Lexmark X4550 review

Lexmark's X4550 is the only wireless model here, and, ironically, the only one that comes with a USB lead included.

This is used to connect the printer to your PC so that you can set it up to work over your wireless network; you can unplug it once it's been configured, and use the USB lead for something else, like plugging in a peripheral from one of the makers who are too tight to include a cable.

The installer gave us enough information to make the task reasonably straightforward, and once set up, wireless printing was hassle-free. We even got slightly faster printing than with a cable when the printer was close to the router, although we timed our tests via USB to ensure consistency.

We were generally impressed with the X4550's print quality. Our draft text document took over a minute, but looked good enough for business correspondence. Ten pages took only five seconds longer to print at full quality. Colour prints looked great, with bright, clear images and sharp text, but they weren't fast. Our photos looked good on Lexmark's Everyday Glossy Photo Paper, although we had to wait almost 15 minutes for six of them - fairly slow, though far from the worst.

The X4550 is less capable when it comes to scanning and copying, with an irritating scanner interface that doesn't retain previews or settings. We didn't have to wait too long for our scans, even at 1200dpi, but the results were rather grainy. Mono copies looked stripy, while colour copies were both slow and unattravailable, with over-bright colours and a yellowish cast to pale areas.

This printer is fairly economical to run if you buy high yield cartridges, with a combined cost of 5.2p per page. As an exceptionally affordable wireless printer, with moderate scanning and copying abilities thrown in, it's an interesting option, but narrowly misses a four-star rating.

Author: Kat Orphanides