Lexmark PhotoJet Z705 Printer

The Lexmark Z705 can handle a wide variety of media types and sizes, up to 8.5 by 17 inches, including transparencies, labels, many envelope sizes, Japanese Hagaki and Kakugata, as well as the usual letter, legal, and executive sizes. All media input is directed through the auto-sheet feeder on the top of the printer, which accommodates up to 100 sheets of paper or 10 envelopes at a time.

Maximum print speeds are rated at 17 ppm for black, 10 ppm for color (both in draft mode), and resolutions can be as fine as 4,800 x 1,200 dpi on photo paper, or up to 2,400 x 1,200 dpi on other paper types.

The Lexmark Z705 offers standard USB connectivity for both PC and Mac users, while optional networking and wireless support is available with the separate purchase of Lexmark's N1 Ethernet Adapter or N5 Wireless Adapter. The Lexmark Z705 comes backed by a one-year warranty on parts and labor.

What's in the Box
Lexmark Z705 Color Jetprinter, #50 black print cartridge, #20 color print cartridge, installation software, installation software CD (drivers and software), online user's guide, setup sheet, power supply with cord, Lexmark Photo Center Software; USB cable

Product Description
The Z705 is a compact printer offering borderless printing and smart ease of use functions. It brings great performance with 4800 dpi, 17/10 ppm print speed.The Lexmark Z705 provides great performance for all with 4800 x 1200 dpi, 10 ppm color print speed, borderless printing for outputs which look like real photos and its optional 6-color cartridge sets. Load paper from A6 to A4 format, and up to 300 grams in weight. The Lexmark Z705 is also compatible with a wide range of operating systems on both Mac and PC computers. Automatic cartridge alignment, paper-type sensor, and print cancel option make a wide range of printing virtually hassle-free.

The construction is reasonably robust -- not too plasticky. The footprint is about 18" by 9" with the feed racks pulled in, but realistically you need about 18" wide by at least 10-12" deep -- the front rack, which gathers the paper, can stick off the table OK. The footprint is 18" by 18" with both racks pulled out. The cartridges snapped in perfectly; everything worked fine immediately. The paper feed is not finicky at all and aligned the paper perfectly.

The only criticism I have is simply that this is an inkjet and so without special paper (and even with) it's just not as precise as a laser. I printed out a couple of text pages: the text looked solid and black until I got up fairly close. There was just a tiny hint of fuzz on the diagonals, when I squinted, and a magnifying glass confirmed what I thought I saw -- the line is a little blurry.

The colour is strong and clear, and as precise as the black.

A couple of other points to note: the installation process will make this your default printer. That may well be what you want (it wasn't, for me), but if not then don't forget to go back and reset the system default via Start -> Printers. And secondly, note that Amazon also sells this without the USB cable for one less dollar; this model has the cable, so get the other one if you have a cable to hand. Search for Z705 if you can't find the other one.

This is a great inkjet printer; for the price, this is as good as you're going to get.


Easiest printer ever for photos; slurps ink   February 20, 2004
Jeff A. Stucker (Eagle, ID United States)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful

This printer comes with the easiest-to-use photo organizing and printing software we've ever seen. This is the first setup that my wife is actually willing to use. That's no small statement since we bought our digital camera three years ago -- which takes excellent photos -- but it's always been too complicated before installing the Lexmark software, which is a snap.

We printed about 100 borderless 4x6 photos before the ink ran out. Definitely we'll buy the high-capacity ink next time. With the high capacity ink I think it will come to something between 20-30 cents per photo.

At high resolution, the printer is super-slow. That's okay for us. Overall, it's a great purchase, but time will tell if the cost of ownership is too high due to the ink consumption.

Update 12/23/2006 (after 2 years): This thing is way too expensive to maintain; the ink costs more than double the competition -- even the "generic" ink is more expensive. Time to get a new printer.


Decent prints but ink pig   December 16, 2003
J. Whealton (Central Florida, USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I got this printer free with a really cheap computer package. I already had a pretty nice HP printer but since that was almost out of ink I figured I would just use this one for awhile. The prints this produces are almost as good as the HP (930 series by the way) but not quite there. The biggest drawback to the print process is the speed. Printing an 8.5x11 at "best" quality takes about 25 minutes.. far cry from the 10 ppm its description states(ppm = pages per minute?!... no way... I seriously doubt it could even print 10 pages containing one wallet size photo per page in draft mode in 3 or 4 minutes). But its much faster in draft mode or when using black/white obviously.

Another disappointment is the life span of the color ink cartridges. Printing most stuff like web pages and other misc. documents doesn't deplete the ink too much but those large "best" quality prints spray some serious ink. The driver for this printer comes with a little virtual ink gauge that keeps track of your ink levels. I printed 4 - 8.5x11 high quality prints tonight and the gauge dropped from 3/4 to about 1/3. That was disheartening. I suppose I have printed about 20 high quality 8.5x11 prints on these cartridges so far. Ink prices for this printer seem about average which means that a replacement set is going to cost about $55 bucks or so. Seeing as how most stores selling printers always have one for about $50 bucks I don't see why people buy new ink when its cheaper to buy the printer.

Anyway, it's a nice little printer that's easy to setup with nice driver software but compared to my previous HPs its way slower, uses more ink, and doesn't have as good of prints. If it was cheaper to feed I might give it a 3 star rating but it just doesn't deserve it.


Bad printer, setup was not easy and print quality is lousy   February 24, 2004
Debra Chong (San Francisco, CA United States)
4 out of 8 found this review helpful

I have a Canon i550 which was much easier to install and quieter than this Lexmark that I received with a laptop purchase. The cartridges are difficult to snap in place, and until they are perfectly snapped in, the printer will not work. Print quality is fair to mediocre. Print speed is slow.