Customer Reviews

Lexmark Z605 Photo Color Jet Printer (18K0000)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

My wife and I studied the Lexmark selection recently at a "super store" in town, and after careful considerations of price, and features, decided to buy the Lexmark Z605.

It was $49.95, and offered 4800 DPI (dots per inch/Resolution). The two lower models, ranging from $19.95 for the bottom, and the next at $35, each offered 1200 DPI and 2400 DPI respectively.

Of course, the Z605 being the middle choice, at $49.95 for 4800 DPI (Photo Quality) was our pick, as the next two higher choices were "3 in one" (copier/printer/scanner) combos starting around $149.95.

The Z705 is available for roughly $25 to $30 more, and as far as I can tell, only features another 2-3 pages printed per minute?

So, all that said, the Z605 seemed to be best for us. Until we got it home, and used it to print out our taxes. WOW! The Z605 prints beyond our expectations! The installation was easy, setup was user friendly, and easy, and the quality of print is exceptional!

The printer is extremely lightweight, has a fold down top for dust protection, which doubles to back your load of paper durring printing, holds about 70 or 80 sheets at a time, is VERY quiet, and overall, it is EXCELLENT! A REAL DEAL at only $49.95!!!!!!

We plan to buy a couple more as gifts! :)

I bought this printer because it was the cheapest available, and I was in a situation where I needed a printer for just a few weeks and then I had to abandon it.

Unfortunately, this turned into a bit of false economy on my part: I failed to consider the cost of the cartridges (with this thing, you'll need the 17 for Black and the 27 for color). Together MORE than the cost of the printer itself.

The cartridges are used up so quickly that any money you saved on the machine will be lost on the cartridges.

You're better off buying a middle-of-the-road HP printer, as the quality is slightly better and their cartridges last so much longer that in the end you probably will end up spending the same amount of money.

Another thing I hate about this printer is that there's no way to stop that irritating voice from saying "Printing started!" etc. You've just got to endure him.

Ok, it's not very expensive. But it is still a complete waste of money. I'm so tired of page after page of lines smudged into complete illegibility. It's not even good for printing rough drafts (the reason I bought it). I'm throwing this printer in the garbage and buying something (anything) else. A 20-year-old dot-matrix printer would be an improvement.

To stop this darn printer from saying "printing started/completed" you need to go to the Lexmark SOftware Center. There should be a voice option in it. In mine, I had to click on "troubleshooting" then "voice/skins" and then I had the option of unclicking the sound option.

When the Epson Photo 820 (read the bad reviews; they're all true), instead of just using tons of ink when I cleaned the heads (needed often), started leaving streaks of black ink across the page, I tried to get some help from Epson's customer service. I found that a wasted effort. They must have known what the problem was (I've since figured it out from other Web sites), but refused to tell me other than to tell me to clean the heads or take it in for service. I remembered the wonderful little Lexmark that came with my iMac several years ago and how reliable it was, and I wound up buying this printer. It's wonderful! Fact is, I'm in school and don't print photos. I hate that Epson, which you can't run without both black and color inks, even if you just plan to print text. The Lexmark will run with just black ink. It does a wonderful job on text. If your primary need of a printer is text, you can't go wrong with this wonderful little printer.

I've now owned and used this little printer for almost two years. There are a few things I like about it, but one major thing I do not like.

First, the positives...

It's easy to use. The software included with the printer, which monitors the print jobs and lets you choose various print options, is nicely designed. All the options are clearly presented. The tool for cleaning and/or aligning the print nozzles also works well, although it takes some time to go through the test.

The text quality is fine, and in "best" mode it can be very nice, especially on good paper.

Now, the negatives...

There is a voice that announces, "Printing started!" when the job loads, and "Printing complete!" when the job is done. This is rather unnecessary, and a little annoying.

The printer is rather slow, even slower than a five-year-old Epson I owned prior to this one. But I knew this when I bought the printer. Speed is not that important to me -- I don't mind waiting an extra two minutes for something to print! Even five extra minutes, believe it or not, will not be the end of the world!! More important to me was economy, and I bought the Z605 because I wanted a simple printer that produces good-enough quality at a reasonable price.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint about this printer, what I call "real economy." What at first appears to be an inexpensive printer actually turns out to be more expensive in the long run. The reason? This printer goes through ink like water. I try as often as possible to use the "quick print" option, which saves ink. But still, in a very short time I'm running low on ink. At $20 to $30 each, those ink cartriges add up! I had to buy three black and one color cartrige in just one year. Another printer, which costs even $100 more to start with but which uses ink more efficiently, would quickly become equal to this one, and within two years would be a better value.

The bottom line is, you get a printer with average print quality, decent software, but in the end costs as much as a more expensive printer that manages ink better.

Ive always found lexmark printers to be higher quality than the rest within the same price range, yes the cartridges are costlier, but they are the EASIEST to refill bar none, and not at all messy! just get a refill kit, you can fill a cartridge 7 times, no problem. As regard this being cheaper at walmart, add tax, and realise that amazon provide this with free shipping, plus get the USB cable with it while you order (for 3x cheaper than walmart)and you realise youve just said something real silly. The ideal printer for people that dont want instant pages shot out to them.
Great for the money.
Recommended

Okay, for fifty or so bucks, this is a good printer. The photo-printing quality is on par with printers costing two to three times as much, but the text printing is a bit lacking. It looks a little edgy and speckled. Little circular bullets look more like little misshapen octagons and such. Also, it's pretty slow for every-day text printing, and its photo printing is excrutiatingly slow. But, for fifty bucks, what do you expect? Again, for the money, this is a good printer.

Now, here's the kicker. The ink cartridges for this printer cost, for color and black combined, over sixty dollars! Yet the printer, which includes one of each already, plus comes bundled with samples of mediocre photo paper, is over ten dollars less! So, here's my suggestion: If you want a decent printer that doesn't cost a lot of money, this is a good choice. However, when it comes time to buy new ink cartridges, just buy a whole new printer. Give the old one away, throw it away, whatever. Or, since the old printer will already be hooked up, just take the ink cartridges out of the box of the new printer, and give the new printer away, or use it as a paperweight (it's just about small enough to do that, which is kinda cool for a printer). Or, better yet, sell the new, never-before-used printer, sans ink cartridges, on eBay, in a garage sale, or even on Amazon.com and end up with even more money staying in your pocket! What a deal!

The folks at Lexmark seem to have about as much sense as bean dip when it comes to pricing their wares, but that's neither here nor there when it comes to the quality versus cost of this printer. Again, it's a darned good choice for the price.

This is a good printer for regular print jobs, but it does not print to photo quality. If you don't print photos from a digital camera or if you are not concerned about photo quality then this is the printer for you. It is a cheap, easy to install printer that will handle your daily print duties, but photos are pixellated and off-colour.

But for the money, it probably can't be beat. I've had bad results using non-Lexmark printer cartidges, though. And, aside from the sheer wastefullness, at the price these printers go for new, it's cheaper to buy another whole printer (along with the ink cartidges it comes with) than to spend the extra $10 to buy just the ink cartidges all by themselves!