The Pinnacle Pro 901 features a large 4.3-inch capacitive touchscreen, can scan and print double-sided, uses separate tanks for each of its ink colors, and claims ink costs of only around 5 per 500 pages.
The first demo pages printed looked very impressive for an inkjet on plain paper, with no discernible banding and just a small amount of dithering.
Among the great features of this model is the capability to install and operate applets to improve its capabilities. You just need to register the unit with Lexmark's internet site, where you can then configure your selection of apps and transfer them to the printer. Sad to say, this isn't a native program but runs as a Java application, and I had no end of troubles allowing it to reach through just enough of my PC's firewall software in order to detect it successfully and connect with the printer. I can't see any reason for this to be fully web-based: all of the printer's software runs locally, so why not this?
The scan-to-pdf application that I installed worked without any problems. I basically set where I desired the files to show up on my computer, scanned them by using the Lexmark PRO901, and they appeared a minute after.
As a copier, it worked just fine, even in color mode. The auto-feeder was a bit fastidious, given that it won't accept sheets that are not properly placed, and not totally flat, prompting you to refresh it again and again until it finally accepts the papers. I got inconsistent results with the scanner, in which it was not able to detect the leading edge of documents thus graphics ranning up to the hilt of the edges. There are times that it would work, and other times wherein it will just cut off the first half-inch on its duplicate.
While double-sided printing worked like a charm, double-sided scanning was a bit of a letdown. You'll have to remove the sheet from the output tray, make sure it is properly positioned, and then re-insert it to be scanned once again. In the event you experienced difficulties getting the auto-feeder to find the high-quality sheet the first time through, expect the exact same things for the second go-round. In the long run, it functions, but you're manually scanning each page twice, which makes double-sided scanning more of a software hack than a hardware solution.
The large capacitive touchscreen is perfectly designed. Sure, it picks up a good amount of smudges, but that's why Lexmark includes a cleaning cloth. The onscreen touch keyboard functions good enough, and the quantity of transition and background animated sequences really showcases the screen's quality. The one thing which takes away from it is that it is actually set at a set position, well suited for interacting with it when placed up upon a desk. Since I like to keep my printers on a shelf just below my desk, I found myself having to kneel down just to be able to read the display.
The Lexmark Pinnacle PRO901ink cartridgesas earlier mentioned include the low priced 105XL black ink cartridge to give reduced text printing rates, colour cartridge best buy is the 100XL CMY pack that gives you the three colour cartridges for around 40.
Looking at the past 2 decades, Inkjet printers have really come a long way. Lexmark is a strong performer in terms of printing as well as basic scanning. Exactly what separates this unit from other MFP's is going to be exactly how the special features work. Double-sided printing is definitely a winner. Double-sided scanning, not so much. The auto-feeder is obstreperous, but handles text effectively, however it can sometimes have difficulties with full-page graphics.
Consider this printer as a focal addition to your own niche home office. This printer also goes well to those people who use laptops as their main computer, given its stand alone-document features, you can scan, email and upload pictures easily, with just a few clicks. You may also download an interesting newsreader applet that can serve you recent headlines hot of the grill. Interesting isn't it.
