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Lexmark
The product:
Lexmark has businesses in mind for its latest inkjet multifunction. The Lexmark X7350 Office All-In-One includes text and photo printing, faxing, and scanning. Its photocopier accepts 50 sheets of paper at a time so that you don't have to feed each page one by one. The X7350 includes a PictBridge port to print pictures from a capable digital camera, but there's no color display for previewing the photos. This machine, in stores next month, is similar to the Lexmark X7170, which we found a good value despite slow speeds and middling output quality.
Business all-in-ones such as this Lexmark are popular with people who work from home and look to save office space and funds. While you can find inkjet models for US$200 or less, laser multifunctions have remained closer to the US$300 range until Samsung announced its US$200 laser SCX-4200 printer and scanner combo.
Samsung
The product:
Samsung is radically shrinking the size and price of multifunction laser printing. The US$199 Samsung SCX-4200 laser printer and scanner could make comparable inkjet machines less attractive for small-business workers, cubicle dwellers, and college students. Laser printers print faster and are less costly to maintain than inkjets, but budget users have traditionally ignored lasers due to the high price tag. Samsung says that the SCX-4200 will print a speedy 19 pages per minute and scan in color or black and white at 2,400dpi. The 250-page paper capacity is generous for a device at this price.
While the lack of faxing, the 600dpi print resolution, and the 8MB of RAM are less impressive, this model should suffice for small office or student use. Last year, Dell brought the size and price of laser printing to a new low with its US$99 Laser Printer 1100, but we preferred the Samsung ML-2010. We're curious to see if the Samsung SCX-4200 can produce similar quality output in CNET Labs' tests. This multifunction will be available in March for users of Windows 98 or higher, as well as for several flavors of Linux.
The product:
Samsung, which already makes some decent, affordable black and white laser printers, unwrapped what it bills as the smallest color laser printer ever. At US$299 and standing just 10 inches tall, the Samsung CLP-300 indeed looks like a compact and convenient model. But it holds only 150 sheets of paper, which might frustrate people who print in bulk. The CLP-300 prints 2,400 x 60dpi at a vendor-estimated 17 pages per minute; we expect to evaluate the quality and speed in CNET's Labs. The host-based system relies on the brain of your Windows and Linux PCs to churn out jobs. Instead of the usually clunky toner cartridges, the small toner bottles set this machine apart from rivals. Wired networking is optional.
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