printers

Lexmark PrinTrio Printer/Scanner/Copier

Rating:

By Joel Shore

October 18, 2002

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oh, wait, wrong story. Let’s try this instead: It’s a printer! It’s a copier! It’s a scanner!

Lexmark’s outrageously affordable X75 PrinTrio (or just PrinTrio) is all of those. If you can live without fax capabilities, the PrinTrio is a great choice for your home, apartment, office, or dorm.

The idea behind the PrinTrio is simplicity in triplicate. We all print. We all have to make copies. And we all have documents or photos that we want to somehow get into our computers. Fuse those functions together and you’ve got what’s known in the industry as a “multifunction peripheral.” Why no fax? Cost. Adding fax means adding a numeric keypad (for dialing phone numbers) and a fax modem. Lexmark couldn’t do that and still keep the price below the magic $150 barrier. You can, however, scan a document and then fax the scanned image using your computer’s fax software (or install the included fax software) and modem.

Simple set-up. Like your laptop computer, the PrinTrio uses an external power adapter. But the way it connects is rather unusual. Your laptop’s adapter has two cords: a 120-volt cable that runs from the wall to the transformer unit, and a low-voltage cord that runs from the unit to the computer. This method lets you keep the power adapter off your desk and out of the way. But the PrinTrio’s adapter isn’t like that at all. Instead of that second low-voltage cable, the adapter plugs directly into a locking port on the back of the printer. To us, that’s pretty weird. Instead of building the power circuitry inside the printer, you’ve got this odd-looking thing sticking out the back. It would be a lot nicer if you could let it sit on the floor, but you can’t. Disaster? No. Odd? You bet.

After inserting paper, you install the two ink cartridges then plug the USB cable into the printer and into your computer. Finally, you install the software from the included CD-ROM. The software installation was a breeze and took only a few minutes. After that you’re ready to go!

It doesn’t get easier than this. Scanning is a one-button operation. Making copies requires a choice: color or monochrome.

Control Panel. The PrinTrio’s control panel, like the rest of the unit, is sheer simplicity. There’s a power button with LED indicator. There’s also a status indicator LED and a paper feed button. That’s where the similarity to other inkjet printers end. At the front edge of the control panel are two buttons for making copies: a blue one for color copies and a black button for, well, black and white copies. That’s convenient: you can make copies when your computer is turned off, and you can opt not to use that expensive color ink when copying color originals. Finally, there’s a button labeled scan. With it you can scan a document, photograph, page from a book, or any other suitable original that will fit on top of the flat glass copy bed. Of course, to save a scan as a file, you’ll need to have your computer up and running—unlike the copy operation.

Designed for everyday users, the PrinTrio’s software is laid out in a logical, easy-to-follow manner. Choices are clear and simple to find.	4
		view full-size screen

At last, user-friendly screens. There’s a lot of software out there that intimidates users, or worse, makes them feel stupid. Well, shame on the vendors that come up with this stuff. It’s the computer and it’s the software that should do the hard work, not the user. Lexmark gets it.

The software that accompanies the PrinTrio is phenomenal. It’s the pictures that tell the story. For example, in the screen shown above (click on it to display in full size), the center portion lets you choose the print quality and speed. There’s Quick Print, Normal, Better, and Best. But there’s a lot more there than just a button to click.

Look closer, at the icons with each selection. Quick Print shows three columns of text, along with a stop watch showing little elapsed time. The next choice, Normal, shows some text and a pie chart. The chart represents presentation graphics, which are mostly large chunks of solid colors. The stop watch indicates this takes a little longer to print. The Better option shows a small amount of text with a photo alongside, a more intricate print job. Sure enough, choosing this mode takes longer to print. Finally, the Best mode shows a photograph suitable for framing (and no text at all). This highest-quality mode takes the most time to print.

So why can’t every hardware and software company do this? Beats the heck out of me. But Lexmark gets a gold star on its corporate forehead for explaining matters so clearly.

Lift the PrinTrio’s hinged top to easily copy or scan pages from a book.

All is not per-fect, though. What we’ve been raving about is the software for printing and choosing image quality. The PrinTrio also comes with image-editing software. You can do some basic editing,
like cropping
and adjusting brightness, but you sure won’t mistake it for a full-blown photo-editing software application. If you plan to do a lot of touching up of old photos, invest about $100 in a more powerful photo-editing package.

Mix its no-frills approach with its great print quality and easy-to-use software, and you’ve got an all-in-one peripheral suitable for home, home office, dorm room, and even an executive suite. It’s probably not sturdy enough to stand up to continuous heavy corporate use, though. If you don’t need a built-in fax, and can use your computer’s fax software and modem instead, then the Lexmark PrinTrio is a great choice. At less than $150, the PrinTrio will be as attractive on your budget as it will look sitting on your desk. <