I Picked the Wrong Lexmark Printer Twice — Here's How to Not Repeat My Mistakes

I've been handling printer procurement for a mid-sized law firm for about six years now. In that time, I've personally made two significant printer selection mistakes—totaling roughly $4,200 in wasted budget between hardware, supplies, and service calls. That's not counting the productivity lost while partners waited for their documents.

What I've learned is this: there's no single perfect Lexmark printer for every office. The Lexmark 2400 series printer might be a dream for one team and a nightmare for another. Same goes for the Lexmark B2338 printer. It depends entirely on your specific circumstances.

So instead of giving you a generic recommendation, I'm gonna walk you through the three most common buyer scenarios I've seen (and messed up in). Figure out which one you're in, and you'll save yourself the headache—and the budget hit.

Scenario A: The Small Team / Home Office User

This was me circa 2022. I needed a printer for a three-person satellite office that mostly handled basic correspondence. Low volume, simple needs. I thought, "Let's get the cheapest thing that prints."

I went with the Lexmark B2338 printer. It's compact, it's affordable, and it prints black-and-white. On paper, it was perfect.

The mistake I made: I didn't factor in total cost of ownership. The B2338 is a solid little machine, but its standard toner cartridge yields about 1,500 pages. For a quiet office, that's fine. But our satellite office's workload picked up, and we were replacing toner every six weeks. The cartridge isn't cheap either—around $80 each. After 18 months, the toner costs had exceeded the purchase price of the printer itself.

What I should've done: For small but growing offices, consider the Lexmark 2400 series printer with the high-yield toner option. The upfront cost is higher—maybe $150 more—but the cartridge yields 5,000 pages, bringing per-page cost down significantly. A little discount calculator work showed me that over a 24-month period, the 2400 series would've saved us about $320.

That said, if your team is literally two or three people printing maybe 200 pages a month total, the B2338 is still a fine choice. Just don't be fooled by the low sticker price.

"In my first year, I made the classic specification error: assumed 'standard' meant the same thing to every vendor. Cost me a $600 redo."

Scenario B: The Growing Office / Mixed Workload

This is where things get tricky. You've got maybe 15-20 users. Some need occasional color, some need fast black-and-white, and everyone needs the thing to just work without constant IT hand-holding.

The Lexmark 2400 series printer is often recommended for this size office, and for good reason. It's faster, it's more robust, and it handles larger paper trays. But I've seen people overshoot here too.

The mistake I made: I bought the 2400 series for a team that was still mostly working remotely 50% of the time. The machine sat idle for days at a time, but I was paying for a mid-range workhorse. The monthly lease cost (if financing) or the depreciation (if buying) was wasted on a machine that wasn't being utilized.

What I should've done: Before picking a model, I needed a chronological age calculator for my office's workflow—not literally calculating age, but mapping out the actual usage pattern over a month. I've since created a simple tracking sheet: for two weeks, have everyone print as normal, but note true print volume. Most people overestimate by 30-40%.

If your actual monthly volume is under 3,000 pages and your team is hybrid, the B2338 might still serve you well. If you're printing 5,000+ pages monthly and need consistent speed, the 2400 series is the better bet. The key is matching the machine to actual workload, not aspirational workload.

Scenario C: The High-Security / High-Volume Environment

This is the scenario I hadn't encountered until last year. A client of ours—a legal firm dealing with sensitive documents—needed a printer with enterprise-grade security features. Suddenly, the conversation changed from page yields to encryption standards.

What the conventional wisdom says: "Buy the highest-end Lexmark you can afford for security." But that's not exactly right.

What I found in practice: Both the Lexmark 2400 series printer and the Lexmark B2338 printer come with basic security options—PIN printing, secure release, and network encryption. But for a high-security environment, you need more: hard drive encryption, secure print queue management, and maybe even a dedicated security audit log.

The 2400 series, in its higher-tier configurations, offers these. The B2338 does not. So if you're in a regulated industry (legal, healthcare, finance), the 2400 series is essentially mandatory unless you're willing to accept some significant security gaps.

The most frustrating part of this discovery: I'd already bought three B2338 units for a small legal office based on my earlier positive experience. We had to swap them out at a cost of about $1,200 in return fees and shipping. The lesson was expensive but clear—security requirements dictate hardware choices more than volume or price.

How to Figure Out Which Scenario Is Yours

I know reading three scenarios can leave you thinking, "But I'm kind of in between." Fair enough. Here's a simple decision guide I use now (and I wish I'd had four years ago).

Step 1: Count your users and your daily print volume.

• 1-5 users, under 500 pages/month? Lean toward the Lexmark B2338 printer. It's cost-effective and simple.
• 5-20 users, 1,000-5,000 pages/month? Consider the Lexmark 2400 series printer with a high-yield toner plan. The upfront investment pays off.
• 20+ users or over 5,000 pages/month? You probably need a higher-tier Lexmark model (like the CX or MX series), but the 2400 series might suffice as a secondary unit.

Step 2: Evaluate your security needs. Do you handle personally identifiable information (PII), health records, or confidential legal documents? If yes, skip the B2338 entirely and go for the 2400 series or higher. The cost of a breach far exceeds the cost of a printer.

Step 3: Use a discount calculator for supplies. I'm not joking. Calculate the per-page cost of toner for each model over a 12-month period. For the B2338, standard cartridge at $80 for 1,500 pages = $0.053/page. For the 2400 series with high-yield cartridge at $120 for 5,000 pages = $0.024/page. That's less than half the cost. Over 20,000 pages annually, the 2400 saves you about $580 in toner alone.

"Everything I'd read about printer selection said premium options always outperform budget ones. In practice, for a low-volume, low-security office, the B2338 delivered better value—the 2400 series would've been overkill."

Step 4: Be honest about your growth trajectory. If you're planning to double your headcount in the next year, buy for that future state, not your current one. I've learned this the hard way—twice now.

And one last thing: don't neglect the user experience when applying a solution. It's a bit like knowing where to apply highlighter on face—the same technique in the wrong spot looks worse than no technique at all. Pick the right printer for your context, and you'll look like a hero. Pick the wrong one, and you'll be fighting paper jams and toner shortages forever.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think if I'd followed this guide from day one, I'd have saved that $4,200. Take that for what it's worth—it came from a guy who's still paying for his mistakes.