3M X75 LCD Projector

Last month I tossed out the Epson Stylus C60 Personal Printer due to numerous paper jams and a broken ink container. I wanted to try a Hewlett Packard but I did not like the looks of any of the ones I saw at online merchants.

I decided to research printers further by utilizing Epinions and found many reviews praising the brand Lexmark, which I was unfamiliar with. Each printer I read about looked nicer than the previous one so I then headed over to Best Buy.com to see what was on sale and make my decision. During the last month I signed up for a local fax number with efax and since I would be paying this on a monthly basis was not sure about getting a printer that had a fax as well. The Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer has fax capabilities but I soon learned that I would still need a fax number so having efax is still a necessity, and I presume worth the cost at this point in time.

Being an inpatient person I opted to head right on over to the Best Buy store and while waiting for them to open made a purchase at Toys R Us next door for my kids. I think these stores should consider opening up at 9 am instead of 9:30 and 10. There are always lines of customers waiting for them to unlock the doors and a potential loss in customer base when places like Kmart and Target are open at 8 am.

Since I had decided ahead of time on the Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer also known as the Lexmark X75 PrinTrio, I looked at the prices listed here for the ink cartridges to get an idea of the cost associated with running and maintaining the printer. I wrote down the items for quick purchase at Best Buy and was in and out of the store in under ten minutes and managed to sidestep the two-year additional warranty the salesperson tried to sell me.

I was happy to learn from the salesperson that the printer does come with a small supply of black and color ink, but I did have him pick out the refills for purchase at the same time. I had packed my cable in my bag to see if I would still need a cable with this different brand printer, and luckily I did not need to purchase a new one. The best part of all was when I noticed the price was listed at $89.99, because I found it on their website for $99.99 and was expecting to pay that amount.

As mentioned I had been at Toys R Us purchasing a product I had wanted to get for awhile for my kids. When I walked into that store, which is located next to Best Buy the coupon book had a ten dollar coupon for only two weeks on said item. In under a half-hour and two stores I had saved twenty dollars, thus waiting for the stores to open did not seem so bad on this particular day and helped defray the cost of ink refills.

I exited the store carrying the box that contained the Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer with handles on it and found it very lightweight and easy to remove from the box. The warranty card can be mailed or register online within ten days. The two ink storage bins are green, with one lighter in shade. I had to get out a flashlight to try to see if they were labeled at all, but could find no indication of which side they were intended for. Perhaps the only way you can tell since there was no mention in the User's Guide, is that the packages containing the print cartridges were the same shade green as the housing units.

The twelve-step page guided me through the set up process. At first the Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer looked like a copy machine until I opened up the paper support and exit tray, added some plain ink jet paper and adjusted the guide accordingly. I have absolutely no experience with a scanner and was not sure what that entailed. One of the steps illustrates how to lift up the scanner to view the printer cartridge area, and once they were installed this lever gets released gently. The cable was installed without having to turn anything off and then I clicked cancel as instructed on the screen for adding new hardware and installed the CD.

The buttons on the Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer are in the bottom right corner. The power button is on the right with a scan and black copy below it on the same row. The left row has a paper feed button and a light for paper jam, which I hope will never happen, as well as the green color copy button. The paper when being fed through looks like it is going in a diagonal way, but they were all straight when printed and copied and the paper is fed in half way so it is not getting curled while in place as the other printer did.

The lid is easy to open and find the arrow at the bottom right corner for placing photos for scanning, papers for copying or faxing. The difficult aspect of this was trying to get a photo to come up the right way. The instructions noted that the left top corner of the photo goes to the arrow on the glass. There is no squeaking when lifting up the cover and it does not slam back down when released. I did find that scanning was faster than copying with printing being the fastest. I timed a single paper to be copied several times at about two to three minutes and these were black copies.

By utilizing the program fax tools I was able to have the pages scanned and compose a cover letter. The next options were to view and print out the fax before it was sent off. I am still learning this stage of the Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer so my fax never made it to its destination, but at least I have a copy of it! My problems have something to do with the modem and the selection so I hope to learn more over time. I did learn how to scan a photo and have it saved to my files and sent through email. The printer surprised me because I had no idea that a male voice would tell me that printing was starting or completed. This does not happen with faxing or scanning though. A small pop up screen in the bottom right corner shows me what percentage is complete with copying, printing and scanning. There is a little jolt type of noise when the printer feeds a paper and then when it goes through to the end you can tell when it is done. The paper does not fall out and I have had several stack in a pile. When I finished installing the CD there were some steps I was prompted to fill out on the screen after a paper was printed. The photos I printed after scanning were acceptable as well.

The photo section is a bit confusing for this non tech person, but I soon hope to get the hang of it and be able to master these functions more smoothly. I cannot even tell that the Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer is on, until I press the button and get the little jolt. As I now scan the User Guide to get a feel for the printer I noticed that the Troubleshooting section does mention that the black cartridge is housed in the right carrier, and the color cartridge is in the left one.

Considering the capability of this Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer, the User Guide seems compact, but the All-In-One Center prompts the user through how to scan, copy, print and fax. There are options to reduce or enlarge copies, change scan settings, program a fax to be sent at a later time and much more that I have yet to comprehend. There are creative tasks for projects to choose from.

The Lexmark X75 Multifunction Printer can accommodate 100 sheets of bond paper, 50 transparencies, 25 sheets of labels, 10 sheets of inkjet paper, 10 sheets of greeting card stock and 50 transparencies. All functions have preview options so you can see what you scanned, save images and continue setting up other options.

I am very pleased that I made this purchase considering I had no previous knowledge of this brand, and feel it is attractive looking for my home office, plus no background noise. I was able to make copies finally and attempt sending a fax while learning how to scan and post photos, all for under one hundred dollars with one machine that is portable. I liked that I could also do other things while the scanning or printing was taking place. There is a limited warranty for twelve months with lots of technical jargon, but remote technical support is available.

The flatbed design is appealing, the Reliable! Accu-Feed™ eliminates paper jams. The box states nine color copies in one minute, which I cannot yet verify because it took me a lot longer, but it also mentions four color copies in one minute. The color scanning is 600 x 12oo dpi, 48-bit true color and the printing should be about 11 pages black per minute. I would say that the eleven-page fax I did print was very fast, although I did not time the process. The printing resolution is said to be 2400 x 120 dpi resolution.

I know nothing about having an All-in-One printer but what I have done on my own via research, and still made the purchase without understanding the technical data. I can already confirm how much nicer and smoother this operation has been than the Epson Stylus C60 Printer. This is a worthwhile investment for the home environment and those that are just starting out.