Lexmark X7350 review

Lexmark currently sells no fewer than nine inkjet multi-function devices.

This might seem like a lot, but the range is split between products based on a six-ink photo printer, and those aimed more at general-purpose office use. The X7350 is an office model. It combines a four-colour printer, a flatbed scanner and a fax modem into a reasonably compact box.

The X7350 is simple to set up. After unpacking and removing some protective plastic sheets, you only need insert the printer's two ink cartridges. Lexmark's install program doesn't ask any complicated questions, but it does prompt you to perform useful tasks such as an automatic print head alignment.

The X7350's scanner is a regular flatbed device, but its hinged lid incorporates an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) that makes it easy to create multi-paged copies or faxes. You don't need your computer switched on to do either, but when sending a fax from your PC, you can print directly to the X7350's fax modem using a second print driver, which the install program automatically creates for this purpose.

Cheap, not cheerful

The X7350 is made from cheap-feeling plastic that doesn't seem particularly robust. When printing quickly, we found it hard not to cringe at the noise the paper feed made each time it picked a sheet. With the 100-sheet input tray nearly full, the first prints we made were skewed, but this problem disappeared after a couple of print jobs.

The X7350 prints quite quickly, delivering draft text at 15.5ppm and higher-quality text at 8.2ppm in our tests. Even our set of graphics-rich colour pages printed at 1.8ppm, which is a healthy speed for an inkjet.

Photos were a bit grainy, but otherwise acceptable. The X7350's prints were otherwise disappointing though, with washed-out looking colours on plain paper and black text that didn't have clean, sharp outlines. Copies looked reasonable, with a single mono page taking 37 seconds.

We were quite impressed with the speed and quality of the X7350's scanner, which recorded colours that were particularly true to the originals. We're not too keen on Lexmark's interface though, which doesn't remember settings between scan sessions and forces you to an Advanced selections page if you want to scan at more than 300dpi.

Author: Simon Handby