Lexmark Z33

Inkjet printers continue to fall in price and not just the budget models. Lexmark's high-performance Z33 model, for instance, sells for an eye-catching £79.

The design of the Z33 has been trumpeted by Lexmark as space saving, but the key dimensions of width and depth are not much different from the Z32. True, it's not as tall as its predecessor, but unless your roof is very low this shouldn't be an issue.

A cursory glance at Lexmark's website shows a speed quote of nine pages per minute (ppm) for the Z33. This seems impressive, nudging close to a good, budget laser printer. Dig a little further into the printer's specification though, and you'll find that this figure refers to quick mode, which produces a fainter print that's unsuitable for letters or documents.

In normal mode, the Z33 manages close to 4ppm of typical mono text, a significant drop from 9ppm but impressive nevertheless for an inkjet printer of this price.

Lexmark claims near laser quality text from the Z33 and we were impressed by the sharpness and clarity of text, even on poor quality paper.In terms of photo quality, the Lexmark is reasonably good, producing warm, bright colours which are more than adequate for most people's needs.

However, close scrutiny shows images that fall short of the quality produced by dedicated photo printers.

As an all-rounder and occasional image printer though, the Z33 is a definite bargain. But you shouldn't view a printer in isolation, and the price of the consumables is more important than the price of the machinery.

We were concerned when we saw the minute dimensions of the Z33's cartridges. Would this mean lower yield? As it happens, the black cartridge outstripped the claimed yield of 410 pages in our tests, finally chugging to a halt at page 725.

The Lexmark Z33 is a very good budget printer and it will be interesting to see what the other big manufacturers come up with to match the specification of the Z33 at the same price, or even lower.

Contact: Lexmark
01628 481500
www.lexmark.co.uk

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