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Lexmark X3650 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £75
inc VAT

Specifications

colour inkjet MFP, 25ppm print speed, USB, PictBridge USB, 175x459x318mm

http://www.morecomputers.com

Lexmark uses this same case for a number of models in its range, so it should come as no surprise if the X3650 looks familiar.

Unlike most models we’ve seen, the USB port is located on the front of the printer. Laptop users who only occasionally get their printer out will find this convenient, but desktop PC owners will end up with a cable trailing untidily from the front of the printer. Its flimsy extending paper trays make it look and feel rather cheap, too.

Installation is straightforward. You can select various extra utilities, such as Lexmark’s Productivity Studio photo and document management software, and Abbyy Sprint OCR. None of these is selected by default, and it’s a refreshing change not to be forced to install software that you’ll never use. Print head alignment is an automatic processes that involves loading an A4 page and pressing the OK button when prompted by the two-line LCD display.

The scanner interface defaults to Legal rather than A4 paper, but it’s easy to save your most frequently used settings to a Scan Presets menu and your last settings are loaded when you re-open the interface. The interface doesn’t close after each scan, which makes it easier to scan batches of documents or photos. It’s simple to use, but there are few options available to tweak your scan settings. Scan quality was sharp, with clear reproduction of fine detail and text. Colours were also accurate, but the maximum 600dpi optical resolution means that this MFP is of limited use when it comes to scanning photos for editing or printing as enlargements.

Print quality and speeds were very much what we’ve come to expect from Lexmark’s inexpensive inkjets. Draft quality text was dark but fuzzy. With a speed of 8.4ppm, normal quality text printed almost as fast and was much sharper. Unfortunately, although our colour documents looked good, the painfully slow print speeds of 0.8ppm make the Lexmark unsuitable for printing long colour documents.

Photo-printing speeds were fairly slow – it took 12 minutes and 44 seconds to print six 6x4in prints. The resulting pictures, although bright, are fairly poor compared to most inkjets, with ink that’s very slow to dry. This can be improved by using third-party papers such as those produced by Ilford, but this printer will never rival the photo quality of most Canon and Epson models.

Although we’ve recently seen some excellent inkjet MFPs, budget and mid-priced models have been rather thin on the ground so far this year. We can’t recommend the X3650 at this price, but if you want an inkjet MFP then look out for our review of Canon’s new Pixma MP240 in next month’s What’s New.

Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Maximum native print resolution 4,800×1,200dpi
Max optical resolution 600×1,200dpi
Output bit depth 48-bit

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A4 25ppm
Quoted speed, colour A4 18ppm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.0 8m 53s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.0 12m 44s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfaces USB, PictBridge USB
Optional printer interfaces none
Size 175x459x318mm
Weight 5.1kg
Noise (in normal use) 50 dB(A)
Duty cycle 3000
Power consumption standby 7W
Power consumption idle 7W
Power consumption active 19W

Paper Handling

Maximum paper size A4/legal
Maximum paper weight 240gsm
Standard paper inputs 1
Standard paper input capacity 100
Maximum paper inputs 1
Maximum paper input capacity 100
Duplex (code, cost if option) No

General

Printer technology thermal inkjet
Supported operating systems Windows 2000/XP/XP-64/Vista/Vista-64, Max OS X 10.4.4-10.5.x
Other inkjet features mono OLED display
Other inkjet options none

Buying Information

Price £75
Price per colour A4 page 3.9p
Quoted life of supplied black cartridge 175 pages (ISO/IEC 24711)
Quoted life of supplied colour cartridge(s) 150 pages (ISO/IEC 24711)
Quoted life of supplied photo cartridge(s) N/A
Warranty one year RTB
Supplier http://www.morecomputers.com
Details www.lexmark.co.uk

Print Quality

Number of ink colours 4
Number of ink cartridges 2
Maximum number of ink colours 4
Maximum number of cartridges 2
Quoted photo durability 65 years
Quoted photo durability source Lexmark

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview 11s
A4 document at 150dpi 15s
A4 document at 300dpi 43s
6x4in photo at 600dpi 31s
6x4in photo at 1200dpi N/A

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.0 15s
Time for single A4 colour copy 1.0 1m 25s
Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.0 N/A

Photo Features

PictBridge support Yes
Borderless printing 6x4in, A4, Letter, A6, Hagaki, L, 2L, A5, 7x5in, Legal, 5×3.5in, B5, 8x4in
Direct (PC-less) printing Yes
Supported memory cards CF, SD, SDHC, MMC, Memory Stick Pro/Duo, MicroDrive, Smart Media, xD
CD printing No

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies 99

Fax Features

Max mono fax resolution N/A
Fax memory (maximum mono pages) N/A