Main Review

Once you get the rather large and bulky Lexmark X5650 out of the box one wonders how so much gear could be sold for under £100. In fact only the cheapest discounters will sell you one for a few pennies under£100. But for this sum you do get a fax machine and an automatic document feeder (ADF) for the scanner and fax. You also get a well specified card reader, PictBridge support for printing directly from a camera, and a novel feature in the form of a front USB port designed for convenient connection to a laptop – though it’s recessed a bit too much. WiFi networking, which has been featured in some other budget-priced Lexmark models, is not an X5650 offering.

We tested the X5650 with Lexmark’s optional #31 Photo cartridge, which replaces the plain paper black cartridge. This endows the printer with a set of main CMYK and photo cyan and photo magenta inks, which should have given the X5650 a distinct photo printing advantage. Alas, all our prints exhibited a nasty green cast, something we have seen before with Lexmark printers when used with a photo cartridge. Print speed was not particularly swift, either, with an A4 borderless photo taking almost 6 minutes.

Printer Max. Dots Per Inch (Dpi): Up To 4800x1200 dpi
No. Inks/Colours: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow,  Black Or Replace Black Cartridge With Photo Cyan And Photo Magenta And Photo Black Cartridge
Ink Type: Pigment Black, Dye/Pigment Hybrid
Scanner Max Resolution: 600 X 1200 ppi
Scanner Type: Contact Image Sensor (CIS)
Scanner Sheet Feeder?: Yes (Up To 25 Sheets)
Fax Facility: Yes
Copier Facility: Colour And Mono
Memory Card Types Supported: CF I&II, CF Microdrive, SD/SDHC/MMC, Xd, Sony Memory Stick Pro
LCD Screen:  Small Mono Status Screen Only
Dimensions: 205 X 465 X 295 mm
Weight: 7.5 Kg

Verdict

At least the x5650’s scanner quality is good, though the Canon MP540 can scan faster.

Reviewer: WDC Team