Lexmark X4850

We rarely feature printers on the pages of Mobile Computer, but Lexmark’s latest all-in-one, the X4850, has a nifty trick up its sleeve — wireless printing over your home Wi-Fi network. That may not sound particularly useful, but think about it, that’ll let you print documents from the sofa while watching TV, or scan a document on the printer without having to bring the laptop to it to plug in the USB cable.

Setting the X4850 up is idiot-proof thanks to a thorough step-by-step graphical wizard, and a USB cable is provided to get it up and running the first time. It worked reliably in all our tests — a logo lights up on the device to indicate connection problems — and the only bottleneck is the speed of the printer itself rather than the transfer of the data over the airwaves. It prints 16ppm in draft mode and can print on both sides of the paper if needed. If you’re in a real hurry, you can always just pop your camera’s memory card into the front-mounted card reader and print direct from there.

From our experience with other all-in-one printers, the X4850 is not one of the best in terms of speed or quality — we’d look to the superb Canon MP610 for that. That’s not to say that the Lexmark is a terrible printer, though. In fact, it’s more than good enough for most household uses, and only the most demanding of photographers will find fault with its photographic print quality. Whether it’s worth the price tag depends on how much you value the freedom to print from anywhere.

Specifications

Four/six-colour inkjet MFP, 4800 x 1200dpi resolution, USB 2.0, 802.11g, 2.4” screen, memory card slots, two-sided printing Part code 0016Z0002 Tested draft 16ppm Size 454 x 351 x 178mm Weight 7.1kg Warranty 1 year RTB