You could do worse for £50 (Lexmark Z11)

Member Name: Marechal_Ney

Product:	Lexmark Z11
Date:	28/11/00 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, all the usual features, good quality prints

Disadvantages: Pricey ink cartridges, slightly dodgy paper feed

I got this printer bundled with my PC system. Along with a Mustek scanner, it cost £100, so the price I paid for it was probably around £50. I didn't expect miracles; all I wanted was a printer that would do the job on both color and black text prints.

My first impressions were good. The manual was well-written, and I soon had the printer up and running on my desktop. The printer duly printed out Word documents, at unremarkable speed, and did very well on graphics as well. The printer software includes a nifty indicator showing how much ink is left in the cartridge, as well as job progress, whenever you decide to print out a document. The printer also performed extremely well on transparencies.

Unfortunately, after having used it for over a month, certain disadvantages came to light. First off, color printer cartridges are £25, and judging from the rate I am going, don't last all that long. Black and white cartridges are slightly cheaper, I'm told, but it is impossible to use a color and a black and white cartridge simultaneously. This additional cost is something one must bear in mind when considering the Z11's highly competitive base price.

Another thing which irks me is the dodgy paper feed. It is often quite a task to align the paper feed so that the paper goes in straight. This is okay for users like myself, but those who need the printer for more pressing duties should not need to bother with such a quirk. And no, I'm not the only one who has reported this problem either.

Aside from these issues, the printer is more than adequate for all my daily needs, incorporating all the features one could reasonably expect of a modern color printer. At £50, it represents good value for money, but this is unfortunately somewhat dented by the pricey ink cartridges.

Summary: