Review: Lantronix xPrintserver – ook via iOS printen

Do you know the problem? You are sitting on your iPhone or iPad looking at an email or a photo and you want to print it. So that is forwarding to your PC or laptop and then printing. That could be more convenient!

That is what the designers at Lantronix will have come up with. There are printers that can work directly with an Apple device, but of course that is slightly different than you already have. Similarly with me. The xPrintServer was created for this situation .

In the box

You get a simple box with the standard announcements on how great the device is. In it a box that can appeal to me much more: white with a big X on it. In this box you will find the actual device, a power cable and some different power plugs for some European countries. There is also a quick start guide , which are two stapled A4 pages. That does not detract from the beautiful box you first see. The plastic tray containing the print server is also cheap.

Connecting

Then started the installation. It couldn’t be easier: connect the printer’s USB connection to the server, connect it to the network (unfortunately no network cable is included) and plug in the power. That’s it, won’t take you more than a minute. Then the big test: does it work? Opened anneliesje.nl before and tried a print. Within iOS, you press the button next to the bookmarks and choose print. There you can choose the printer, number of copies and of course send it to the printer. It worked great! Normally I look for negative points in the use of a device in every possible way, but I would not know them.

Support

The main point of the xPrintServer is the ability to print from iOS, but it also works with a Windows or Mac computer. Unfortunately, there is no support for Linux systems. From your supported PC you need to install it like any other network printer. On my PC and laptop, that also happened within two minutes: finding the printer takes the longest time.

A small web server is built into the Lantronix. This allows you to see the status of the device and possibly delete print jobs. Simple, but works well.

Is there nothing negative about this server at all? Anyway. The list price is $ 100, which I think is quite pricey. For the same money, for example, you have an HP Photosmart 5510, which also has support for AirPrint, so you can use it under iOS. The advantage of the Lantronix device, on the other hand, is that you can use up to 8 printers with the device.

Conclusion

For someone who is very happy with their current printer or has more that they want to connect to their network and iPad / iPhone, the Lantronix xPrintServer is a great device. Very easy to connect, there are no settings: it works immediately. You just have to consider whether you have the money for this functionality.

The Lantronix xPrintserver is not available in many places, you can find it online on Lantronix’s own shopping page (they ship to Europe) and at MaxICT.nl.