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computerwriter.com
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Review: Lexmark Z82 Printer/Scanner/CopierToronto Star Fast Forward column for April 12, 2001 Copyright © Myles White, 2001 Lexmark Canada doesn't bill its new Z82 Color (sic) Jetprinter / copier / scanner as a "multifunction" or "all-in-one" printer and that's just as well. True, it does print from a PC, scans to a PC, and makes copies. But it doesn't send or receive faxes. So, instead of having it replace four or five pieces of office equipment, it will replace three. And it does all of its functions in your choice of black and white, or full colour. Quick Specs:
Its speed, says the company, is up to 8 pages per minute (ppm) for black and 4 ppm for colour. Note that these are industry standard test pages with 5 per cent coverage (15 per cent in colour, 5 per cent per colour) and that companies traditionally do these tests in draft mode. Resolution ranges up to 1,200 by 1,200 dots per inch (dpi) from a draft resolution of 300 by 600 dpi and a normal resolution of 600 by 600 dpi. It's bigger than a bread box, the size made necessary by the flat-bed scanner on top of the unit. Dimension are 10.2 (H) by 14.5 (W) by 17.5 (D) inches (258 by 369 by 444 mm) and weight is 17.2 lbs. (7.8 kg). You'll also want to have at least another foot or so behind the unit if you plan to use its straight-through paper path for extra-heavy stock or envelopes (you feed it from the back, not the front). The copier function is for a small, not a large office, with a maximum run of 99 copies. You can enlarge up to 400 per cent or reduce by 25 per cent. According to Lexmark, it will copy four black and white pages per minute, or 1.5 colour pages. The scan-bed is limited to 8.5 by 11-inch stock, but the rear of the lid is hinged, so you can scan 3-Dimensional objects as well as paper. Maximum optical scanning resolution is 300 by 600 dpi, with software interpolated scans up to 4,800 dpi. The device scans in 24-bit colour (16.7 million shades), which means that unlike 30-, 32-, or 36-bit scanners, there's no image enhancement, particularly of shadows. The scanner "sees" up to 256 shades of gray (8-bit scanning, again without the enhancement from higher scan rates). It doesn't work on a Mac, or on a PC running Windows 2000. Drivers are only available for Windows 95, 98, or Me. Our test unit came with a 10-foot parallel cable, but it will also work through USB (Universal Serial Bus). Keep in mind that scanning speed will be much faster through USB than through parallel, but with both functions in the same box, you won't have to worry about compatibility if you do decide to connected it through your computer's parallel port. Duty cycle (monthly) for the Z82 is 3,000 pages and it comes with a one-year warranty with next business day "LexExpress" replacement. In Use:My system crashed while installing the printer's software driver. Lexmark, like a distressingly large number of companies, has abandoned the Windows Plug 'n' Play installation routine for hardware devices. Despite the fact that Win98SE found the printer and was more than willing to install USB drivers for it (that's how I'd hooked it up), I still followed Lexmark's instructions and pressed "cancel" to do it their way. The installer was supposed to recognize the printer, then give me a choice of models. Instead it went to heaven. Oddly enough, after a restart, during which Windows seemingly re-installed the USB drivers on its own, the Lexmark installer skipped this step and went on to install various software enhancements (more below). Neither the on-board driver, the help file, nor the manual, discusses how to place paper where there's a favourite side (such as glossy photo stock) in the 150-sheet paper bin, so the first thing I tried was a simple black and white copy. It was a standard sheet of paper and, instead of having 5 per cent coverage, it was full – so it took about two minutes to copy. Printing my favourite test photo at the printer's highest resolution took 8.5 minutes, which is on the slow side of average for a printer in this price range. The quality of the output, however, was much better than I expected. This particular photo catches printers that don't do deep blacks or shadows well. It also catches those that can't do subtle highlights or render flesh tones accurately. The Z82 passed all of these tests with flying colours (using glossy stock, 1200 dpi and the driver's "natural" colour setting). Unfortunately, the scanner lets the rest of the system down. With the narrow 24-bit colour range, it just doesn't have heft to handle scans. Below, you'll see the difference. Despite having a good-quality original to work from, the image scanned back was grainy, full of highlights and artifacts. You won't buy this unit for its colour scanning / copying capabilities (at least not if you plan to run a lot of colour photos).
Software fun:You get an optical character recognition program, called AnyPage Lite. No biggie. However, it's the second program in the package that will make you sit up a bit. It's by Samsung, and it wants all of your communications activities. SmarThru 2 has only a little to do with printing. It can act as an image cataloguer, but its main roles are as a fax and Internet gateway. It can replace both Outlook Express and a light-weight fax program. I particularly like its "Agent" that allows you to, for example, set up a message rule that will specifically delete any e-mail message arriving with specific document types attached to it. There are also provisions for attaching digital signatures or recognizing digital certificates for security. How much?Okay, I've kept the best part of this for the last. At Lexmark Canada's Web site (www.lexmark.ca), you can order the Z82 for $316.88. However, at least one other online retailer was carrying it for $299. Experience tells me that a storefront retailer may carry it for even less. Despite my concerns over the scanner's poor performance with a colour photo, I had fewer things to carp about when it came to ordinary business documents, newspaper clippings, or documents on plain paper with spot colour in them. Compared to some single-function printers I've tested over the past several months, the high-resolution photo test produced very good results and I had nothing to complain about with other, less demanding jobs. Given the relatively low price for a unit that combines colour printing, scanning, and copying, I'd still give it a thumbs-up. |
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The
Z82 Color Jetprinter uses inkjet technology. It comes with two cartridges, one
for black and one containing cyan, magenta, and yellow. Options include
high-capacity versions of both. 
