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Lexmark Z65P
Price: £149

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Andy Shaw

This review updated: 20/03/2003
Featured in magazine:
Issue 53, page 38
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Lexmark
Tel: 08704 440044
Web Address: www.lexmark.co.uk


Although many web users with a digital camera revel in being able to share their photos online, there are still times when you need a hard copy of your snaps. When dealing with your friends or clued-up members of your family, it's all very well firing off a quick email or publishing your pics on the web. But for people who may not have the technical know-how or easy access to a PC, you can't beat a nice print on glossy paper. This printer from Lexmark is ready for those printing occasions, offering direct access to a range of memory cards to make your life even easier.

Star among this printer's features is a slot for each of the main memory card types found in most digital cameras – CompactFlash, Smart Media, Secure Digital/MultiMedia and Memory Stick. So no matter what kind of memory card you use, you can bypass the camera's cables and use your printer as your link to the computer. It also has two paper trays so you can have special photo paper loaded at the same time as your standard printing paper, and comes with a full version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 2, which is a great image-editing program provided you've got a good enough computer to run it at a decent speed.

Setting up the printer is very easy as it comes with a clearly illustrated set-up guide and an automatic alignment process to make sure that the two cartridges (one for colour, one for black) print harmoniously. The software that pops up when you come to print is also easy to use, with pictorial examples of how to get the results you want, from choosing the paper tray to guiding your quality expectations.

The printer itself is an upgrade of Lexmark's Z65 range, which has been around for some time now, and this shows in its performance. When it comes to producing high-quality prints on glossy paper, this is one of the slowest printers we've tested. On the quality front, you're not getting state of the art printing – it has a tendency to struggle with subtle shading and some dark areas on our test photos got a little muddy.

Having said this, it's certainly one of the cheapest printers around to feature those extremely useful memory card slots. The downside is that the quality isn't all that great so it's decent value for those who want to print the occasional photo, but not so worthwhile if you want to print out all your photos to display in an album.

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