Dell's Photo All-in-One Printer A922 is an low-priced colour inkjet multifunction with a flatbed scanner that is based upon the Lexmark X5270. While Dell lists the A922's print rate at a quick 19 pages per minute (ppm) in monochrome in addition to a fast 14ppm in colour, it turned out to be among the slowest printing, though swiftest scanning multifunction inkjets we have tested. For low cost and good quality flatbed scanning, copying and image-manipulation tools, the Photo All-in-One Printer A922 is a fantastic choice. But, if you want quick printing and/or leading-edge fax options, you will be better off searching elsewhere.
Carrying Dell's hallmark colour scheme, the Photo All-in-One Printer A922 incorporates a wide, silver cover along with a black underside and document trays. It's utilitarian, as opposed to beautiful. At 9 pounds, the surprisingly light Dell A922 is nevertheless a tiny bit large for a multifunction found in its category, it's 43.7cm wide by 32.3cm deep by 16.8cm high. Seeing that opening the paper trays increases the Dell A922's height and depth by approximately 13cm, this is not really a unit designed for constricted areas. A small control panel which has a two-line Liquid crystal display is at the top right. Despite the fact that this is a photo-quality multifunction machine, Dell doesn't include media-card slots or direct camera-to-printer ports - a big omission. Just one USB 2. port (cable not provided) is positioned on the rear of the device along with the power-cord connector, and regardless of its shortage of a network interface, the printer can work within a peer-to-peer network.
The Dell A922 also comes with high-yield black and colour inkjet cartridges. An discretionary photo cartridge can be purchased on its own. The multifunction printer's 8MB of RAM isn't can be upgraded. The Dell A922's input tray, located in the back of the device, holds 100 sheets, while the output tray which extends from the front supports 50 sheets - quite normal for an low cost multifunction machine but not enough for a lot of small businesses.
The not very large control panel at the top right has one scanning and one copying button, along with a small, amber error light, and also a menu button to modify the print quality as well as other variables. Data is found on a small LCD above the control keys, but the screen can be difficult to read since it is at the rear and is positioned at a difficult angle. It's usually less difficult to correct options through the software than on the user interface. The Dell A922 is limited to Windows 2000 or XP operating systems, and it also isn't compatible with Macs. Installation is straightforward when using the enclosed setup sheet and CD.
The Photo All-in-One Printer A922 is principally manufactured for printing, copying and scanning, featuring only simple fax functionality. As the printer is made around a Lexmark engine, the majority of its features (and its software) may be familiar to Lexmark owners, for example N-up printing, that allows a number of images to print on a single page; borderless photograph printing; as well as poster, booklet and greeting card options. The normal pop-up screen that is found when printing can be annoying, however its ink level reminders are handy. Sadly, the print rate is relatively slow.
The Dell A922 is a good standalone copier for times where you want a fast copy and can't start your computer. It will make as much as 99 copies at once, offering up many different speed and print-quality choices for greater ease of use. Most notable, , is the preview option - accessible with the All-in-One Center software - that helps you scan, fax, copy, edit photos and execute other projects from your Computer desktop. A preview feature enables you to crop a document, if required.
As a scanner, the Dell A922 can import text as well as images straight to file, fax or email. It makes use of Microsoft email programs (including Outlook) or non-Microsoft clients (like Eudora) by adding them to the list of default destination choices in the All-In-One Center software. An array of further software programs are included as well.
Sad to say, the Dell A922 doesn't provide PC-free fax abilities for those occasions when you would not want switch on the Computer. To fax, the Dell A922 utilizes Microsoft software and the modem on your computer, so its only fax addition is its ability to incorporate scans.
Even though ink prices can easily soar with an inkjet, the Dell A922 ink cartridges offer you affordable colour ink and somewhat more expensive black ink. High-yield black-ink cartridge produces 638 pages whilst the high-yield tricolour-ink cartridge produces 561 pages. The less expensive standard black-ink cartridges are not any bargain, producing only 298 pages, and roughly the same with the tricolour cartridge, which produces 237 pages. There is also a photo cartridge that can produce approximately 118 4in. by 6in. prints.
Since Dell's printers (and Lexmark's) are well-known for their excellent print speed and disapointingprint quality, the Photo All-in-One Printer A922 is brimming with surprises. To begin with, the Dell A922 prints black and white text and graphics extremely slowly - in reality, it is one of the slowest-printing multifunction inkjet printers we've examined. In our assessments, it averaged 1.7 pages per minute (ppm) for text and 2ppm for photos. In contrast, we were impressed by the print quality. Both text and graphics samples revealed fantastic detail - among the sharpest we've noticed from an inkjet printer. The photo printout was likewise highly detailed, although colour tone was a little yellowish compared to the original. Even so, it was among the best photographs ever produced by a Dell or Lexmark inkjet that we've examined
By contrast to its sluggish printing, the Dell A922 scanned rapidly. At 7.1ppm for greyscale and 5.2ppm for colour, it was in fact the quickest-scanning multifunction printer we've examined. Regardless of this, the printer's copy-speed results were precisely the opposite: a slow .4ppm. We were, nonetheless, pleased at the Dell A922's excellent scans. The greyscale image was fantastic, matching the original target exactly, from gradient to shading. The colour scan image was also pretty good, even though it had some apparent banding. We analyzed the Dell A922 at its factory default configurations, which may be tweaked to boost the equipment's speed and output.
