New Lexmark printers

It seems nobody can release a product these days - they have to release a whole batch of them. It doesn't quite measure up to the 18 printers announced by Canon the other week but Lexmark have tossed their hat into the ring with 3 new printers. To be fair, 3 printers should pretty well cover most markets since each of them is sensibly targeted at a different class of user.

	X5470 - an all in one All in ones can look a pretty good bet. Not only do you get a photo quality printer, you also get fax. Copier and scanner built into one. Often this means that you have to compromise on features but the X5470 boasts amazing print speeds of up to 25 pages per minute in black and 18 pages per minute in colour. That's probably based on a standard for printing business documents with a certain percentage coverage and usually just a splash of colour but it's still pretty impressive. I'd expect photo prints to take a lot longer though. Out of the box the X5470 will print borderless 6X4s either from your computer, from a PictBridge compatible camera or direct from a memory card. There are a couple of cool features. One is the ability to print a contact sheet of images on a card. You can then select pictures on the sheet (it's not clear how but maybe by circling them) then scan the contact sheet to select pictures to print. There's also an option to add an extra photo cartridge to get high resolution six colour prints - which is pretty good for a photocopier! Full specification
	Z845 - “traditional” inkjet You might like to think of the Z845 as a more traditional inkjet - it just prints things. The specs make it look like an X5470 with the scanner unit removed. Print speed is the same at 25 ppm black and 18 ppm colour and again there's the option to add an extra photo cartridge for enhanced performance. Lexmark look like they have been listening to us about printer ink prices though. There are a couple of interesting options on the Z845. The first is to buy discounted ink cartridges in exchange for agreeing to return the used cartridges for remanufacturing or recycling. It's really not clear how this scheme will be policed (what, for example, stops me buying discounted cartridges and then just throwing them away?) but if you register then you'll receive one free cartridge for every 5 you return so it looks a good deal. Alternatively there are special high capacity cartridges for volume users. The final option is to buy regular sized undiscounted cartridges and recycle them yourself. Somehow I can't see this being the most popular option. Full specification
	P350 portable photo printer Lastly we have a dedicated photo printer featuring brand new print technology from Lexmark. Evercolor II is a pigmented ink system (like the K3 ink in posh Epsons or the Lucia ink from Canon) and used with the right paper is supposed to produce prints that last 100 years in a frame and up to 200 years in an album. That should be enough for the pics from your trip to Magaluf. The printer can work from a PC or Mac but seems purpose designed for stand alone use. It can print from memory cards, USB flash drive, PictBridge cameras and even your phone (if you buy a Bluetooth adapter). There's a 2.4 inch colour display on the printer (similar in size to the biggest screens you get on cameras at the moment). There are options to edit the pictures right on the printer and produce a variety of black and white effects before printing. Full specification
Warranty It's also worth mentioning the excellent warranty on both the X5470 and Z845. Lexmark promise that if your printer breaks down in the first year you will get a replacement next business day. Of course there are exclusions if you've done something stupid with it but I can see this being very attractive to small businesses - especially for the X5470. Prices look great too with both the X5470 and P350 expected to retail for £100 and the Z845 at £60.