Lexmark X5650

The X5650 is Lexmark’s low-end inkjet multi-function center, but despite this, along with printing, copying, scanning and faxing it still packs some great features.

The most obvious is the automatic document feeder. Anyone who has scanned a multipage document by hand will appreciate just how tedious it can be to manually load and process each individual page, so this is a welcome addition indeed.

Usually extras like the feeder are reserved to the higher end models, so it’s great to see one on such a cheap product.

The internal duplex unit is also a nice addition that will make a big impact on paper usage. Connectivity is also quite accommodating.
In addition to the usual USB and PictBridge ports, the X5650 also sports a multi-card reader for direct photo printing.

There is no way of viewing the images on the printer however, so it is a little impractical without a computer to preview the images first.

Unfortunately the print quality is where the X5650 falls down. While colours were rich, detail and contrast in our photos were lacking.

Vibrantly coloured slide handouts also suffered, with little intensity in the reproduction. Text endured a worse fate with wobbly and imprecise letters that even felt like draft quality on default settings.

Printing speed was reasonable but nothing exceptional. Once again using default settings, black and white printing clocked a reasonable 7.5ppm but colour was disappointing at 3.3ppm. Because of this slow colour speed, our colour montage took a full two and a half minutes to finish printing - nearly a minute slower than the diminutive HP.

Overall the X5650 has built a fairly solid case if it weren’t for the quality woes. While it’s not the star of the show, $120 is a very modest price for something laden this heavy with features.

If you and print a lot of documents for casual reading and need the extra functionality of an MFC over a stand alone printer then the X5650 is a great unit that’s cheap to run too - ideal for students.

If you would be printing family photos or any presentation-quality material however, look elsewhere.