Lexmark Z43 review

Verdict:

Review Date: 29 May 2002

Price when reviewed: (£72)

Reviewed By: Benny Har-Even

Our Rating 3 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

With the lowest price here and some great specifications, the Lexmark seems to have a lot going for it - and almost pulls it off.

Design

Lexmark printers all share the same sleek appearance, which is even more compact when the paper trays are folded away.

However, the simplicity of the design is spoiled by an external power supply, adding another lump to your personal cable jungle. A setup guide helped us get started and the installation routine was straightforward, automatically looking for the printer and examining the cartridges. However you can't just sit back - an alignment sheet is printed requiring you to identify the best patterns and manually adjust the driver accordingly.

Print Quality

As always with Lexmark, text was impressively crisp, on a par with that produced by the HP printers. It also just trailed the HPs in the newsletter test, with photos that were good, though not quite as accurate when it came to skin tones. The same problem was in evidence in the report, with colours that weren't quite as rich as they should have been. It was on the photo test, though, that the Z43 really fell down - the high resolution and quality paper revealing the printer's shortcomings. The final result was a photo that was far too pale and grainy to be convincing.

Speed

The Lexmark is a speed demon for text, producing our five pages in 1 minute 11 seconds from a cold start. But with everything else it gave us chance to catch up on our reading, coming last and second last in all other tests. verall

You won't want to print your snaps on the Lexmark, but it does pass as a cheap, high-quality text printer. That said, you'd still be better off spending an extra tenner on the HP 920C.

Prev Next

Get more reviews, tutorials and in-depth advice, every month with Computer Shopper.
Click here to try 3 issues for £1

< Previous Reviews : Printers Next >

Sponsored Links

Be the first to comment on this article

You need to Login or Register to comment.