Lexmark has taken an interesting approach to printers: stand out by cramming as many features as possible into very affordable or moderately priced device.
The Lexmark X6570 is an inkjet all-in-one with fax capability, which can be directly connected to a computer via USB, or shared across a network via its Wi-Fi interface. Features include a 25-sheet automatic document feeder for the scanner and duplex printing, saving the operator time and paper.
Print, scan and copy quality were much as we expected given the price and features of the unit. Some fuzziness was visible when we examined text under magnification, but business graphics were reasonably bright and smooth. Photo printing on plain paper was acceptable, but we remain disappointed by the semi-gloss results on supposedly high-gloss PerfectFinish paper.
Photo quality improved noticeably with the optional six-colour ink cartridge (it replaces the normal black cartridge with black, light cyan and light magenta), significantly reducing red levels in skin tones.
The X6570 can nominally print right to the edges of A4 paper, but we found a margin of approximately 1mm on one long edge and a narrower one on one short edge. When borderless printing was not selected, we saw an unusually wide 15mm border appeared on the lower edge. Full-page colour copies were impressively smooth for a device in this class.
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 and 10.4 (including Intel). The Windows software includes a utility for scanning and printing (including OCR and conversion to PDF), and the Lexmark Toolbar to assist in printing web pages from Internet Explorer. The Mac bundle comprises printing and scanning software plus ABBYY FineReader OCR.
One quirk of the Windows driver was that the printing preferences window was irritatingly slow to open. Another problem was that the X6570 sometimes failed to reconnect with the Wi-Fi network when waking from low power (sleep) mode, requiring the mains cable to be disconnected for a full restart. Updating the unit’s firmware seemed to clear up both issues, though we’re not sure why that affected the preferences window.
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. Network scanning is optionally PIN protected, which is a sensible feature.
When copying, various combinations of one and two-sided originals and copies are supported, though the buffer memory is limited to around six or eight sides of colour A4. The X6570 rotates the second side before printing, so the stack of originals must be returned to the ADF with the reverse orientation to the originals. Not difficult, but counter-intuitive.
Media cards (SD, MMC, xD, Memory Stick and CF) and USB storage devices are supported (including PictBridge cameras), and the X6570 can print a proof sheet that you mark with a pen or pencil and then scan to automatically print the required images. Images from such devices may be transferred to USB- or network-connected PCs.
Nominal print speed is 24ppm for colour documents and 28ppm for monochrome. We recorded 41 seconds click-to-drop for the first A4 colour page, with the second emerging after 36 seconds.
The X6570 can be used as a conventional fax machine or documents can be faxed directly from Windows (but not Mac OS X) applications. PC-based faxing is poorly documented. A pass-through socket allows the connection of a phone to the same line, and auto-answer can be controlled from the front panel.