There are a lot of things I hate in life, and one of them is having to share the computer with my sister, I never get to go on it, and I can never get any of my work done because she is always on it, so at Christmas I decided enough is enough and I went out to PC World and bought myself a laptop computer. When I got home I was sooo excited, but them I thought hang on a minute, how am I meant to print out my assignments for college when I haven’t got a printer “doh“, so out I went again and brought myself a printer.
I went back to PC World and looked for the cheapest printer (I’d just used all my money buying the laptop), and I saw the Lexmark Z601 for £25.99, bargain. It is a fairly small printer compared to the others that were on display, with some of them I think I would have had to have an extension built on my house just to fit it in!, it is also light as well, which is great if you need to keep packing it away when you have finished, like I have too.
When I got home again I took it out the box and got ready toconnect it to my laptop to print out some work, but oh no, the printer doesn’t come with a USB lead, great, am I ever going to get this work done?, so out I go again, I didn’t go back to PC World as the staff might have thought I was a bit weird going back 3 times in one day!, so I went up to my local electrical store instead and bought a USB lead for £12.99 (I think I was ripped off, what do you think?). I got back home, connected the printer with my new USB lead to my laptop, installed all the software required to be able to print using the easy to follow installation manual, and put the colour cartridge in that comes free with the printer, finally I can press print and see what happens.
I was pleasantly surprised, for £25 I was expecting the work to come out faint and unable to read, but it is really clear and it doesn't smudge your fingers with black ink when you go and pick up the paper. It also didn’t make any noise when it was printing, which is good as some printers sound like an aeroplane is landing in your back garden, and you have to shout just to be heard over it! This printer has 4 printing modes which are Quick, Normal, Better and Best. I have my printer set on normal, I have never tested the print quality of Best, probably because I am not into computers and hi-tech equipment so I just leave things as they come just in case I press a wrong button and it ends up exploding or something.
The quality of printing photographs on with this printer is also very good. The pictures come out very clear.
The only problems I have found with this printer is that the ink tends to run out quite quickly. There is an indicator on my computer screen to show how much ink is left when printing, and when it is really low a warning signal comes up, but it is still possible to print out a few more pages before it does actually run out completely.
The other problem is that the ink cartridges are just soooo expensive, I bought a Lexmark colour 27 cartridge, and at WHSMITHS it cost me £25.99, but at Tesco it only cost me £17.99, either way I could have gone back to PC World and bought the printer again for the price of a new cartridge!
I am very pleased with my £25 printer, I just wish my laptop was only £25 as my bank balance would look a lot healthier!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I also own this printer and am quite pleased with it. It seems that many owners (except for myself) have experienced problems with the ink running out too quickly. I bought this at the end of last year and use it quite frequently and the cartridge still has 25% of it's ink left. Good review.
Nogri 20.04.2004 19:35
You did get ripped off with that USB cable @ £12.99 (USB CABLE 2 MTR A-B USB-112)
We sell them for £ 1.99,
May I suggest that considering your Internet proficient!
You would probably get a better ink deal on e-bay for about £10-14 per unit (ink code 010N0016)(No 17)
stuleg 12.04.2004 01:15
That`s a great price. I have a Lexmark Z52 which works well but those cartridge prices are a nightmare. Stuart
very helpful by (100%):
