Lexmark Impact S305 Vizix Wireless All-in-One Printer
November 29, 2009 | Peripheral, Printer | 1 CommentAs we commented before, all of the new range of Lexmark inkjet all-in-ones use the new print engine Vizix same, so if you pay £ 370 for the Platinum Pro Series Professional 905 or 90 £ for the Impact, reviewed here, you can expect to get the same print quality, speed and cost of consumables. Paper feeds from a fold-in rear tray with a little spring-loaded flap in front that nobody seems able to explain the reason. We used to think it was to prevent dust from falling into the feed slot, but there is still a large space between the paper and this part even when the drawer is fully loaded.
A small slider on the right adjusts the paper width guides, which makes loading photo paper is easier than to plunge into the feed slot. The Contact Image Sensor (CIS) scanner is simple and thin, so adds little to the overall height of the machine and running across its width, so there is no extra space taken by a control group. As with all these new Lexmark all-in-one control panel is a salient angle of the front of the machine. It has a simple and an LCD display, although it is raster, rather than two lines of 16 characters, so may show some graphical information.
Nestled at the foot of the front right corner of the machine are two memory card slots, but there is also an outlet PictBridge for direct digital connection that can also take the USB drives. Some rivals have taken to abandoning the PictBridge taken on their machines at low prices, which is strange, given its utility and low cost connector. Despite the relatively low price, the S305 still impact the wireless connection and a USB jack on the back. Wireless setup is fairly simple and the machine supports WEP, WPA and WPA2 security. It comes with a bunch of software support, including a copy of ABBYY FineReader OCR.
Ink installation is a doddle, with the four individual cartridges plugging into the semi-permanent head, once you cut up in the carriage head. The machine is compatible with Windows, OSX and Linux, although, as usual, you should download the Linux drivers from the Support Web site. [via trustedreviews]
