Lexmark Z25
Lexmark's Z25 colour printer is incredibly cheap, and prints well. But you still can't get something for nothing. We've included it in this roundup because while it's hardly a small printer, it is quite light for its size (2.3kgs) and extremely cheap; if you had the suitcase space but were under tight weight and budget constraints it could be a possible contender.
Setup of the Z25 couldn't be simpler. The printer itself is extremely lightweight, although it still has a fairly regular sized footprint. Tear off a single tab of blue plastic, install the print cartridges in the correct colour-coded slots, push in the power brick and plug in the USB cable, and the physical setup is done. There's just one thing wrong with this picture; like every other printer in our roundup, no USB cable is supplied. We'll just let out an exasperated sigh and move on.
|
Introduction |
Like the physical setup, driver setup is smooth and easy. We installed under Windows 2000, but the Z25 also supports Mac and Linux platforms. Plug in our own USB cable, cancel the printer wizard, and step through the provided CD install process. The printer driver tracks ink usage, shows printing progress, and even has a pleasant and polite voice to tell you when printing has commenced and finished. In one of the weirder software choices we've ever seen, the printer interface is skinnable. We suspect someone at Lexmark has far, far too much time on their hands.
The Z25 handles resolutions of up to 1200x1200. You can't expect superfine production from a printer in this price range, but we had little to complain about in terms of colour bleed or incorrect colour presentation.
Something had to come last in our printing tests, and the Z25 was it. Printing in normal quality greyscale, it managed a paltry 1.2 pages per minute of output, although its normal mode did deliver quite crisp print for an inkjet. Switching to colour saw no degredation of performance, but still left it at the back of the pack. Given that Lexmark rates it as having better ppm performance than any other printer in this roundup, that's quite disappointing.
One thing that printing a large number of pages did demonstrate to us is that the colour cartridges don't last an awfully long time. Lexmark offers cartridges for the Z25 in two configurations. The moderate user cartridge (AU$45.95 Black, AU$49.95 colour) was what we tested with, and after four high definition A4 prints, was 1/8th drained. Lexmark claim yeilds of 410 draft black and 280 draft colour pages for this cartridge, which is designed for those who only want to print very intermittently. At the other end of the spectrum, Lexmark offer high resolution cartridges (AU$69.95 black, AU$76.37 colour) which they claim can manage 820 draft black and 520 draft colour pages respectively. If you're likely to print a lot the costlier cartridges make more sense on a cost per page basis, except of course that by the time you've gone through two of them, you've spent more than on the original printer itself.
Ultimately the Lexmark Z25 can only be recommended for travellers who find themselves light in the wallet, but heavy in the suitcase, and who can stand to wait a little while for their documents.
Lexmark Z25
Company: Lexmark
Price: AU$129
Distributor: Selected resellers
Phone: 1300 362 192
2%
4%
my BJC-55 just can't print in color with my Nokia 9210. I'm using Canon Bubblejet (BJ mode) driver.