Using Dell Printer with OS X?

monkeyfudge

Does anyone have any experience of trying to install a Dell branded pinter on OS X?

A friend got one of these Dell printers as a gift and they want me to give them a hand setting it up. But the fact that it is a Dell branded printer has me a little worried.

So, anyone had any luck with one of these?

Gillo

Dell don't make printers, they put their logo over Lexmark one.

AFAIK most lexmark printers are Mac compatiable. so you shouldn't have any trouble althouogh you might be looking at downloading Apple drivers from the lexmark site.

monkeyfudge

Yeah. I was aware that they just branded them.

My friend came over with her Powerbook and Printer there earlier.

I found the relevent Lexmark printer drivers for Mac but that didn't work.

And doing an add new printer in OS X came up with the printer name but it said 'no drivers available' and all the buttons and options were greyed out.

Very annoying. It really doesn't look like their is anyway to get it working.

Gillo

I have an idea of what it might be but it's a complete stab in the dark and if I am right you won't be able to set it up at all so for once I'd gladly appreciate been told that I am wrong.

First this is pure speculation;
From my experiece selling computer accessories over the years, Some of the printers which Dell sold were slightly modified so that they would only take Dell branded cartridges. The cartridge housing in the printer was made with an extra piece of plastic stickeing out and the cartridge had a space left in it in the moulding process so that Dell branded cartridges would fit it ok, but if you tried to fit a Lexmark branded or 3rd party cartridge it would not physically fit in.
Seeing that Dell are being anti-competitive, maybe they had the software on the printer tweaked so that it would only work in conjunction wtih a Dell PC. i'm not techy so I don't know how you would do this, maybe the printer was programmed only to work with say a mother board it recognised???


Why not call Dell, if they sold the printer surely they would have to support it? is it a new printer??

Ham'nd'egger

gillo wrote:

I have an idea of what it might be but it's a complete stab in the dark and if I am right you won't be able to set it up at all so for once I'd gladly appreciate been told that I am wrong.

First this is pure speculation;
From my experiece selling computer accessories over the years, Some of the printers which Dell sold were slightly modified so that they would only take Dell branded cartridges. The cartridge housing in the printer was made with an extra piece of plastic stickeing out and the cartridge had a space left in it in the moulding process so that Dell branded cartridges would fit it ok, but if you tried to fit a Lexmark branded or 3rd party cartridge it would not physically fit in.
Seeing that Dell are being anti-competitive, maybe they had the software on the printer tweaked so that it would only work in conjunction wtih a Dell PC. i'm not techy so I don't know how you would do this, maybe the printer was programmed only to work with say a mother board it recognised???


Why not call Dell, if they sold the printer surely they would have to support it? is it a new printer??

Dell printers are notorious for non compliance with even some of their own PCs. Some of their "deals" on printers will have end of line printers with thier own specific cartridges that are only available from Dell, and at a premium. Toddle off to even a PC World type show and get a half decent HP or Lexmark that you know for sure will work,not one of those cast off Dell try to shove off to people.

monkeyfudge

I speant about an hour with it yesterday. It simply wasn't going to happen.

I told my friend to try and get the money back on it for all those reasons and also the fact that this particular model doesn't seem to have gotten very good reviews.

Her brother bought it for her without thinking about the whole Mac thing.

flywheel

What's the model of the Dell is it? Have a 1700 working grand here (with Tiger and the Lexmark E232 driver) if that's any help...