Good Printer For Home Use - The Lexmark Z22 Color Jetprinter (Fluff Chicks Write Off)
Written: Dec 16 '01 (Updated Sep 19 '08)
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Pros: Reasonable price. Good quality printer
Cons: Not as fast as some printers.
The Bottom Line: This is a good quality, reasonably priced printer that is good for personal use.
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| dragonfire88's Full Review: Lexmark Jet Z22 InkJet Printer |
I am trying something a little different here. I usually write about books and movies, but I am trying to write about my printer now because it is a good printer and I am very happy with it. I'm not a technological person, but I will try my best with this. If I have forgotten anything, leave a comment and let me know and I'll get the review updated.
This review is also part of the Fluff Chicks Write Off, hosted by MADYL. Most of the writers participating in this write off are well-known for writing about "girly" items, such as beauty products (or romance books in my case), but have decided to express their creativity in a slightly different subject category! The list of participants will be at the end of the review.
I recently had to get a new printer when my old printer, a Lexmark stopped working. I had it for several years and printed lots of things with it before it stopped working. I was very happy with that Lexmark, so that is why I checked out Lexmark for my new printer. After checking around, I ended up getting a Lexmark z22.
The Lexmark z22 is a color jet printer. It is reasonably priced, so it is affordable for people to get for home use. I got mine for about $90 at Wal-Mart. The printer has good quality printing, but people that need a printer for business use may want to get a different printer that is a bit faster in printing speed. The Lexmark z22 is a good choice for people who need a printer for personal use like letters or reports for school, and don't need a super speedy printer.
SIZE
This printer is very lightweight and fairly small so it is a good choice for people with limited space. The Lexmark z22 is smaller and lighter than my last Lexmark. It is a light greyish color, the same color most other printers are.
DIMENSIONS
With the exit tray extended the dimensions of the printer are - 12.6"H x 17.6"W x 19.5"D
With the exit tray retracted, the dimensions of the printer are - 6.7"H x 17.6"W x 8.3"D
The printer weighs 5.3 pounds.
OPERATING PROGRAMS
This printer will work with several different operating systems.
Windows 95, 98, ME
MAC OS 8.6 and 9
Windows XP is not listed, but I am pretty sure the printer will work fine with that version of Windows too. When I got my last Lexmark, I had a computer that was running Windows 95. The drivers that came with the printer were for Windows 95 and Windows NT. When I got a new computer that had Windows 98 on it - the one I am currently using now - the printer worked just fine with it too. I just used the disk for the Windows 95 driver - the drivers were on disks with that printer - and I had no problem using the printer. For the rest of the review, I will be referring to how things are done when the printer is used with Windows since that is what I have. Instructions for use with Macintosh are in the manual.
HOOK UP
It is very easy to hook this printer up to your computer. The printer can be hooked up to the computer using either a USB or a parallel cable. I used the parallel cable just because I had that from my last printer and I didn't have a USB cable. There is also a power cable to attach to the back of the printer, and then plug into an outlet.
MANUAL
A user's manual and CD-ROM containing the drives came with the printer. The manual includes instructions for setting up the printer, maintaining the printer, and troubleshooting. The information is covered for Windows and Macintosh. There is also an appendix in the user's manual that covers other information related to the printer. A small poster was also included. The poster has illustrations showing how to set up the printer. The user's manual says it is for the Lexmark z22/z32. I saw a picture of the other printer at the Lexmark website when I was looking up some other information. It looks identical to my printer. As far as I can tell, the only difference between the two printers is that the z32 has a slightly faster print speed.
SET UP
The set up of the Lexmark z22 is easy and takes just a few minutes. Once the printer is hooked up to the computer, you just need to install the drivers. Put the CD in, and the files will start loading. The installation of the files went very fast, even on my older, slower computer. After the installation is finished, the computer may need to be restarted, but I can't remember for sure now it if I had to do that or not. If that step is needed, a little window will pop up saying that the computer must be restarted. All that is left to do is install the ink cartridges, and you'll be off and printing.
INK CARTRIDGES
The Lexmark z22 uses two ink cartridges, one black and one color. If you want to print photographs, there is a photo ink cartridge that is used for those jobs. The printer just holds two cartridges at once, so either the black or the color cartridge is removed and replaced with the photo cartridge when that cartridge is needed. I think the photo cartridge is put in place of the black cartridge for printing photographs, but I'm not completely sure since I haven't done that yet. The cartridges cost about $30 when they need replaced. The black one is usually a few dollars less than the color cartridge. The cartridges can be found at many different stores including stores that sell computers and supplies like Staples, as well as at Wal-Mart. If you check around with different stores, you may be able to save a few dollars when getting the replacement cartridges.
INSTALLING THE INK CARTRIDGES
To install the ink cartridges, a few steps must be followed. First, the Control Program for the printer must be opened - I'll give some more information on this later in the review too. The Control Program for the printer can be found by going to finding where the Lexmark z22 printer is listed at under the Start menu. The Control Program will be listed there. It will open up a small window. There are five tabs across the top of the window. The Status tab will be up when the window opens. That shows how much ink is left in each cartridge, so there is advance warning before the ink is all gone. To install the ink cartridges, click on the Cartridges tab. There are a few options listed here as well. Click on the Install/Change Cartridge button, and follow the instructions. The cartridges have to be removed from their boxes, and the plastic that is around them. There is also a small piece of tape over the bottom of the cartridges that must be removed before the cartridges are installed. The cartridges go in the Print Cartridge Carrier. You just have to push back on the cartridges until you hear a click. After cartridges are installed, they have to be Aligned. That makes sure that everything is printed clearly. Instructions pop up in the window and tell you just what you need to do. It just takes a few minutes. After that is done, the printer is ready to print.
PRINTING
The sheet feeder on the printer can hold up to 100 sheets of paper, depending on the thickness of the paper. This is a top loading printer, so make sure you get the paper in straight or it will get jammed. Also, if you don't print often, it is a good idea to take the paper out of the printer until you are reading to print again. If the paper is left in the printer for a long time and no printing is done, the edges can curl up, and then when it is time to print, the paper will get jammed up. This happened with my other Lexmark. Taking the paper out of the printer when I wasn't printing took care of that little problem. A small paper guide may need to be adjusted to get the paper loaded right. There are illustrations in the manual that show where the paper guide should be. The Lexmark z22 will also print on envelopes, greeting cards, glossy paper, coated paper, photo paper, banner paper, transparencies, and iron on transfers. Instructions for printing on each of those is included in the manual.
When a document is printing, the Control Program will automatically pop up with the Status section showing. If one of the ink cartridges is getting low, you will get a warning about that when the window opens. With my other Lexmark, several pages could still be printed after the warning first happened. The warning would go off before the ink cartridge was completely empty, so you could still do some printing, but you know that you need to get a new one soon. I don't know if this one will set the warning off earlier like that or not since I haven't had to change a cartridge with it yet. The progress of the current print job is displayed. You can cancel the print job here if needed. It shows how many copies of the document are printing, how many pages there are in the document, and which page the printer is currently printing. There is a little clock that starts up when a printing job is started. The clock shows how long the job has been printing.
RESOLUTION
The print resolution in black and in color is up to 1200 x 1200 dpi.
SPEED
This printer isn't the fastest available, but it is fast enough for me. Businesses that require a lot of printing will want something that is faster. It prints up to 6.5 pages per minute in black and up to 3.5 pages per minute in color. Printing in color especially may take a little longer depending on how detailed the image being printed is. This printer is very quiet when printing. My old Lexmark was a lot louder than this one is. The Lexmark z22 is Energy Star Compliant, so it does not use too much energy. When the page comes out of the printer, the ink is dry. That is good because if you are printing a long document, the pages will pile on top on each other as they come out, and if the ink was still wet, it could smear. I have had this happen to me in the past. I also used a printer once where the ink was smeared when it came out of the printer.
PRINTING OPTIONS
The printing options can be customized in the Printer Properties dialogue box. When the Paper tab is selected, the size of the paper can be changed and number of copies set. You can also choose to have the document collated or printed in reverse order so that the first page will be on top once printing is complete. There are other options under the Document/Quality tab. Here different paper types can be selected, the dpi can be set, or you can pick to print all in black even if what you are printing has color in it. I use that if I am printing some information from the internet that has a lot of color in it.
CONTROL PROGRAM
There are five tabs in the Control Program window. I covered the Status earlier. The Options tab has several things you can pick, like having the Control Program close once a print job is done. You can also enable sound effects here. The Cartridges tab is what needs to be selected when an ink cartridge is being changed, aligned, or if the print nozzles need cleaned. You can also find part numbers and order supplies direct from the Lexmark website. If you need to print in DOS, you can set that up under the DOS tab. Information about the software version and copyright are found under the ABOUT tab. From the illustrations in the manual, the CONTROL PROGRAM looks different in Macintosh.
Overall, I am very happy with my Lexmark z22 printer. It fits my needs perfectly. If you need a good, dependable printer for personal use and don't want to spend a small fortune, this is a great printer.
UPDATE
In April of 2002, I got a new computer that came with Windows XP,Home Edition installed on the computer. Like I mentioned before, the printer doesn't say that it will work wtih Windows XP, but the printer has worked fine with my new computer. I hooked up the Lexmark z22 when I was setting up my new computer. After I went though a few set up steps, a window popped up saying that Windows XP had detected a new device - I can't remember exactly what the window said now, but it was something like that. I was able to click on a button in the window, and XP automatically installed the driver for the Lexmark z22 without me having to put the CD into the CD-Rom drive. Windows XP had the printer set up and ready to print in just a few minutes. It was even faster than the set up process in Windows 98. It did take me through the process of aligning the print heads again. I have printed several things since I got my new computer with no problems. I did have to go in and switch the default printer from the internal fax/modem to the Lexmark z22 so my documents would print, but that just took a few minutes.
Http://www.lexmark.com
Lexmark International, Inc,
740 West New Circle Road
Lexington, Kentucky 40550
The following is a list of participants in the Fluff Chicks Write off. Please check out their contributions.
bops_mom, chrisceb, zzjulia, shantel575, MADYL, kminer, melissasrn, jaclynl, SHeineman, hollegolightle, and dragonfire88
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Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 90
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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