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Lexmark X9575

Author	Simon Williams
Published	25th Apr 2008
Manufacturer	Lexmark
Price	£153.00 (Exc VAT)
as reviewed	£179.78 (Inc VAT)
Latest Price

Features
Print Quality
Print Speed
Value
Overall

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Duplex printing is quicker than most inkjet all-in-ones, because there's a shorter break between printing the first and second sides of each page. Our 20-side test document completed in 4:33, over half a minute faster than the recently reviewed HP OfficeJet Pro L7590 and twice as fast as the otherwise excellent Canon PIXMA MP970.

Print quality on plain paper isn't wonderful. Despite the pigmented EverColor 2 inks the X9575 uses, black text is noticeably fuzzy, with none of the edges of characters sharp or well-defined. Colours are cleaner, though some shades come out too light. Text printed over coloured background is well registered and easy to read. Photo prints err to the over-bright side of the spectrum and may require colour compensation to produce good results.

Copies taken from the scanner come through well, though colours are again paler than from originals. Scans are well defined, thanks to an optical resolution of 1,200 x 4,800ppi.

There were some operational difficulties with the X9575 sample we reviewed, in particular when trying to get it to print a 15 x 10cm photo from an SD card, on a photo blank of the same size. The image was portrait but, when we previewed it, the LCD display showed it cropped off on a landscape-orientated page.

It also asked if we wanted to set a new paper size as a default and when we agreed, the machine rebooted, re-detected the memory card and lost all edits in the process. When we tried to rotate the image to match the paper, the LCD screen corrupted. Both these problems were repeatable, though not consistent. These difficulties could be isolated to this sample; if not, we think some tweaks to the firmware may be needed.

As always, the running costs of a printer depend on the prices you can find for its consumables. In this case, it's just the two ink cartridges, one black and the other three-colour. You can swap the black cartridge for a photo one, if you want to print six-ink photos.

The high-yield 43 and 44 cartridges are supplied as standard with the X9575 and we found replacement ones at the jamboree that is Amazon for around £12 each, giving ISO page running costs of 3.39p for black and 5.71p for colour. These are not particularly good figures and by no means best of class.

Verdict

Assuming the inconsistencies we noticed are isolated to this sample, the X9575 is a fair all-in-one printer. With duplex, wireless and a colour preview monitor, it has most of the current must-haves, but its core printing technology still doesn't put it up among the leaders. With a street-price of £180, there's better value to be had, too.