Lexmark Z33 Color Jetprinter

By Dan Littman

WHAT’S HOT: At US$80, the Lexmark Z33 Colour Jetprinter is one of the least expensive ink jets on the market. Text looked clean and evenly weighted in our tests, though its grayish tone lacked the solid punch of some black inks. Graphics looked better, with bright, realistic colors and subtle shading.

WHAT’S NOT: The Z33’s ink costs are steep at seven cents per black text page and 18.6 cents per graphics page. Photos looked attractive on glossy paper. The unit ran slowly: Text came out at 3.8 ppm (pages per minute) and graphics at 0.5 ppm. The Z33 has only a USB port – no parallel port.

WHAT ELSE: The printer’s driver features an interesting innovation: On-screen flags stick out from each tab to display a summary of all the settings you’ve selected.

UPSHOT: The Z33’s price is attractive, but ink costs may catch up with you later.

Buying Information:

Lexmark International Inc. Z33 Color JetprinterRated 8-ppm monochrome/5-ppm color ink jet; 1200-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution, 100 sheets input, 50 output