Lexmark P6250 Photo All-in-One (21B0000)

Rating:
Summary: Great printer!
Review: I got this as a gift and am very happy with it! I use it everyday and it prints clearly and quickly. The scanner, copier and photo printer work extremely well. I would definately recommend to anyone looking for a high end printer.

Rating:
Summary: Buggy, slow, with extremely poor mechanics.
Review: I'd bought this printer to replace a Hewlett-Packard copy/fax/print/scanner all-in-one whose scrolling mechanism had broken after merely a year. Little did I know what I was in for. This Lexmark quickly surpassed the Hewlett-Packard, hands down, as the worst printer I've ever used.

The scrolling works only about 25 per cent of the time. I've tried glossy photo paper, matte-finish paper, a single sheet of normal printer paper, and a full stack. None of the above would scroll into the machine with 100 per cent consistency. I can't tell you how annoying it is to watch the paper feed jerk, wiggle, then refuse to enter into the printer.

This results in having to resend the job over and over, dealing with the print manager...and triple the amount of time it *should* take to print almost anything. And when this Lexmark freezes up, forget about correcting the problem and resuming the job -- not only is it unable to pick up a job midway, it sends the print manager into a tailspin, forcing you to delete the job, cancel everything on the printer itself, and then resend the job. And if you leave this printer on and plugged into your computer (as I do -- as all printers are supposed to be), it will sometimes go into a kind of "safe" or "frozen" mode where all onboard controls (including the power switch) cease to function, the computer can't communicate with it, and the only way to get it out of the annoying "Lexmark" logo screen is to unplug the power cable and replug it. What is this, The Flintstones?

This machine's performance has gotten me so peeved that I've actively tried to avoid doing any print jobs in the last two months. And when printing something as simple as a Fellowes CD-label sheet, the machine's accuracy is horrendous. A CD design done in Photoshop, which had printed perfectly fine on the Hewlett-Packard, suddenly became decentered, and each printed sheet is screwed up in a different way, which means it isn't the file that's wrong, but the printer.

These all-in-ones are supposed to be designed for photos. What exactly is this Lexmark good for, when it won't even print a simple e-mail from Internet Explorer, a one-page document from Microsoft Word, or a bare-bones Photoshop design? I'm sending this back to Lexmark with a tongue lashing.


Rating:
Summary: Easy to use, above average quality
Review: This printer far exceeded my expectations, excellent with photos on glossy and matte finish, fast with text, prints on all my different types of paper with no problem. The standalone printing is easy to navigate and I find the image preview in copy mode extremely helpful. I bought this based on a recommendation and the cartridges being less expensive than HP and I would recommend this printer to anyone thinking of getting one.