Lexmark International 1150 PrinTrio

...a printer…… it is the Lexmark X1150 all in one Printer/copier/Scanner with a fax facility thrown in, What more could one ask for?
I had seen them around for almost a year at between £59-£70 seemed too good to be true,
at such an unbelievable price too.

My family had given me Argos vouchers for Birthday and Christmas last year, as they knew I was after one of these mean machines, I spotted this model in Argos last year ...
...had a parallel port, the Lexmark X1150 needs a USB port.

Oh dear oh dear, so back I go to Argos, after much deliberating an soul searching, (and to cut a long story shorter) I decided to put £10 toward the last few vouchers I had left, and treat myself to a “Belkin 2 port card” which has 2 USB ports, (as you probably have already gathered) at £24 99 this did actually push the price of my printer up somewhat, but most computers now ... more

I am such a happy Bunny …… I have found my dream printer, and it’s not just a printer…… it is the Lexmark X1150 all in one Printer/copier/Scanner with a fax facility thrown in, What more could one ask for?
I had seen them around for almost a year at between £59-£70 seemed too good to be true,
at such an unbelievable price too.

My family had given me Argos vouchers for Birthday and Christmas last year, as they knew I was after one of these mean machines, I spotted this model in Argos last year at £59 99.

Just after Christmas this year I popped along to my local Argos store, having previously checked this particular model out on a few web sites.

To my surprise and pleasure I found Argos had put the price down… Yes it was now reduced to £54.99, at last within my reach. I got them to check how many were in stock, was told they had 6 left ……… So off I rushed home, grabbed my vouchers, and made a mad dash back to Argos.

I was so pleased with my bargain that I forgot to check fitments etc….
On arriving home and unpacking my “new toy” I realized that it wasn’t compatible with my poor old computer, which only had a parallel port, the Lexmark X1150 needs a USB port.

Oh dear oh dear, so back I go to Argos, after much deliberating an soul searching, (and to cut a long story shorter) I decided to put £10 toward the last few vouchers I had left, and treat myself to a “Belkin 2 port card” which has 2 USB ports, (as you probably have already gathered) at £24 99 this did actually push the price of my printer up somewhat, but most computers now come with USB ports.

Anyway back to the subject in hand……… I am now armed with all I need to get my little toy up and running. Fitting the new USB port was really easy; sorting out the new printer was another matter…. But I got there in the end

So what about the Lexmark X1150? I hear you ask.

OK the Lexmark X1150 is a complete all-in-one printer/scanner/photocopier (colour and black and white) with the bonus of a fax machine.
You need a UBS lead (which is not supplied) they cost around £10 new, my friend had a spare one she kindly gave me.

The X1150 is totally affordable, costing £54.99 from Argos you can also get it from a wide range of other shops including Comet and PC World, Tesco were also doing them last year. And I did notice them online for between £59-£70.

So whets in the box!

# Lexmark X1150 all-in-one printer #

# Power Cable#

# 1x Black and 1x Colour ink cartridge (RRP £30) #

# Lexmark Photo quality paper 20 sheets “free” (RRP £7.99) #

# Adobe Photoshop software (RRP £59.99) #

# Printing software & drivers#

# No USB lead supplied (RRP £9.99) #

I was really surprised that Lexmark had included the free paper and Adobe software in the package.

Come on, what about setting it up?

Ok it did take me quite a while to set my printer up, you first need to plug the power cable into a socket and into the printer, you attach it to the power supply adaptor that slots into the back of the printer.
Then you need to attach the USB cable to the back of the printer and plug the other end into the back of your PC (this was a test for me to see if my newly installed USB port worked) <<<<<<<< Yippee it did >>>>>>>>>
You then need to fit the ink cartridges into your printer, they are colour coded to save confusion, one being bright green the other a duller green, there is a tear off tab at the bottom of each cartridge which you must remember to pull off before you install them, you have to lift the middle section of your printer up, and prop it on the support in order to fit your cartridges, this is simple enough to do. (See photo)

What about Installing the Printing software & drivers?

The printing software & drivers are normally easy to install, they say insert the CD-ROM into your CD drive and wait for the auto-set-up application to run. I had a bit of trouble with this as I’m dyslexic I read everything wrong, once I had re-read it had a coffee, re-read it and got my brain around it, it was quite easy. When you have successfully completed this bit you will notice there is an ”all-in-one centre” application installed automatically on your PC, you can use this function to do all your printing etc or you can use the buttons on the printer to do it.

The all-in-one centre provides you with many options, make photocopies, scan documents, e-mail images, enlarge and reduce an image, the software is easy to use and there is also a handy scan or copy preview page.

The software includes an ink level marker, for both the black and colour inks, to show you how much you have used, and when you are getting low or need to replace your cartridges.
Mine doesn’t look like it has moved at all yet, even though I have printed out loads of colour family photos, and my eldest Grandson has done lots of homework printing on it.
Scanning and copying is very quick, I find the quality in both colour and black & white is brilliant. I have been playing around with my new toy now for about 6 weeks, and have found there is so much I can do with it.

So what does it look like?

The printer itself is black at the bottom, dark grey at the top and has a light grey corner panel with 5 buttons in total that operate the different functions, the paper feeds from a near-vertical tray at the back of the printer to a black pull-out tray at the front, the top flap lifts up to show the scanner, and underneath that is the middle lift up section with the printer cartridges ect.

1/ Power button = turns the printer on and off

2/ Paper feed button = draws in paper for alignment

3/ Scan button = scans documents that are placed in the scanner

4/ Colour photocopy = for photocopying in colour

5/ Black & white photocopy = for photocopying in black & white

The X1150 sits nicely on top of my desk neatly next to my monitor,
For all its functions, it really isn’t that big,

Height 16.3 cm
Width 44.5 cm
Depth 30.8 cm
Weight 4.5 kg

I don’t really understand all about specification but I am going to try and add what I can, if I have left anything out which you feel is important, maybe you can let me know and I will add it later.
It operates on 4800 x 1200 dpi resolution photo quality with a speed of 14ppm (pages per minute) mono and 8ppm colour. The scanner also operates at a powerful 600 x 1200 dpi resolution.
The Lexmark X1150 is an Ink-jet printer it has standard memory of 256 KB and a maximum copying speed of 13ppm mono and 5ppm colour.

Additional specifications:

Max Copies 99

Max Document Enlargement 400%

Max Document Reduction 25%

Max Printing Resolution 2400 x 1200 dpi mono & 4800 x 1200 dpi colour

Max Printing Speed 14ppm mono & 8ppm colour

Optical Resolution 600 x 1200 dpi

Interpolated Resolution 9600 x 9600 dpi

Grey Scale Depth 8 bit

Colour Depth 24 bit

I am not very technical, and don’t really understand half of this, all I know is it’s ideal for me, and probably for a lot of other home users.

Am I Impressed with my purchase?

I most certainly am!
I have now had my wonderful all-in-one printer for about 6 weeks, prior to that I have only had a HP desk jet 600 mono, which still works perfectly (but I wanted colour in my life)
The ink cartridges for the X1150 are not too expensive, compared with some makes, I have seen them at between £12-£16 for black and £18-£20 colour, although I haven’t really looked to see if they make cheaper versions yet.
The ink seems to last a long time and doesn’t seem to have moved at all from the 100% ink level, and that’s after printing at least 16 colour photos, some 20 odd colour documents and at least 40-50 sheets of black & white documents.

I have only used the fax twice but it was very easy to use and quick to send, I received my first faxthe other day, I booked my Holiday to Malta using it, and received all my confirmition back in a fax, and from the look of my phone bill it only costs 18p to send one.

Compared to other printers I have seen, this seems to be a brilliant product. If you’re looking at buying a printer, scanner or photocopier, here you can have them all, with this Lexmark all-in-one printer for a fraction of the price.
I find it prints documents in colour of great quality, which are perfectly dry when they arrive from the printer there’s no smudge marks or lines on them

I would certainly recommend the Lexmark X1150 to anyone thinking of buying an all-in-one machine.
This review has taken me longer than expected to do, as I took some photo’s of it on my ordinary camera, had to wait until the film was finished, put them in to be developed, and today I have been busy scanning them and adding them to this review.

Thank you for reading this, and if you feel there is anything missing, please feel free to let me know.
Heatherx 

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