is expandable to 800 sheets with the purchase of the optional 550-sheet drawer. The output tray can handle 150 sheets. The manual feeder tray can only handle one sheet at a time, while most of its competitors can handle from 10 sheets (HP Laserjet 3055) to 50 sheets (Brother MFC-8460N) in their equivalent trays. The auto document feeder can accommodate a maximum of 50 sheets of standard paper.
CD Burner (0)
Some all-in-one inkjets feature CD burners, but this is not a standard option on multifunction laser printers. The X342n is without one as well.
 Power supply The X342n comes with a 6-foot power cord, equivalent to the length of most laser printers.
Internal Memory (5.00)
The X342n has a buffer of 64 megabytes, standard on toner printers in this price range and plenty of memory to handle the types of jobs this printer will be used for. However, there is no option to expand this capacity.
Multi-tasking (0)
This multifunction can only perform one function at a time.
Hard drive (0)
No hard drive is included with the X342n.
Accessories (8.00)
Standard replacement toner cartridges (2,500-pg yield) for the Lexmark X342n run $102.25, and high yield cartridges (6,000-pg yield) cost $155.50. Return program toner cartridges are available in both standard and high yield sizes, for $82.25 and $135.50. These are sold with a license agreement that the customer use the cartridge only once and return it to Lexmark for remanufacturing or recycling.
Wireless print servers compatible with the X342n are also available for purchase from the Lexmark website. The Lexmark N4050e 802.11g Wireless Print Server ($149) can hook the printer up to a computer network, while the MarkNet N7020e Gigabit Ethernet Print Server ($349) can connect up to four printers to an Ethernet network.
Input paper capacity can be expanded from 250 to 800 sheets with the purchase of the 550-sheet drawer for $199. This attaches to the bottom of the printer.
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