Lexmark P350
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Details at a glance
Printing: 3 Inkjet
Max Paper Size: 10 x 20cm
Resolution: 4800x1200
Dim: 127 x 235 x 147
Weight: 1.84kg
We clicked with
Print quality, range of connectivity options, price of consumables
Shots in the dark
Occasionally fiddly to produce edge to edge prints from media card, Bluetooth not included
Links
More Lexmark information
www.lexmark.co.uk
Price Comparison:
Lexmark P350
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The Lexmark P350 is one of a new breed of “one trick” printers. Instead of printing any size up to A4 like most photo printers you are limited to 6 x 4 (or “10 x 15” in metric). However, this tiny printer has a couple of tricks up its sleeve.
Appearance and features
It's small. Actually the Lexmark P350 is very small. It has a nifty carrying handle on top and is about the size of a small toaster. It's about 9.5 inches by 5.5 by 5 tall and easily lives up to the boast of being a portable printer - or it would do if you could run it off batteries. As it is, the printer is easily portable from one power socket to the next.
On the front are two slots - one takes compact flash cards and the other takes xD, SD, MMC and memory stick. There's also a socket to connect a PictBridge compatible camera and a connection at the back to hook it up to your PC or Mac. Amazingly there's a USB lead included in the box. This is a very well connected printer. One neat touch is that the slots on the front act as card readers - you can either copy pictures from the cards to your computer using printer menu options or access the cards directly from your operating system.
If you like you can of course print directly from the cards. There's a nice clear LCD screen on the top of the printer and very simple to follow menus. Scroll through the cards, pick the pictures you want and print them. I tried printing the same picture from Photoshop via USB and directly off a flash card and couldn't spot any difference at all.
There's a red eye reduction button on the printer too. It isn't really clear how this works but it will never be as good as selectively reducing red eye in your favourite editor - or not getting red eye in the first place. I printed two copies of a picture of a fire extinguisher (it's the one from our first look at the Lumix L1). The one with red eye reduction shows noticeable desaturation in the red so it looks like red eye is based on colour only.
Print quality
Wow. Just wow. You have to remember that this printer only prints 6 x 4s and that this is fundamentally easier than printing larger pictures - if your printing is a little off then a 6 x 4 won't generally show it up where a bigger print will. However, with this proviso the Lexmark P350 produces outstanding prints.
I printed one of our standard test charts which includes a very gradual grey to white gradient along one edge. Look carefully and you'll see a small amount of banding on this. Also in the solid colour areas there is a small amount of what looks like noise but in reality is the ink droplets but as a general print it looks absolutely great.
What is remarkable is the fact that the colours on the print exactly match those on my monitor. I didn't have to mess about with profiles, set options or experiment. In Photoshop I “let the printer determine colours” and it did just that - one of the most faithful prints I have seen on an budget inkjet. This really is as it should be - Lexmark supply the printer, the paper and the ink. My screen is carefully calibrated - as long as I don't fiddle with anything I should get accurate prints time after time (allowing for the difference between LCD and paper). What's refreshing is that it works!
Out of interest I tried some different paper. I used some Epson Photo Glossy paper that was lying around and switched the printer to normal photo paper instead of the PerfectFinish high gloss paper supplied. Unsurprisingly the colours wandered a little - the prints became a little too red. With careful calibration I could get the colours correct for prints from a computer but for prints directly from a card I hadn't a hope. I just switched back to Lexmark paper and all was fine again.
Bottom line - I'd accept these prints from any high street lab.
Print longevity
Lexmark claim that prints on their PerfectFinish paper made with the P350 will last 150 years. There's no real reason to doubt them - apart from the fact that manufacturers have been known to “inflate” print longevity in the past. There's no real information on how this is calculated but I would expect it to be for prints in an album. Prints on display will last a lot less.
Even so, 150 years is a remarkable claim. According to Wilhelm Imaging Research, lab prints on Fuji Crystal Archive paper will last 40 years under display conditions. WIR haven't yet performed independent tests on the P350.
I could test another claim - that they are water resistant. I took a print straight out of the printer and rubbed it hard - no smudging. I then dropped the print into a dish of water and left it there for an hour. It curled a little (but not much) and I took it out and rubbed hard. Nothing - no smudging and the paper held together like it was dry. I let it dry and the curl went away and you could never tell it had been wet. I'm not sure a regular lab print would stand up to this level of abuse.
Bottom line - claimed to last at least as long as lab prints and is at least as tough as them.
Running costs
The Lexmark P350 has an estimated street price of £99.99. It's pretty new but this seems spot on - 3 online retailers have it for £99.99 and one for a couple of pounds more.
Recommended street price for consumables is £19.99 for a high yield photo cartridge and 100 sheets of paper. I couldn't find these supplies online but I have no reason to doubt the price - that makes the consumable cost 20p per print.
A cheap online lab will print for 8 - 10p per print and charge around £1.50 for delivery. Cheaper print prices are possible with quantity orders but I've based this on short runs of up to 100 prints. 20 6X4 prints therefore might cost you somewhere between £3.00 and £3.50. Print them at home on a P350 and they will cost you £6.
Of course if you just want one print then it will cost you 20p on the P350 and £1.50 online. Depending which lab you use the cutover is somewhere around 14 - 15 prints. Fewer than this the P350 is cheaper, above the lab is. However you need to remember the original £99.99 investment in the printer - which gets you your first 20 prints “free”.
Areas for improvement...
Printing out from flash cards you are often left with a white border on one edge. To some extent this is unavoidable because camera sensor ratios don't always match paper ratios. However, there should be options to zoom into the picture and lose some of the image to get rid of these borders.
Bluetooth doesn't work. I'll rephrase that - the manual makes it look like the P350 has Bluetooth, the printer has setting to turn Bluetooth on and off but you actually need an optional extra to make it work. Printing directly from my phone or MacBook would be very cool and it's a shame that this isn't bundled
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Only you can really decide if you want to print 6 x 4s at home to not. There are some advantages - especially since you know that if your screen is correctly set up then you will get perfect, accurate prints every time. At 2 minutes a print this isn't the fastest printer in the world so if you have a lot of printing to do then you may want to have a lab print them regardless of the cost. However for a simple printer that will give you great 6 x 4s at a reasonable cost the Lexmark P350 is highly recommended. Prints are pretty well as good as a minilab, as tough as those from a minilab and for certain quantities can cost less than a minilab.
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