About three months ago, our basement flooded (the source of which is still under debate). The flood managed to cover over eighty percent of our basement in over 2 inches of water and in some places almost 4 inches deep. Unfortunately, my office and tech bench were severely affected. I keep my customers’ computers on a work bench that is three feet off the floor but my office computers (firewall, web server and file server) and several printers were either on the floor or on a slab only an inch off the floor. I also lost some of my musical equipment in the flood. Thank God for home owners insurance (although I am not too pleased with the level of service we received from our insurance company, but that is coming in a future review).
The Lexmark Z715 printer was an insurance replacement for an older model Lexmark 1100 printer that I have had since July of 1998.
The Lexmark Z715 Inkjet printer
The Z715 is a sleek looking “two-tone grey” and black printer that handles light photo printing and common office printing tasks with decent speed and good quality. It is not a very large printer but it does take up a bit of space with the output tray extended to full position. It uses color and black ink cartridges and can print in high resolution (4800x1200 dpi) on many types of media. This is a nice “home office” printer for common use but for use mainly as a photo printer and for people who need a “heavy duty cycle” printer; this one may not cover all the bases.
Features
* Printer type: Thermal Inkjet
* Color print speed: 10ppm (1ppm for full page high quality photos)
* Black print speed: 17ppm (text only – with graphics can vary)
* Max color resolution: 4800x1200 dpi
* Max black resolution 2400x1200 dpi
* Input paper tray: top loading
* Output paper tray: front
* Media capacity: 100 sheets standard inkjet paper (less for transparencies and some specialty media)
* Supported media: Banners, Coated Paper, Envelopes, Glossy Paper, Index Cards, Iron-On Transfers, Labels, Photo Paper, Plain Paper, Postcard, and Transparencies
* Footprint: 11.3” high, 14.8” deep, 17.3” wide
* Connectivity: USB only
* Supported OS: Mac OS 9 or later, Windows 98 or later (Windows 95a and NT are not supported since they do not support USB devices – Windows 95 version b and c may work with Windows 98 drivers on some computers)
* Max duty cycle 10,000 pages per month
* Max duty volume 3,000 pages
The good stuff
The printer does print nice looking photos if you use high quality gloss or semi-gloss photo paper. The photos are good enough to frame and should last a lifetime if protected in a glass frame out of direct sunlight. Color text is brilliant and sharp; the printer does a great job for color fliers, draft publishing and temporary-use banners. Black text is equally as sharp and good enough for office memos, letters, resumes, draft publishing and fax printing. The printer does not have a built-in fax but you can print facsimiles received by the computer’s modem.
The printer is not super fast but it does print at decent speed. It can handle large print jobs up to 3,000 pages or more although I would recommend breaking large jobs like this up into 300 or 400 pages at a time to give the printer a short break in between. The maximum amount of pages per job the printer is rated to handle is 3,000 but keep in mind that this is also a third of the printers monthly duty cycle (how many pages per month the printer is rated to handle). So if you have need of a printer that can handle a large job every once in a while, this one will do but if you need a printer that can handle large jobs on a weekly or daily basis you will want to look elsewhere.
Installation
Installation is a breeze. All you do is install the Lexmark software on the computer, insert the color and black in cartridges, plug in the power cable, plug in the USB cable, load paper and turn it on. Windows/Mac OS will recognize the printer and start the alignment and setup program. Once the printer is aligned you can print a test page to make sure everything works properly. My six year old son can install this one ( that is if I unpacked it for him :-).
The not-so-good stuff
As with all inkjet printers, the ink is not waterproof and will run if it comes in contact with moisture. Mailing a letter printed from this printer (or any inkjet printer) is fine unless it is raining and the envelope gets wet. Chances are the letter will get wet also and the recipient may not be able to read it.
The printer supports banner printing, but it does not have any roll attachment for banner paper to load. In order to print a banner on banner paper you must manually feed the paper. This is a pain in the butt, but it is also common of all inkjet printers as well. You can print several section of the banner on standard or legal size paper and tape them together but this does look very professional.
I have noticed that when printing on specialty envelopes, it is best to load one envelope at a time if the envelope is oversized or especially thick. Envelopes other than standard sizes can get stuck and cause paper jams if you let them auto feed into the printer.
There is no standard parallel printer interface so you can not connect this printer to older computer that do not have USB unless you install a USB card in the computer. There is also not network connection so to share the printer on a network it must be install on a single computer and then shared over the network.
This is basically a mid-grade printer, but it is a good mid-grade printer. There are cheaper printers out there of this quality but there are also more expensive printers with the same basic spces that the Lexmark Z715 has too. This is why I call it a "middle-of-the-road" printer.
The Bad
I haven’t found anything really bad about this printer yet. The things that I don’t like about the printer are common of most all inkjet printers so they can’t really be labeled bad. I would prefer the printer to be a little bit shallower from front to back because with the receiving tray extended the printer takes up almost fifteen inches of desk space. This is enough to have to put the printer on a print table of its own off the desk.
Ink is expensive but again this is common of most quality inkjet printers. Color cartridges can cost as much as $40.00 or more and black is between $30.00 and $38.00 in places I have looked. Also keep in mind that the ink cartridges that come with inkjet printers are usually only 1/4 to 1/3 full so you won’t get as much out of them as you will with brand new cartridges.
Personal Use
I have used this printer to print directions, maps, memos, a few photos and a birthday card on various types of paper. I like the way photos look on glossy photo paper, they are very sharp and brilliant in color. The quality of the text is superb but I do not use this printer for any text or photos intended to leave my office or home simply because I have a nice new HP 2550 color laser printer (which I will review in the near future) for those projects. The quality of text printing with the Lexmark Z715 is high enough that you can read size 4 italic fonts at arms length with no trouble (unless you have poor vision).
Conclusion
This is a good printer for home or office use and does a great job with photo printing on quality gloss photo paper. If you need a printer for simple office tasks or family pictures this is a good choice for the price. As far as standard inkjet printers go, this is a good one. If you need a printer that prints waterproof documents or photos, you may want to look at laser printers for that.
Thanks for reading,
Gr8ful :-)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): N/A $79.99 Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
Fantastic prices with ease & c...(Stock status: N/A)
Photo-quality resolution! Up to 4800 x 1200 dpi on photo paper in best mode; up to 2400 x 1200 dpi on all other paper types. Print fast! Up to 17 ppm ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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