great price and quality (Lexmark Z51)

Member Name:

Product:	Lexmark Z51
Date:	19/05/01 (6 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great quality, price plus it is easy to use and hookup

Disadvantages: cost of replacement cartridges is high

Check no farther, this £180 color printer can be found for only £70.99. This is a bargain for an inkjet printer that prints in a resolution of 1200 x 1200 dpi. (Dots Per Inch)

Another thing to look at is a replacement cartridge in black is about $29.95 and the tri-color cartridge is about $36.95, which comes to a total of $66.90. So if your old printer needs to be replaced and you need to buy ink for it then you could take the cost $90.99 and subtract $66.90, which means you, are buying a new printer for only $24.09.

The Z51 is made to use a photo cartridge (Optional cost $39.95) that you can use to get the best photo printing possible. When you use the photo cartridge you have to take the black cartridge out and place the photo cartridge it it’s place. When you use the photo cartridge it prints somewhat slower but the photo finish will be worth it. The photo cartridge has six colors in it with the three in the color cartridge gives you 9 colors to print with.

What you get
The Lexmark Z51 Color Jetprinter with 1-year warranty.

1-High Resolution, standard yield black Print Cartridge

1-High Resolution, standard yield color Print Cartridge

You can get High yield capacity cartridges for both the black and tri-color. The high yield capacity cartridges cost about an extra $5 to $10 over the standard cartridges but you get about 50% more ink in them.

The Software
The Lexmark Z51 Color Jetprinter Series ColorFine driver software.

Corel Print House Magic

ArcSoft Photo Fun House

The Z51 supports
Windows 3.1, 95, 98, ME, OS/2, NT 4.0, it and also supports DOS if you run it through windows.

Highlights
You can connect with a Parallel or USB port.

The resolution can be printed at 1200 x 1200 dpi.

In the lowest resolution it can print up to 10 pages per minute in black and up to 5 pages per minute in color. The lowest resolutio
n is 600 x 300 dpi in the Quick Print mode.

You can place in 100 sheets of paper that it feeds automatically and it automatically feeds your envelopes.

It is Energy Star compliant.

My Tests
This printer belongs to a friend of mine who had it hooked up with a parallel cable so I brought over a USB cable to see what the difference might be in printing speeds. (Now remember these are my tests and may not be accurate but, it will give you some ideas.)

First we printed one of my reviews using MS Word 2000 with the parallel connection and it took about 21 seconds, the same results with the USB connection was 23 seconds. The USB was slower, boy was I surprised!

Next we printed an 8 x 10 color photo using the glossy photo paper at 1200 x 1200 dpi and the parallel connection was about 9 minutes and 14 seconds, while the USB connection took 11 minutes and 39 seconds. The USB lost again!

I don’t know how accurate these tests were but, I thought USB was supposed to be faster. If anyone else has ever taken a USB and Parallel test with any printer, please let me know how your tests turned out.

Overall
Installation is a snap with either connection USB or Parallel and the software loaded easily.

Normal printing at 600 x 600 dpi results in crisp clear text and nice looking photos, though I do recommend using 1200 x 1200 when printing a photo on photo paper.

The manual was very detailed and easy to understand and makes a great reference when ever you need more help with the printer.

Summary: