Lexmark Z25 (Lexmark Z25 Color)

Member Name: Kepler

Product:	Lexmark Z25 Color
Date:	31/01/04 (323 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Initially very cheap

Disadvantages: Uses ink quickly, Duff paper feeder, Unreliable

The first thing that attracted me to the Lexmark Z25 was that it is one of the cheapest Inkjet printers around. Being a poor student at the time the printer was an obvious way to save some money. I have to say that after parting with my money I had some reservations, after all a printer that costs less than £25 must have some faults I just hoped that they weren't that major.

The manufacturers inform you that that the printer prints at 9 pages per minute (ppm) in black and white and 6ppm when using colour. In my experience however, the real numbers are 5ppm in black and white and a measly 3ppm if any colour is involved. While these numbers are fine for short documents, printing anything over 20 pages can become tiresome. With a maximum resolution of 1200dpi colour pictures can be printed with some degree of clarity, about as much as you would expect from a printer that cost £23.99. However, do be wary when using the highest resolution as it is a real drain on the ink. Black text prints out perfectly clearly and if you use a good quality paper then the text appears noticeably sharper. As well as plain paper the printer can print onto envelopes, transparencies, labels, glossy paper and many more media types. There are no real advantages over other printers where this printer is concerned and it really is all about the price.

At first I thought I had got myself a bargain with this printer, that was until it came to replacing the ink cartridge. I had only been using the printer for about two and half months before the cartridge needed changing but I wasn't too alarmed as I had been using it quite a lot. I connected to the net in search of the cheapest price and to my horror I found that if I wanted to replace my black cartridge I would have to shell out £21.99. When you consider that this is only £2 cheaper than buying a whole new printer I was disgusted. In the end I opted for a refill which cost me £7.99 and would refill the original cartridge
three times. Initially I was sceptical but as it turns out the refill did its job perfectly and the print quality was near enough the same for much less cash. Another minor fault wth the printer is that the support tray which catches your printed documents isn?t very wide. This means that your may find yourself picking your work up off of the floor if you are not there to watch over it. As well as this the printer does not come with a USB cable so if you do not have a spare one you will have to fork out more money for one of these.

I happily continued using my printer for 9 months, replacing the ink every 2-3 months until one day for no apparent reason the printer started to take more than one piece of paper through at a time. To my annoyance I discovered this whilst printing a 112 page document. I had gone away to get a cup of coffee and came back to find that my pages were printed half on one piece of paper and half on another. It was at this point that I realised I needed a new printer and that the Lexmark Z25 needed to be put to rest. As it turned out it ended up in the hands of my brother who used it for his college work. After another month of use however, it packed up completely and refused to take even one piece of paper through.

All in all I would have to say that this printer is just not worth purchasing. Apart from the low price it simply has nothing good going for it. High running costs combined with poor reliability mean that I would advise you to steer well clear of this printer.

Summary: