Lexmark Portable Photo Printer P350

A single cartridge holds three pigment-based inks, which Lexmark claims are more resistant to moisture over the long term than the dye-based inks of other inkjet snapshot printers. In two informal moisture tests, we looked for defects after sprinkling water on week-old (and therefore dry) snapshot prints. Then we dunked them in water for 30 seconds and wiped them dry. The P350's prints showed no obvious ill effects after either test.

The printer comes with ink and paper to make 20 prints. Replacement bundles include enough ink and paper for 100 prints. At $29 for the pack, that comes to 29 cents per print.

The P350 is one of the slowest snapshot printers we've evaluated in a while. In our tests black-and-white prints averaged 0.4 pages per minute, while color prints clocked in at an even slower 0.3 ppm--about three times slower than Canon and Epson's latest snapshot printers.

At first glance the prints showed vivid colors, good shadow detail, and smooth tonal changes. But on closer inspection we noticed narrow banding across all the prints, which was especially visible in the darkest areas. Our black-and-white print also exhibited a disturbing green tint.

The printer comes with Lexmark's Fast Pics software to help with printing from your PC. It offers a few image enhancements, including crop, rotate, auto-fix, and red-eye removal. It also assists in transferring images to the PC from memory cards and USB flash drives connected to the printer, but it lacks features for organizing and sharing your photos.

Paul Jasper