False economy defined (Lexmark Z13)

Member Name: ronniec

Product:	Lexmark Z13
Date:	07/10/02 (964 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap

Disadvantages: Very expensive cartridges, Average print quality, Very messy un/installation

Having been a student for the majority of my life, printing from home has never been a necessity for me. There has always been a printer of quality far beyond my means available at school, college or university, so for years I did not even consider adding a printer to my PC. That changed recently when I was, shockingly, forced to work for a year and suddenly discovered life without free printing. Cue a stroll down the unfamiliar aisles of computer stores, printers stacked ten-deep, a maze of features and dots per inches that left me yearning for the good old days of dot matrix monstrosities that just did the job and left you alone.

The Lexmark Z13 was my choice simply because of the price. At £29 from Argos it was the cheapest I had seen anywhere and it looked reasonable for the price, as all products in home shopping catalogues somehow do. Only a fool would have expected much for £29, yet the Z13 managed to disappoint even these low expectations.

Much of the disappointment I experienced with this product was due to my own stupidity in impulse buying this lump of plastic and I hope by reading this you will perhaps avoid the same misfortune. With the advantage of hindsight, let me state categorically that I would sooner have tried to buy £29 worth of crack from a policeman than blow the money on a product which redefines false economy. The Z13 follows a similar marketing model to, for example, the Nintendo Gamecube, in that the product itself is sold at a near-loss with money being made on consumables - in Nintendo's case, over-priced games, and in Lexmark's case, vastly over-priced ink cartridges.

From start to finish I had problems with this printer. I do not claim that this will happen in all cases, and indeed other opinion of this product mention how easy it was to install, but I consider myself more than computer literate yet installing (or, more to the point, un-installing) the Z13 was a nightmare. Windows 2000 does not like c
heap and nasty products, something I am convinced is a cunning ploy to make you spend your money on Microsoft and its partner's products alone. When after hours of tinkering I was finally ready for a test print, lo and behold, the printer would not recognise the cartridge which came as part of the package, refusing to print anything beyond a warped test page, once. The colour cartridge which comes with the Z13, I discovered, costs in the range of £23 to £29 to replace, a possibility I immediately discounted. When a product costs so little you begin to question the extent to which it's actually worth trying to solve problems with it, or whether you should simply cut your losses. I chose the latter.

A black cartridge borrowed from a friend gave better results. Print quality on the test page was acceptable although looked slightly blotched and fuzzy in places. Text was quite well defined although again, some fuzziness was evident. For draft documents and for personal use, the Z13 gives more than acceptable results in black and white. For a letter or document which needs to look good, I'd suggest the Z13 is not the best choice. Unsurprising given the price but something to bear in mind if you think you might be able to push it every now and then when you need an important letter running off - you'll struggle.

The well-known problem with this and other Lexmark printers, the huge cost of replacement ink cartridges, should not be understated. As I abandoned all hope for this printer shortly after purchasing it, I cannot comment on ink life, but eventually the time will come when you need a new cartridge, and Lexmark hit your wallet hard. The one good thing to come out of buying the Z13 was a lesson I learned - always check how much consumables will cost before buying the main shebang. I had no intention of paying upwards of £25 for Lexmark ink when the need arose when comparable brands sell for less than £10 - Epson and Canon the most comm
on examples. Thus, I was left with a printer which would be useless when the ink ran out, so I abandoned it there and then. Others have suggested selling your printer for a fiver and buying a new one instead of buying new ink each time it runs out, but such a strategy is impractical in the extreme. Can you honestly see yourself going through the rigmarole of finding a buyer for your printer for five quid every time the ink runs out?

Technical specifications and such like are best read from Lexmark's website, as to be honest, at this price the specifications are largely irrelevant - suffice to say, they are somewhat weak. If you plan to purchase this printer, you only need to know what you are letting yourself in for, as its problems far outweigh the advantage of the price.

Uniinstalling the printer, if you fell into the same foolish trap as myself and didn't know the cost of ink before buying it, is a likely end to your affair with Lexmark. Sadly this will be a bitter and acrimonious process with each side fighting tooth and nail for control over your PC. I did not realise just how messy the un-installation was until I came to install a new printer recently. The Z13 leaves behind a trail which spans your entire PC, particularly under Windows 2000. It was the root of the problem which incapacitated all printing on my computer and initially led me to believe my new printer was at fault. Fortunately as a technically-minded person, and still suspicious of all things Lexmark, I managed to remove the hooks and booby-traps the Z13 left behind. These are numerous and for other users experiencing the same problem the following guide may be useful.

The first action you must take is to disable the Lexmark service. You'll find this is pointing to a now (after un-installation of the Lexmark drivers and software) non-existent executable. Disable this, then run a search of your Windows directory for '*lex*', which will uncover the num
erous Lexmark files left behind. The poor un-installation procedure leaves Windows believing Lexmark still has control over printing and deleting these files must be done manually. Finally, and this is a very arduous process, run a search through your registry for, again, 'lex'. After flipping through many irrelevant entries, delete all keys and classes relating to Lexmark. Reboot and your print subsystem should be free from Lexmark's clutches.

No doubt I do not need to say the above actions should not be necessary when simply un-installing a printer. The Lexmark Z13 is a poor printer, even at the price, and my personal opinion from experience is to avoid it. For another ten or fifteen pounds you find the entry-level Canon and Epson printers which perform more to expectations and most importantly use cheap ink replacements. While the Z13 may be acceptable for those who don't mind mediocre quality and either paying the Earth for new ink or selling their printer every month, for the majority, I would imagine it is a very poor choice. The Lexmark Z13 now sits in shame at the bottom of my junk cupboard, not even worthy of a quick sale on eBay. Like Jumanji, I hope it remains undiscovered for all time.

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