Home Users Only!
Written: May 09 '00 (Updated May 11 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Customer Support
Cons: Single cartridge system, and finding the ink can be prove to be a problem.
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| DeRango's Full Review: Lexmark Jet Z11 InkJet Printer |
Truthfully, the Lexmark Z11 is not that bad for the money, but I feel that people should know what the printer does best. Weather you want higher speeds or better quality, Lexmark makes some higher quality printers like the 3200 or the Z51, which better suit people for today’s applications. With these end printers not only does your **DPI increase, but the ability to have a photo cartridge also becomes an option. I wouldn't however recommend the Lexmark Z11 for photo quality prints, or for printing large workloads, (Office/Business workers). As for this printer, I recommend it only to the home users that basically use it for text and some color printing.
The unit only has the capability to have one cartridge in the unit at a time (Single Cartridge System). This however can sometimes be an inconvenience. At time of purchase, Lexmark gives you one color cartridge in the box. This can poses a threat to your ink consumption if not used correctly. What happens is if you have the color cartridge in the unit, it mixes the three colors to get black; this gives you more of a gray then black. By mixing the colors it also uses more color ink, which in-turn wastes money. Never fear, there is a solution, you can purchase a black cartridge for the unit, and use the black cartridge for printing text. This I do recommend because you'll save money in the long run. So at time of purchase I strongly advise the investment of a black ink cartridge. *Lexmark is nice enough to give you a holder for an extra cartridge, use this holder to prevent the ink from drying out. Another trick I learned is put that ink tank in the fridge and it will keep the ink fresh.
What I recommend is getting a dual cartridge unit, with the capability to run color & black at the same time. This saves you money while increasing printer speeds. When you have both cartridges in the unit it allows the unit to use the black cartridge for text, and when you print color it uses the color cartridge. This also increases the quality of your color print out and gives you a true black (Not mixing the three colors and giving you a gray). So if you can afford to purchase a dual cartridge unit I suggest it highly.
**For all you who look at DPI, (Dead Printer Information), I call it this because manufactures can all use different ways of testing DPI. So not to point any fingers, (Cough *Epson*), they count colors not dots. For example you see 1440 X 740 DPI, now if you take the color orange, you have to mix red and yellow. HP, Lexmark, Canon count this as a single dot, Epson however counts this as two. So they use a layering technology that uses more ink and claims a higher DPI. (Don’t be fooled!) My point is that your printer company can claim what it wishes by using different DPI tests, (there is not standard for printers). I’m not bashing Epson they do however have some good quality machines, (I just can’t think of any)…
The Lexmark Z11 has low system requirements, this means it works on old computers as well as new ones. For example it will operate on a 486DX with 8MB of memory, (not well of course), but it will run non-the less. It even works on simple Operating systems like windows 3.1, so it will function on older computer.
Now the big question for all printers is, printer cable purchase? It recommends the IEEE-1284 printer cable, do what the box says, (Just like software read the text). There are three types of cables the I-42 parallel cable, which is so old it only works with just Dot-Matrix printers. Next to come out was the I-4 parallel printer cable, which came out when the first inkjets were born. Finally, came the third interface, which transferred information with the computer to the printer at the same time (IEEE-1284). This is the fastest cable on the market, and will guarantee that your printer will function at top speeds. I recommend you make the investment.
Good-luck finding a printer that suits your needs, and thank you for taking your time to read this. Questions about the product, E-mail me or post a comment…
---DeRango
Recommended:
No
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