The Lexmark P6250 is a not just a photo printer as such, it's also an all in one multifunction device: printer/scanner/copier and media reader. You might be nodding to yourself with the obviousness of an all in one printer winning out over tiny single use photo printers in this roundup, but to be honest the distinction is not just made because of the broad functionality and applicability of the Lexmark P6250. Sure we awarded the printer some bonus feature points for being an all in one, but the simple fact is that in our tests the Lexmark P6250 excelled.
It was a very close race with printing our test images, but some units showed some clear faults with printing our test image in both natural and enhanced modes, however the Lexmark came up trumps.
Most importantly, the P6250 came the closest to accurately replicating the digital photo as accurately and sharply as possible. While the untouched original showed some minor blurriness in what should be sharply detailed background sections, the auto-enhanced image had these tiny details amazingly crisp and with correct shadings and colouring. What was nice to note is that the printer did not futz with the colours too much, leaving them natural.
The front of the unit has a colour LCD for selection of images to print (if using the P6250 to print direct from memory cards). As well as printing A4 photos, the P6250 is also able to print poster size in a 2x2 arrangement of A4 sheets. The P6250 can print up to 4800 x 2400dpi on photo paper and 1200 x 1200dpi on plain paper, and has a 150 sheet tray.
What's more likely to attract other than the photo and other media printing capabilities is the Lexmark's scanning and copying functions. The scanner can scan at up to 1200 x 2400ppi and the copier is able to generate up to 15pp in black and white. Our focus is not really on these functions, but suffice to say the P6250 makes a very capable all in one.
The print times are reasonable, but it's the print quality we were most impressed with. The Lexmark just featured the best all-round quality in this regard. Based on the P6250's feature set, its performance and printing nous, and the fact that it comes in at the same price as four of the other printers here, there's no doubt that the Lexmark P6250 is the winner of this Labs.