Lexmark Z605 Color Jetprinter

WHAT'S HOT: At first we thought the Z605's $50 price tag might be a mistake, but it's not. We were reasonably satisfied with its print quality: Small text on plain paper looked feathered around the edges, but fortunately the bold black letters didn't bleed together. (Note: Coated ink jet paper does not improve text quality with this printer.) Gray-scale photos showed nice detail and shading despite a slightly dotted texture. Color photos were detailed and had accurate hues, but were marred by some banding on plain paper; on glossy paper, though, they looked smooth and clean. We like the fact that the Z605's paper trays fold closed to save room and seal the printer when not in use; however, the trays feel flimsy, so you must treat them gently.

WHAT'S NOT: The Z605 runs a good deal slower than the average speed of the printers competing for spots on our Top 10--its 4.8-pages-per-minute text speed is about a page per minute slower than the July chart average, and its 0.6-ppm graphics printing speed makes it the slowest model on that chart. However, such performance doesn't seem as bad when you take the printer's low price into consideration. One particular weak spot: Narrow parallel lines in our tests printed as a blob, with banding, overlapping, and blotches scattered around.

Lexmark's driver looks simple, but we think its design makes complicated tasks harder than necessary. The driver window has three tabs down the left side, each with a few basic controls and a summary of the settings you've chosen (so you can see all of them at once). However, drop-down menus along the top of the driver window confuse things, offering wizards to walk you through specific tasks such as printing photos or envelopes, and a batch of power-user options such as modifying the color palette and the halftone pattern. Lexmark would do better to integrate the advanced features into the driver's main menu, or perhaps take the Epson route with a button that switches the driver window between basic and advanced views.

WHAT ELSE: Lexmark's ink prices run high: Based on the company's specified yields (275 pages for a $32 tricolor cartridge, with a black cartridge priced at $29), color graphics cost 18.7 cents per page; black text will run you a steep 7.1 cents per page. The Z605 comes with an adequate documentation set that covers setup and basic use but could provide more detail and better troubleshooting advice.

UPSHOT: Bargain printer offers admirable print quality, although inks are on the pricey side.