Great Value (Lexmark Z12)

Member Name: rob_writer

Product:	Lexmark Z12
Date:	05/12/00 (277 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, good quality

Disadvantages: Expensive cartridges, can't use colour and black simultaneously

After recently buying a new PC, the next thing I needed was a new printer. Not wanting to break the bank I didn't want to spend a fortune on it, so opted to go for this budget printer from Lexmark. Priced at only around £60 the Z12 promises 1200x1200 dpi, 6ppm black \ 2ppm colour and suprisingly, given the price it claims to offer photo quality printing.

The printer offers both USB and paralell connectivity so it can be used with older PC's without a USB port. Suprisingly neither cable was supplied with the printer, which will add around £10 to the price if you have to buy one. I planned on using my existing paralell cable with the printer, but it turned out it was an older cable which didn't support bi-directional printing. Strange considering my last printer required one too, and it never complained. Anyway, I bought a new USB cable to use with it. I'm not sure if there is any difference in speed between using a paralell or USB cable, but I thought I may as well use the new technology when it was available. As the printer is new Windows doesn't include drivers for it, so a CD and instructions on how to use it are included with the printer. The only other documentation supplied is the manual, which seems nice and thick until you realise that it's for about 10 languages. Even if a little brief, it covers all the printing options and contains a handy trouble shooting section. Included with the printer is a single colour cartridge. This uses only three colours, so black is made from a mix of the three colours. Personally I can't see a lot of difference between mixed and real black, but I know some people do, so a black ink cartridge can be used. Here, however, lies on of the only faults with the printer, as only one cartridge can be used at once. That means if you want to use the balck cartridge you have to swap them over, and then back again when you want to print colour. A holder is provided at the rear of the printer for the out
os use cartridge but its still going to be very annoying having to switch the cartridges over. There is a slight saving grace, the price of the colour and black cartridges are exactly the same so there is no money to be saved in using a black cartridge, the only reason I can see is to get that better quality black print. It is worth noting that ink cartridges have a RRP of £21, but hopefully I can find somewhere that sells them cheaper than that.

The printer itself is small and compact, and has a nice curved design matching the style of ergonomic keyboards and mice. It is suprisingly light too, at least half the weight of the last printer. The driver is nice, displaying the ink levels and a great number of test prints and calibration of the cartridge.

Of course what we all want to know is how does the printer perform, and my answer to that is suprisingly well. There are 3 modes of printing available; quick 600dpi, normal 600dpi or high quality 1200dpi. You can also select from a number of paper types, including glossy photo paper. In the quick 600dpi mode, as expected the print quality is reduced but the printing is very quick and would certainly suffice for text only printing. The middle quality setting produces a good quality print, and is fine for normal graphics and text. The final high quality 1200dpi should be reserved for high quality images and photos, it does provide photo quality printing but the printing is noticeably slower and ink usage is increased. I was pleasantly suprised at the quality of print when I used glossy photo paper, it really did look almost as good as a real photo. Text looked OK even using the colour cartridge, and it is good for general printing. Its is a little slow to print at times, but not too bad.

Overall, for the price I doubt that there could be any better printer in the same range as this, it provides quality that would have cost hundreds or pounds only a few years ago. The only faults are the lack
of being able to use two cartridges at once, and the expense of the cartridges themselves.

Summary: