Lexmark X9350 Office All-in-One Review

It's getting harder and harder to justify buying a printer these days.

That's not because you don't need to print stuff anymore; of course you do. But single-purpose inkjet printers are looking like Model T's compared to multifunction peripherals that offer flatbed scanning and copying as well as both office document and borderless photo printing ... and that, in Lexmark's case, start at a ridiculously cheap $60 for a printer/scanner/copier (the X2500) with the once-deluxe option of swapping in a different ink cartridge to switch from four- to six-color photo prints.

Other models add more features for little more money -- making the big jump to $80, for instance, gets you the X3550 with memory-card slots and a PictBridge port to print images directly from your digital camera or a USB flash drive.

So if Lexmark can deliver multifunction convenience for under three figures, what does it save for its $280 model?

Worth Shopping Around

Well, to begin with, it's not hard to find the Lexmark X9350 selling for less than its $280 sticker. Several online and electronics-superstore retailers we checked stock the all-in-one for $230 or $240, and on Staples.com we found a rebate deal that knocked it down to a stunning $170 (but, alas, had just passed its expiration date).

Beyond that, the X9350 includes just about everything you could imagine in an inkjet. Fax as well as print, scan, and copy capabilities? Check. An automatic document feeder to save you the trouble of putting fax- or copying-job pages on the scanner glass one at a time? Bingo. Automatic duplex printing when you want to use both sides of the paper? Roger that.

Not only photo printing from cameras or flash-memory cards, but a 2.4-inch color LCD to preview and pick images for printing or simple editing with no PC required? Yep. A USB 2.0 interface for a single desktop plus an Ethernet adapter for a small office's wired network plus 802.11g WiFi for printing from a passing laptop? You got it.

In fact, the only thing you may miss is more photo-oriented inkjets' array of four, six, or more separate cartridges or ink tanks. The latter save money by letting you replace a single color without having to throw away others that haven't run dry yet. Instead, the X9350 sticks to the familiar double-barreled design of one black ink cartridge and one tricolor (cyan, magenta, and yellow) cartridge, with an optional photo cartridge that replaces the black to deliver six- instead of four-color printing.

As is, the Lexmark's consumables cost will definitely be a line item in your monthly budget, but no more so than most other inkjets': Replacement black and tricolor cartridges are $25 each and the company rates them at 540 and 350 pages, respectively. Skipping the cost of paper, that calculates to 4.6 cents per black-and-white and 11.8 cents per color page.

(Of course, Lexmark's proactive printer driver started popping up "Your black ink cartridge is getting low. Click here to order from our Web site!" messages when the on-screen gauge showed the cartridge still about one-third full after about 250 pages. The optional photo cartridge is $28.)