How Does it Look? The Budget Priced Lexmark X4650 3 in 1 Wireless Printer

How Does it Look? The Budget Priced Lexmark X4650 3 in 1 Wireless Printer
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The Lexmark X4650 3 in 1 Wireless Printer

The Lexmark X4650 3 in 1 Wireless Printer

For over a year I had wanted a wireless printer, but in all honesty I was still in love with my old school Lexmark X73 printer. However, the problem with the X73 was that it was seriously gigantic. It literately needed an entire side table sized desk of its own, and moving the thing around was a pure headache. It weighed a ton and took up a lot of space, but it worked, and it worked well.

When I was stumbling around the electronics department at a local store I came across a few wireless printer models. I was taken back by their small size, and figured they were poor quality. However when I spotted the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer I was intrigued, because I knew Lexmark made some pretty good printers. I should know. I had the X73 for over 9 years without a single issue.

The Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer was priced at $89.99, which was very cheap compared to what I paid for the X73 years ago. It was also very cheap considering the printer was wireless.

Features (5 out of 5)

Besides being wireless, the printer also came jam packed with a slew of features that I found to be rather enticing.

The printer states on the box that it is capable of printing 25 pages mono per minute, or up to 18 pages of full color prints per minute. I will discuss later on how well this worked for me.

Naturally, in order for the printer to be wireless, it has to come with built in wireless 802.11b/g. This feature allows you to hook up the printer to work with all wireless ready laptops or computers on your network.

There is also a one touch copy and scan feature that allows you to just hit a button on the printer without even having to power on the PC.

The ability to insert a memory card directly in to the printer allows you to print photos directly from a memory card. You can also print directly from PictBridge compatible cameras, or USB flash drives.

Last but not least, the printer comes with a flatbed scanner.

Appearance (5 out of 5)

What I really love about the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer is its smaller size. It barely takes up any room on my desk compared to my old model.

The Lexmark X4650 3 in 1 Wireless Printer is 11.3 H X 18.0 W x 22.1 D. For some this may be considered large, but seeing that my old printer needed a desk all its own, the size reduction for me was huge!

The main control panels on the Lexmark X4650 are all neatly located on the top of the printer. Everything is set up and placed so even new users are able to understand which button does what.

The printer itself has an overall black matte finish, with some silver detailing on the side panels. I would have liked a black high gloss finish for the printer to match the rest of the electronics I have in my room, but I appreciate the matte finish, considering it collects far less dust than high gloss finishes.

The one thing I find especially charming on the control menus is the OLED screen located above all of the one touch buttons. This menu allowed me to easily read what setting I had the printer on. The menu is bright, and easy to read. It also makes using the printer more user friendly.

Quality (4 out of 5)

The printer’s paper feed only holds around 80 pieces of paper without getting jammed. The paper feed through is pretty solid. As far as quality on the rest of the printer, I will say that the paper tray that catches finished prints is rather flimsy in quality. It is a very thin piece of plastic that could easily break if you were to smack into it for some reason. Another smaller paper catch pulls out of the paper tray and is equally flimsy in quality.

The flatbed scanner feels a little light compared to what I am used to, but I don’t see this as a low quality issue; that is, unless you plan on sitting on it, which I don’t recommend!

Ease of Set Up (5 out of 5)

When I first began hooking up the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer I imagined it was going to be a pain (like my Tivo!!!).

In the box included with the printer was an installation sheet, and an installation CD which guided through the process of hoooking up the printer with your wireless network.

I simply put the CD into my PC and waited for the installation directions to load up on the screen.

I was pleasantly surprised by the neat easy to follow layout of the installation directions. For those who are pretty PC savvy, you really don’t even need the installation help, but the ones included are perfect and make it very simple to follow for new users.

All in all, the directions were very simplistic, (right down to showing me how to plug the power cord into the wall outlet). It teaches users how to insert the included ink cartridges and how to hook the printer up to my home network. The printer was able to immediately pick up my home network signal, and I was on my way to printing.

In order for other PCs and laptops in the house to work with the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer I had to use the installation CD in all of the other computers in the house. It’s a 2 minute task, so it is not a big deal at all.

Once the installation CD has been used on all PCs and laptops they will be connected to the wireless printer, and everyone in the home will be able to print. It is wireless, so someone upstairs can hit print, and the printer will fire up and print no matter where it is.

I found the print quality on the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer to be very, very nice, with crisp clean coloring, I have seen other printers print higher quality prints, but those printers were in the $400-$700 range.

I printed a few photos to see how the quality looked on standard paper, and it was pretty impressive. For the $89.99 I spent on the Lexmark X4650 I was surprised the quality was as nice as it was. I was expecting grainy pixelated photo prints, but they came out looking good.

The Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer promised 25 pages per minute mono, and 18 pages per minute in color.

I have to say that the print speed fails when it comes to its big bold promise.

One full page color print took nearly 45 seconds. Printing out a plain 20 page black text document took the printer 2 minutes to complete. Printing a small colored photo mixed with black text took around 30 seconds.

This is nowhere even close to the 18 colored pages per minute, nor is the 25 page mono per minute on target.

Printing speed is way, way off, and I found the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer to be rather slow.

I am not bothered by this because I’m a relatively patient person, but for those who take printing speed into consideration for their purchase this may be disappointing.

The Scanner (5 out of 5)

What I love most about the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer is its quick reacting scanner. I like scanning old photographs to convert them to digital photos. With my old scanner it took nearly 2 solid minutes for it to do a full scan and convert the scan as an image on to my computer’s screen.

The print speed on the Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer may be slow, but the scanning speeds make up for that.

One full scan takes the Lexmark X4650 only a few short seconds. I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly it reacted, and how fast it loaded the image up onto my computer!

Overall (4 out of 5)

For the $89.99 I spent, the Lexmark X4650, 3 in One Printer is a pretty impressive wireless printer. The print quality is very impressive, but the printing speeds are very slow.

All in all, for the low price I don’t think I could have found a better model. I have yet to experience signal drops, jams, or issues regarding the actual printer. I have used it heavily and the printer ink still has more than half the ink it had when I got it a few months ago.

The Lexmark X4650 3 in One Printer is an excellent buy for those on a budget looking for a good wireless printer that puts out high quality prints.

Printer ink cartridges for the Lexmark come to around $30.00 for black ink (#36XL Black), and around $30.00 for color ink refill cartridges (#37). You can take a look at the printer directly at the Lexmark website.

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