Lexmark X215 MFD

Lexmark's X215 has been designed to meet the needs of small and medium-size offices, combining fax, copying, printing and scanning in one compact unit.

The two-tone shell houses a paper input tray that can hold up to 250 sheets and features a paper level indicator visible when the drawer is closed. Above this is a manual feed slot that can accommodate a variety of business media, including card, envelopes and transparencies. The paper output bin can hold up to 150 sheets.

A fold-down flap at the front provides easy access to the cartridge bed, and installation and removal is straightforward. The supplied starter cartridge in the box should be good for an estimated 2,000 pages at five per cent coverage. The top of the unit folds up to reveal a flatbed scanner that boasts a maximum optical scan resolution of 600 x 600dpi (dots per inch), although Lexmark claims a maximum resolution of 4,800 x 4,800 via software-based interpolation.

Print speeds were good, matching the claimed 17ppm (pages per minute) in our pdf and mixed-content tests, although the X215 printed our text document at 15ppm.

Output quality was hard to fault. The X215 did a great job reproducing all of our test documents, printing crisp characters with sharp, clean edges. Characters were well-formed and legible, even at 2pt, while type at 72pt was solid with smooth outlines.

The Lexmark coped well with our test photo, reproducing rich blacks and picking out areas of contrast well so that no detail was lost. There was some slight banding in areas of shading, but this was a minor fault.

The accompanying software is easy to use and install, and includes a copy of Scansoft's Paperport SE 8.0.

Contact: Lexmark 08704 440 044
www.lexmark.com

Specifications:

• 600 x 600dpi printing/scanning (up to 4,800 x 4,800dpi interpolated scanning)
• Laser printing
• 13.6kg
• 526 x 558 x 508mm (w x d x h)
• 16MB memory
• USB/parallel connectivity
• Optional Ethernet networking
• One-year warranty