Lexmark's Z65 prints well, but its claim to be able to sense all paper types needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
The Z65 is Lexmark's top of the range of its recently released Z-series line of high definition printers. It shares more than a common prefix initial with the Lexmark Z25. It uses the same embedded power brick and basic setup strategy, right down to not coming with the necessary USB cable. Lexmark's just following the industry trend here, but we're unlikely to stop complaining about it until a printer vendor takes the brave stand of actually shipping cables with their units. We just won't be holding our breath waiting.
As the top of the line, you'd expect the Z65 to bring some heavy features to the table. It's capable of 4800x1200dpi printing with drop sizes as small as 3 picolitres. Lexmark claims that the printer switches drop sizes on the fly to ensure picture quality. We certainly had few complaints about the high quality images we printed on the Z65, as long as we specified the paper type beforehand. Claimed page speeds are up to 22ppm for black and 15ppm for colour. The thing to keep in mind here is that the colour figure isn't talking about using the highest resolution colour modes; images printed that way are much slower, in the range of one page every five minutes or so.
The Z65 is a good deal larger than the Z25. Some of that size difference comes about because the Z65 has two inbuilt A4 sheet feeders capable of a total of 250 loaded pages. The rear feeder is just an ordinary feeding tray, but the front tray has what Lexmark refers to as PrecisionSense Technology. PrecisionSense Technology is a marketer's way of saying that the printer performs automatic printer cartridge aligment and can sense the paper type inserted in the front tray. It's a bold claim, but unfortunately we found it less than convincing. We tested with some heavy and medium stock glossy photo paper. The heavy stock was consistently printed correctly, but with the medium stock paper, we got much better results when forcing paper type than letting it do so automatically. Automatically printed pages tended to have strange areas of slightly blotchy printing, as if the printer couldn't decide if we were using plain or glossy paper. It's not terribly hard to change paper types in any case; the Z65 uses the same user friendly driver and information screens as the Z25, right down to the friendly/creepy voice telling you when printing starts and finishes.
Like the Z25, we went through ink at a fairly brisk pace with the Z65. Part of this is undoubtedly due to our testing process, as we printed many more high quality images at best resolution than most normal users would. Unlike the Z25, Lexmark only sells one type of cartridge for the Z65 series; a PrecisionPhoto Black cartridge will set you back AU$72.95 while the colour equivalent sells for AU$84.95. Lexmark claims 600/1200 pages in normal/draft mode for the black cartridge and 450/900 pages in normal/draft for the colour cartridge.
The Z65 actually comes in two variants; the Z65 and Z65N. The N denotes networking capabilities via an inbuilt ethernet port. Unfortunately Lexmark were unable to supply us with a Z65N printer to test its networking capabilities. Networking an inkjet printer is really only a suitable option for quite small offices or design houses. Would you really want to wait five minutes for your one black document while someone else prints a high quality A4 image? The addition of an ethernet port adds AU$100 to the RRP of the Z65.
Warranty on the Z65 is a very acceptable 1 year, with the promise that any problem that can't be solved over the phone will be solved by an express courier with a shiny replacement printer in his grubby mitts knocking on your door shortly thereafter. Now that's confidence in your product, even if it does add the somewhat inevitable "conditions apply" clause in the small print.
Lexmark Z65
Company: Lexmark
Price: AU$599
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 1300 362 192
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I bought a Z65 after pondering whether to buy 2 ink cartridges for my existing printer or buy the Z65. However after 4 months the automatic feed is now broken. I now regret buying the printer and should have stuck with my old one. Printers are now made to last now, certainly the Z65 is not up to the job of mass printing.