Lexmark x3550

At first glance, the Lexmark x3550 is a steal. For $79.99, it prints, scans, copies, and even has optional Wi-Fi. If you're interested in printing photos, you'll want to buy the photo cartridge, sold separately for $24.99, bringing the total to about $105-still a pretty good deal-until you see the photos, at least. 

 

We had a few small issues with the x3550's design. The vertical tray made aligning large paper difficult. We also wish that the power cord were a bit longer. Thankfully, the 12-pound x3550 is both portable and Wi-Fi capable. Both the printer and the software were easy to use. A small LED status box shows the progress of a project, but this is the only printer in the bunch that doesn't have a color LCD for function selection. It does talk to you, though; a voice announces the start and finish of a project-a feature that seems cool at first but might become annoying if you spend a lot of time on the phone.

 

The x3550 is the most affordable printer here, and it shows. Our photos were pixelated with a bluish overcast-not at all worth the wait (it was the slowest, too). Even large, smooth surfaces, such as skin, looked grainy. And definitely don't expect the x3550 to do justice to details. Some patches of grass in our outdoor shot were as three-dimensional as a square of AstroTurf.

 

Oddly, the printer redeemed itself as a color copier. Although the copies were similarly underdone and slow to print, they showed more balanced color than the MP600 and 5300, and were drier, to boot. Our subject's eyes were still too dark, but not at all like the pools of ink we saw in the other models.
 
The x3550 was slow; it took 2 minutes and 23 seconds for 4 x 6 photos and 5:52 for 8 x 10s (that's more than twice the time the other printers took). Ultimately, the x3530 performed well as a business machine, however. With the exception of smudged fine print, our business documents looked acceptable and finished printing in a reasonable 6:07 (just seconds behind the HP entry). The x3530 also had the second-fastest times as both a scanner and a black-and-white copier.
 
If you're a college student on a budget and like the idea of having all the functions of Kinko's in your dorm room (and you leave the photo printing to mom), the Lexmark x3530 may have a place in your tight space. But if you're at all interested in printing photos or doing much of anything in color, you can do better.

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