subject: A Review Of The Adequate Lexmark X5650 Multifunction Printer. [print this page] The X5650 is nothing special to look atThe X5650 is nothing special to look at. The control panel contains an LCD screen and a number of operating buttons. There are multi-format card reader and USB ports on the right which enables you print photos without turning on your computer.
The X5650 includes an auto-document feeder which is a bit of a surprise for such a cheap machine. This is situated on top of the printer and lets you copy and fax multi-page documents without having to load the pages individually. At a maximum of 25 pages the capacity isn't huge but it will save you a considerable amount of time.
The X5650 is easy and quick to setup.
The black and colour cartridges for the X5650 are available in standard and high yield capacities. The black is available as a 175 page version (No. 36) or 475 pages (36XL) and the colour as 150 pages (37) or 500 pages (37XL). The page estimates are definitely best case scenario but the XL's are better value over time. If you want to print high quality photos there is a separate no. 31 cartridge available for the X5650.
When it comes to printing the X5650 wasn't bad. Black text was dark and well enough defined with only a little fuzziness at the edges of bold characters. The X5650 produced rather pale business graphics but there was no sign of banding and black text was clear on coloured backgrounds. The X5650 printed a page of text in about 10 seconds and in draft mode it took roughly half that time.
Photo printing on the X5650 produced prints with rich, vivid colours even without the photo cartridge. Closer inspection showed a lack of fine detail but from a distance prints looked good and most home users should find them more than adequate. It took the X5650 nearly two minutes to print a 5x7 snap which is quite slow.
The X5650's scanner is located on top of the machine and has a resolution of up to 600x1,00 ppi and it is possible to scan directly to a computer or a flash drive.
The X5650 was surprisingly noisy in use when being tested although it was not really intrusive over short periods.
For the money the Lexmark X5650 is a reasonable machine with good features although it does nothing brilliantly.
