Customer Reviews

Lexmark Z51 Color Jetprinter

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I spent many weeks researching various Inkjet printers. After printing out dozens of samples in stores and reading many reviews, I decided to get the Z51. I am not disappointed.

The black text is by far the best I saw, especially on plain paper. I looked at the Canon BJC-5100 and 6000, the Epson 740, Photo 750, 760, and a few HP printers. I was very disappointed with the black text on all these other printers.

The color printing on the Z51 is equally impressive. I have mainly done 4-color printing on plain paper at medium quality (600 x 600), and the output is tremendous. When you add coated paper (or photo paper), the optional Photo cartridge, and set the output to high-quality (1200 x 1200), the output is unbelievable. On plain paper, the Z51 output is as good as, if not better, than all the other printers I reviewed. (I cannot compare the coated outputs since the in-store demos only ran on plain paper.)

The only negatives I have experienced are: 1. You must remove the black cartridge to add the Photo cartridge for 6 color printing. 2. The print speed slows down a lot on high quality (but it is worth it) 3. The color cartridges do not have individual ink-tanks. (The BJC-6000 was the only printer I was considering that had this option.)

Printers have been the bane of our personal computing life. Since, 1987, we've never had one that printed quality, reliably. Then the Lexmark Z51 came into our life. Installation was a snap, just followed the directions and put in the CD. The Drivers loaded and we were printing. Paper feeds reliably and envelopes are a snap. The Lexmark ink level indicators are a real plus too. As for quality, it's hard to tell the difference between this output and a color laser printer. I'm recommending this printer to all my friends.

This printer made a bad first impression on me. First off, I inserted the CD, and my computer (Dell Pentium III 450 with DVD drive) was unable to read it. I had to download the driver from the web. However, even after installing the driver, I had to look in the appendix of the (so-called) User's Manual to try to set up the USB connection. After following Lexmark's instructions, the printer would not support USB. I, too, had to go back to the parallel connection.

After finally getting this thing up and running, I found the text quality to be very good, and photo quality (with optional photo cartridge) to be good, not great. I also found that the Z51 REALLY grabs the paper out of the automatic paper feeder. My paper shredder treats paper more gently. I also found it difficult to avoid skew misalignments with this printer.

Shop around. There have to be better printers out there for the same price.

since I have owned many Hewlett Packard printers it was hard to switch over. Now I am amazed why I didn't do it sooner! Speedy, color-laserquality prints. And, of course, the USB connection. Too bad it's hard to share it over a network.

This is a great printer for this price. Installation was very easy with get started manual. Color and Black printing at 600*600 dpi is great. I did not tested this printer for color photograph printing ( with 1200*1200 dpi and photo color ink cartridge ). It works great on normal white paper ( which we used in copier ). It is slow when printing color images . Came with two useful software for making greeting cards , labels etc.

After owning HP and Canon Printers this is the best, great color very quiet and user friendly.Good work Lexmark.

For all of you that could not find out how to use it with a usb why did you not just call the company. If you were a computer professional then you should have know to change it in setup. The color is very good. When you have it hook up with an USB it is faster. It tells you when the cartige is almost. It is pretty fast when you have it on 1200 x 1200 considering how good that is.

I had so many problems with my old HP DeskJet 660Cse, I had to try this at $100 less (with rebate) than the upgrade to the 660Cse - a 892C. This has great color printing. Only problem I had was printing a deep blue color from a picture to coated paper, but I noticed Lexmark sells a "photo" color print cartridge. I'm pleased.

I purchased the Z-51 about 2 months ago and am very impressed with it. The price was very reasonable and the quality of the printing is excellent. I had some trouble installing the software (only because my CD-ROM was acting up and I eventually had to replace it). I ordered the software on floppy via telephone and I received it within 3 days and installed the software flawlessly. I can see what others are complaining about when I cancel a print job. Seems to not want to cancel. But that's a minor problem. The quality of the printing is excellent and the "ink level" status is a great feature (if it's accurate - haven't run out of ink yet). I have used media face lables (www.neato.com) and have been very very impressed with the quality of the printing.

Good printer for the price. I'll purchase another Lexmark if and when I need another printer.

I bought this printer for 170.00 about 3 months ago. Now it's selling like @ 150.00. I never thought Lexmark would build such great printers. Always had thought of them of a cheap brand. They proved me wrong. It has excellent quality for its price. It is relatively fast, which is just good for me. Have had it for three months and haven't had any problems with ink ending or anything like that. The only bad thing about it is its paper feeding tray. Most of the time it takes the paper in so fast, that the paper doesn't go in straight and you have to move it a little bit. Also, if you put a large stack of papers in its tray, it may take 3 at a time or so. Maybe this happens to me because I use the regular quality paper, maybe with thicker paper it doesn't happen. The last con is that the CD doesn't include Windows 2000 drivers, I had to download them. Overall it's a great printer. Buy it.