I bought this printer about 3 years ago when it was a considerably highrer price than it is now. It has constant use and touch wood I have never and any problems with it.

The machine itself prints in both colour and black and white, scans, copies and can be used as a fax machine (although I have still not figured out how this works despite reading the manual a few times!).

On the plus side this machine produces good quality, clear impressions whether you are printing or copying and has a very easy to use control panel. The multiple SD card slots also make my life easy as you just insert your digital camera memory card into the appropriate slot (there are two different sizes and a PictBridge slot on the machine) and then your software on the computer connected allows you to instantly upload your photos without having to plug the camera into the computer. It has a reasonable printing speed for both colour and black and white printouts and the cartridges are easy to fit into the holders.

On the downside the printer is quite large (it only just fits onto the space a printer is meant to go on my computer desk) and you are unable to use compatible ink cartridges in the machine which means that printing costs are quite high (The printer itself can take 28 black & 29 colour original lexmark cartridges or high yield 34 black or 35 colour). Also even using a photo cartridge you cannot get a good quality print using this printer - the colours never seem to turn out quite right). The machine is also pretty noisy.

However on the whole if you need a printer which performs several functions and an easy way to transfer photos onto your computer then this printer will do the job.

The only tip I can give is to use a cartridge recycling service such as the The Recycling Factory to send off your old used cartridges so that you can get a little bit of money back to recoup some of the printing costs.