Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer Poplar Bluff MO

Rating: 6/10

A multi function machine is an integrated printer, scanner, copier and sometimes – as here – a fax machine all in one. For a small home office with limited space this unit could be the answer. It is as small as some printers, and has a small-ish footprint. Paper is stacked vertically at the back of the machine, and pops back out at the front too, which means it’s a piece of kit that can easily be rested against a wall. It is 32cm deep, 42cm wide and only 17cm tall. The paper would add another 17cm to the height and if the catcher tray is fully extended this would add another 17cm to the depth. However as this is surely only meant for occasional use then the size should be that taken on the assumption that the machine is inactive. Installation is from the first of two CDs and completes quite quickly for everything (apart from fax use); you will need around 235MB of hard disk space though. As a printer the quality is good even when printing in other than top mode. The draft mode is much quicker, and even that produces a standard which would be okay for memos and such like. Yet still, the machine overall isn’t the speediest out the blocks. For printing of large graphics for instance it is very slow but the quality is acceptable. To use the unit as a fax you need to install software from an additional second CD (supplied) and then the PC will need to be on all the time to receive faxes. Perhaps not that convenient. The scanner sits on top and is a conventional flatbed offering.

If you give it a single page it gives a very good scan, however pages from a magazine or book do not reproduce well as it does not scan strongly when the lid is not tightly closed. Scanning for OCR from a single good original was excellent and the provided copy of ABBYY OCR software works well, giving all but perfect text output to Word or various other packages. Copying is good, but again that’s when you give it a single page. You can copy in black/white like a conventional photocopier but the output will be rather slow. It can also produce in colour – again, the output is good but not particularly speedy. Regular readers will notice I have not given any output times. My normal tests were undertaken but as the results were so slow they would not be of any great use. But for continuality purposes a basic 200 word page printed at 5PPM (quick print) draft mode, while the real 1500 word document printed at 4PPM in the same mode. A full A4 page graphic took 13 minutes in best mode and a page of blocks and shades of colours took 11 minutes 42 seconds, also in best mode. There are five buttons on the front right of the unit but they only function when the PC is working, making this a ‘dumb’ unit. You can implement a copy from the front panel but it is just as easy from inside Windows and the interface is helpful to a novice user. If you print a small amount of pages a day it could be useful. If you want to scan the occasional page the same is true. Should you want to photocopy once in a while then this is fine for single pages. Quality overall is quite acceptable but output is slow. The one thing really in its favour is its size. This really is a SOHO or home unit and only for the light user.

For more information, visit Micromart.co.uk