Cheap printer, Expensive ink... (Lexmark Z33)

Member Name: angeelu

Product:	Lexmark Z33
Date:	05/08/04 (667 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Available very cheaply second hand, Produces good results, Looks good

Disadvantages: Expensive Lexmark ink

The Lexmark Z33 printer is starting to get on a bit now, but despite its age it can still produce excellent results. Prior to owning this printer I'd never owned a Lexmark product before. I'd heard the name, and believed it to be a quality brand. The printer came as part of a bundle when I bought a new PC a few years back.

The Looks
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Not important to everyone, but I like my things to look nice, as well as do the job. The Z33 came in a few standard PC equipment colours such as black, charcoal, and grey. Mine's black. Without getting my ruler out, the length of the printer is as long as my keyboard, so not too long, and its width is just a bit wider than my keyboard. It only stands a few inches high. Its compacy design means it doesn't take up too much space on the desk, which is certainly a bonus.
In order to keep the paper straight and upright whilst printing a holder folds up from the printer body, and similarly, should you wish to use it, a kind of tray to keep the paper straight once printed on can also be pulled out when printing.

To Use
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This really is a simple printer to use. There's only two buttons on it - one for power and one for everything else. The 'everything else' button is used to reset the printer when there's a problem of any kind - for example, if it runs out of paper during a job the LED next to the button will flash and the printer will stop working. You correct the problem (by putting some paper in) and press the button to tell the printer to carry on with the job.
For computers with XP installed your PC will most probably pick up the settings for the printer as soon as you plug it in, however, it does come with a disc to instal it onto your PC too. Installation is simple, being just a case of popping in the CD and letting it do its stuff, occasionally clicking a next button! There's a tutorial included in the installation disc,
but it's not really required.

Prints
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This colour inkjet printer can produce very good results. Text printed in black is crisp and as you'd want it, and a page printed in black and white prints very fast. Pictures and graphics also print very clearly, and although this is not claimed to be a photo printer, it does produce good results when printing out digital pictures. For high quality colour printing it does take its time, but the results are worth it.

The ink is what lets this printer down. It's pricey. You can pick up a large black cartridge for around £20, and a large colour for around £22 (smaller cartridges cost around £14 and £15 pounds for the black and the colour). Although cartridges last for a reasonable length of time it costs a lot to replace them, and if you end up replacing the black and colour at the same time you sometimes consider just buying a new cheapo printer with the two cartridges in it as it could probably save you a quid or two. Lexmark have a (clever?) tactic of putting chips into their cartridges with are required to make the printer work. This is what presumably bumps the price up of these cartridges, or at least, gives the company an excuse to bump the prices up. There are plenty of companies now who produce high quality cartridges compatable with brand names such as Canon and HP, but it seems that, because of this chip, they are unable to replicate a Lexmark cartridge, resulting in the Lexmark printer owner having to stick with purchasing Lexmark cartridges.

The Verdict
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There's not much more that can be said about the printer, after all, I've let you in on what it does and what its only real downfall is. You're unlikely to find this printer in the shops any more, but if you're someone who only occasionally uses their printer, and you're after a good quality cheap secondhand printer you can get a bargain on these now
. There's about 7 on eBay at the time of writing this review, and you could currently snap one up for the measly price of £2.00. Yes, two whole pounds. I don't think that price is a reflection on the quality of the printer, more a reflection on the abundance of second hand printers available and the fact that new ones can be bought at reasonable prices now.

I would recommend this printer, as it's never let me down, however, if you do a lot of printing I would warn you away from Lexmark because of the expensive cartridges.

Probably worthy of 3.5 stars, but as it's no longer available in the shops, only as a second hand item I'll just give it 3 * * *

Summary: