Lexmark X4875: a well-featured MFD

The Lexmark X4875 can be directly connected to a computer via USB, shared across a network via its Wi-Fi interface, or used as a stand-alone printer with various types of storage media. The silver, grey and glossy white styling common to many Lexmark models would sit comfortably in homes and small offices, while duplex printing is a useful paper-saving feature.

The installer walks you through the physical setup while the software loads in the background. By the time you’ve removed all the securing tapes, flipped out the trays, fitted the ink cartridges and so on, the software is nearly ready to go. The wireless setup routine was painless, but does require a temporary USB connection.

Drivers and software are provided for Windows 2000, XP (including x64) and Vista, plus Mac OS X 10.3 to 10.5 (including Intel). The Windows software includes a utility for scanning, printing and managing images (including OCR and conversion to PDF), and the Lexmark Toolbar to assist in printing web pages from Internet Explorer. We still wish the printer driver did not ship with voice notifications enabled - there may be a place for "printing started" echoing around the room, but we're not sure where that is.

The Mac bundle comprises printing and scanning software plus ABBYY FineReader OCR. Unlike the installers provided by some vendors, Lexmark's does the job properly so there's no need to manually add the device to the printer list at the end of the process.

Documentation comprises a user’s guide booklet, a more extensive manual in PDF form, and Windows and Mac help files.

The LCD panel is on the small side at 6cm, but is bright and clear, and Lexmark has made good use of the space available without over-cluttering the interface.

Nominal print speed is 4 ppm for colour documents and 10 ppm for monochrome. We recorded 38 seconds click-to-drop for the first A4 colour page, with the second emerging after another 37 seconds.

Print quality was typical for the X4875's class. Text appears sharp enough to the naked eye, though some fuzziness is visible under magnification, and business graphics were reasonably bright and smooth. Photo printing on plain paper using the three-colour cartridge was acceptable.

In place of the usual Lexmark PerfectFinish photo paper, a supply of GBC brand premium glossy paper was provided for our review. Coupled with the optional photo cartridge (which replaces the black one), this gave reasonable results but - as we've noted before - the Lexmark inks give a relatively matte finish with an uneven shine where the paper is left white. Overall, the results were even less glossy than we've seen on Lexmark paper, and the colours seemed slightly subdued. Furthermore, black and near-black areas took on a slightly wrinkled appearance although the finish was smooth to the touch.

Click-to-drop time for a 6 x 4in colour print was 2 minutes and 9 seconds.

The automatic selection of settings according to the detected paper type is a useful feature, and the margins are approximately 1 to 1.5mm, which is usefully narrower than some other devices.

Media cards (SD, MMC, xD, Memory Stick and CF) and PictBridge cameras are supported for direct printing. The X4875 can output a proof sheet that you mark with a pen or pencil and then scan to automatically print the required images from the memory card using a variety of layouts and optionally with automatic enhancement, or sepia or antique effects. Images from such devices may be transferred to USB- or network-connected computers.

We would prefer the reference corner of the scanner glass to be at the back of the unit, not the front, as we find this makes scanning books and magazines easier. On the other hand, network scanning is optionally PIN protected, which is a sensible feature as it reduces the chance that your computer will become cluttered with images accidentally or maliciously scanned by other users.

Scan quality was better than some more expensive models we've tested. It should be satisfactory for most purposes, though demanding users may want to look elsewhere.

The printer's internal memory allows the production of multi-page collated copies, though this feature is limited to around 20 sides of A4 mono text (less for colour, of course). This is a welcome feature. Text copies were impressive for a sub-$200 device, and full-page colour copies were very good with no obvious colour cast, although they were a little on the pale side.

Unlike our experience with the Lexmark X6570, the X4875 never failed to reconnect with the Wi-Fi network when waking from low power (sleep) mode, so it looks like the company has got that issue well under control.