Lexmark is one of the most important players on the printers' market, providing quite a wide line-up of products for each market segment. And the Lexmark Z845 Color Inkjet printer, launched back in September 2006, has its own target segment, as it is regarded as a budget peripheral aimed at those home-users who want a reliable and efficient device, but are not willing to spend too much money on it.



The Z845 is quite versatile, as it represents a very good tool for printing both documents and photos (although it's not considered to be a photo-dedicated device). In order to fulfill its photo-printing functions to the best of its capabilities, the device comes packed with the Lexmark Fast Pics software with 1-touch red-eye reduction and 1-touch color correction, as well as an automatic cartridge alignment system that ensures optimal printing.



The printer also incorporates a media sensor, whose purpose is to detect the type of paper being used and determine print resolution automatically. And speaking of types of paper, it's important to mention the fact that the printer works with a very wide range of media types (card stock, coated paper, envelopes, glossy paper, labels, plain paper, transparent media, photo paper, iron-on transfers, etc.) and formats (10 Envelope, 7 3/4 Envelope, 9 Envelope, A4, A5, B5 Envelope, C5 Envelope, DL Envelope, 6 ¾ Envelope, A2 Baronial, A6 Card, B5, C6 Envelope, Custom (Up to 8.5" x 17"), Hagaki Card, Index Card, Executive, Legal, Letter, 4 x 6", Statement, L, 2L, Chokei 3, Chokei 4, Chokei 40, Kakugata 3, Kakugata 4, Kakugata 5, Kakugata 6, 5 x 7", 13 x 18 cm, 10 x 15 cm, 10 x 20 cm, 4 x 8").



The Lexmark Z845 Color Inkjet printer is also quite efficient when it comes to print speeds. Thus, the device provides speeds of up to 24 pages per minute (draft, black), 18 ppm (draft, color), 12 ppm (normal, black) and 5 ppm (normal, color). Moreover, the Z845 provides some pretty good printing resolutions, in both black and color printing. Thus, the inkjet printer from Lexmark attains a maximum printing resolution of 1200 x 1200 dpi (black) and 4800 x 1200 dpi (color). And all of these with only 4 colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black), although the device does support 6-color printing.



The printer also provides a relatively high level of efficiency, as it offers a paper-tray input capacity of around 100 pages, and the device supports borderless printing up to 5x7 inches. It's not too bulky, either, at least as far as printers go, since it measures just around 153 x 455 x 222 mm, at a weight of around 3 kg.



The Lexmark Z845 Color Inkjet printer is available at various online retailers for 50 – 70 US dollars, which is not that small a price for a printer, but it's quite a fair one, taking into consideration all the features this device has to offer.