The good: The Lexmark Pro715 is a streamlined version of its predecessor, the Pro705, with a higher-resolution 2.4-inch LCD screen and the company’s enhanced Vizix 2.0 set of inks for vibrant photos and professional-quality documents.

The bad: For the same price, the Epson WorkForce 845 trumps the Lexmark Pro715 in several areas.

The bottom line: Lexmark’s latest all-purpose office machine introduces a new set of inks with a separate print head that outputs higher-quality photos than the previous model, but competing devices give you convenient features like cloud printing and a larger touch-screen display for the same price.

We like the Lexmark Pro715′s updated design and quick print speeds, but looks aside, its core is a near replica of the previous model, the Prevail Pro705. That printer earned a rating of Excellent for its simple control panel and studio-quality snapshots, but there aren’t enough updates in this new version to catch it up to the Epson WorkForce 845, a competing device worthy of its “all-in-one” moniker with mobile printing features, a massive 500-sheet paper input capacity, and a generous 7.8-inch interactive display. By comparison, the Lexmark Pro715 comes up disappointingly short, and small offices and busy home users will get more done with the WorkForce 845 at the same price.

Design and features
Like the Pro705 before it, the Pro715 has a drab gray-black color palette that may have earned points with us in the past, but now feels all too typical of an office printer. Its smooth edges and rounded paper input tray shave off the sharp corners and make the device look more streamlined, but the general design of the line has changed very little.

The most significant changes to the body involve the small LCD display that now sits flush in a much more streamlined control panel in the center of the unit. Thankfully, the clear plastic window protecting the function buttons that once marred the top is now absent, but instead of relocating them to another part of the panel, Lexmark got rid of the shortcut buttons altogether and integrated them into the virtual menu panel. We don’t mind, but it certainly prevents you from simply walking up to the device and selecting Copy, Scan, Fax, or Print.

Instead of the large touch-screen LCD you get on the Epson WorkForce 845, the Pro715 has a 2.4-inch color LCD display with a directional panel just to the right for scrolling through onscreen menus, as well as a number pad for dialing fax numbers.

Lexmark also includes an Eco Mode button marked with a green leaf on the right side that triggers two-sided printing, copying, and faxing thanks to the duplexer on the back. Lexmark also lowers your ecological footprint with continued Energy Star certification, and an updated black “setup-capacity” Vizix 2.0 print cartridge rated at 400 pages per cartridge is included in the box.

The silo paper drawer is built into the base and can only hold 150 sheets of paper, which may be enough for a small business. Still, many businesses may find the Epson WorkForce more convenient with its 250-sheet tray for standard 8.5×11-inch paper and separate 250-sheet tray for photo paper.

Strangely enough, Lexmark decided not to include a media card reader like the one to be found on the bottom right side of the Pro705 model, perhaps to inspire customers to spend the extra $50 on the step-up Pro915. Again, for the same price as the Pro715, the Epson WorkForce has two media card slots on the front in addition to a PictBridge-compatible USB port for direct prints from your digital camera. You even get a copy of Epson’s Easy Photo Print software in the box for light image editing.

You can connect the Pro715 to a host computer using an 802.11b/g/n wireless setup or via a hardwired USB port. With the included driver disc, we were able to set up the printer to communicate using both connection methods in less than 10 minutes; just make sure you have your network log-in and password available.

The printer is one of many to feature Lexmark’s newest Vizix 2.0 individual ink cartridges, with one pigment black for printing text and three dye-based yellow, cyan, and magenta cartridges for color photos. The new cartridges are $10 more than the previous 100XL inks, and although we appreciated that Lexmark included high-capacity inks in the box, the results of our print quality test suggest that won’t offset the extra money you’ll spend in the long term by using the more expensive inks. In fact, if you’re absolutely married to the Lexmark brand, we recommend checking out online stores like Amazon.com that are currently offering the Pro705 at half the price.

The Pro715 ships with minimal paperwork to conserve paper, and you can access most of the instructions, warranty information, and promotional offers on the CD included in the box. Along with the drivers that support Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X, the CD also automatically installs several Lexmark productivity programs on your computer.

The Lexmark Toolbar gives you a shortcut bar on top of your Web browser for “easy-access” printing. Lexmark’s Productivity Studio and Imaging Studio programs provide way to autoedit or crop your photos and include them in projects, and the Lexmark Service Center is intended to help in troubleshooting any snags in the printing process. We also enjoyed using the onscreen progress bar that automatically pops up when you print. It shows you the progress of your job in an easy-to-read percentage bar (the LCD on the control panel also shows the progress) and displays a graphic representation of your ink depletion with a warning when the paper trays are running low.

Performance
The Lexmark Platinum Pro715 performed at an average speed in our comparison testing, nowhere near the chart-topping Epson WorkForce 845. In all four benchmarks, the WorkForce 845 nearly cut the Pro715′s print time in half, which will certainly add up if you’re constantly using the device at work.

However, we will say that the quality of the Pro715′s black and color prints in both our graphic and text-document tests surpasses that of the first version of the Vizix brand of inks. Perhaps not enough to warrant a $10 increase in the price of each cartridge that will need to be replaced, but the current Lexmark printers’ permanent print head with separate ink tanks continues to impress us with the vibrancy and solidity of its output. We noticed very few blurred lines and imperfections, and we wouldn’t hesitate to use the Pro715 professionally. Then again, the Epson didn’t disappoint us either, and since they cost the same, we’re sticking with our recommendation of the WorkForce 845.

Service and support
We’re wagging a big finger at Lexmark for downgrading the Pro705′s generous five-year warranty to just one year for the Pro715. The extended limited warranty that used to cover ownership transfer in case you wanted to sell the printer in five years is now downgraded to one year as well, even for the more expensive Pro915. We’re disappointed at Lexmark’s unwillingness to support its users beyond the standard warranty term.

Conclusion
With limited upgrades to its design and severe downgrades to the warranty program and cost of consumables, we recommend staying far away from the Pro715 in favor of the Epson WorkForce 845. Though it also only carries a one-year warranty and the quality of its print output is about the same, you get a much larger paper tray and access to Epson’s mobile printing suite of applications.

(Review by Justin Yu – Justin Yu covers headphones and peripherals for CNET. When he’s not scouring eBay for useless ephemera or eating hot dogs for breakfast, he spends his time making fun of Internet culture every morning on The 404 podcast.)

The good: The HP Deskjet 3050A features a refreshing design and its wireless Web connectivity lets you print in the cloud with HP ePrint technology.

The bad: The printer lacks an Ethernet port for wired networking and its dual ink cartridge bay is a money sink if you print a high volume of photos and color documents.

The bottom line: The HP Deskjet 3050A All-in-One printer marries an attractive design with the latest cloud printing technology in a multifunction device that works for small offices that don’t need to print a lot of full-color photos.

Although its print quality is limited by a dual-ink cartridge bay, the $80 HP Deskjet 3050A is built for productivity with wireless connectivity and mobile printing by way of HP smartphone apps and the company’s ePrint remote printing service that lets you access downloadable content from any computer. We wouldn’t recommend its 60-sheet paper input capacity and low-volume ink cartridges for larger offices, but the Deskjet is certainly worth a look for periodic users on a strict budget.

Design and features
The Deskjet 3050A’s natural, flowing curvature appears to draw inspiration from the aesthetic principles of mid-20th-century furniture designers. The external pieces are brushed with various shades of matted gray and burnt umber, and a 2-inch monochrome LCD pops out of a cut-out on top of the printer for quick access to application controls, the set up menu, and one-touch installation for a wireless connection and HP’s ePrint service.

A 60-sheet input tray also folds flush into the unit and features an adjustable marker that can align with a variety of media sizes down to No. 10-sized envelopes. Of course, several markings also exist for standard size sheets of 4-inch by 6-inch and 8-inch by 10-inch photo paper, but the single tricolor cartridge inside limits the quality of photos this printer can produce.

Pairing the 3050A with a companion computer is easiest with a hard-wired USB connection, but a wireless router offers a more elegant solution and lets you take advantage of ePrint, a service that lets you send jobs directly to the printer using a unique e-mail address issued to the printer when you establish a connection. Similar to your Facebook or Flickr e-mail address, you can load print jobs into the 3050A by either copying an article directly into the message body or attaching a document to the e-mail.

It’s important to note your home networking set up prior to buying this printer, as you absolutely need a wireless network to take advantage of cloud printing. Also, the 3050A lacks a networked Ethernet port, so only one user can print at a time. The ePrint system can print e-mail message attachments in the form of images, document files, PDFs, and photos, and it will send a separate job for any text that appears in the body of the e-mail.

The default preferences let anyone with the address print wirelessly, but you can also set up a list of verified senders to allow on a private network. We confirmed in testing that the ePrint functionality works with a wide variety of Web clients: we used Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and Microsoft Outlook with positive results, and you can even e-mail articles directly from an RSS feed like Google Reader.

The 3050A’s flatbed scanner accommodates up to 8.5-inch-by-11.7-inch documents, although the hardware doesn’t have an expandable hinge for thick media and books. It also lacks a USB port for saving resulting scans to a flash drive, so we actually recommend the HP Photosmart D110a e-All-in-One for amateur photographers and media professionals who want easy access to print and save photos.

Performance
We trust that budget users shopping for a printer like the HP 3050A will value cost over print speed, but it’s also helpful to know that this is a capable, if not slightly faster than average printer compared to the competition. Though the differences are negligible across all four speed tests, the 3050A did achieve top-tier results in our 10-page slide presentation test, and performed slightly faster than the photocentric HP D110a in all four tests.

We wouldn’t expect an entry-level printer to output flawless photos, and the 3050A certainly met those expectations. Overall print quality suffers as a result of the tricolor cartridge, and graphics-intensive samples like those for the presentation test mentioned earlier appear faded and blotchy right out of the machine. The biggest offenders, of course, are snapshot photos, and it doesn’t take a printer editor to see the color inconsistencies and overall lack of vibrancy here. You probably won’t feel comfortable using the 3050A to print a birthday card for friends and family, but we’re confident in its ability to produce decent-quality handouts for around the office.

Service and support
The HP Deskjet 3050A is backed by HP’s exclusive enhanced support services: a dedicated toll-free number, troubleshooting over online chat with an HP expert, and a one-year warranty that guarantees repairs with “Next-Day Business Turn Around” and offering brand-new replacement units for the first 30 days after purchase.

In addition, HP offers an added Accidental Damage Protection and a Pick-Up-and-Return program that sends an authorized courier to pick up your failed equipment and deliver it directly to an HP-designated repair facility.

You can find more warranty information by visiting the HP Support Web site, which also features online classes, FAQs, driver downloads, and troubleshooting tips, as well as a new shopping buddy that puts you in a chat room with an HP sales rep so you can ask questions before you buy.

Conclusion
If you’re shopping for an attractive printer for light use around the office or in your home, the HP Deskjet 3050A delivers acceptable quality prints and the convenience of mobile printing using ePrint. Photographers and busy offices should keep shopping, but light users who don’t want empty wallets will find an excellent performer in the 3050A.

(Review by Justin Yu – Justin Yu covers headphones and peripherals for CNET. When he’s not scouring eBay for useless ephemera or eating hot dogs for breakfast, he spends his time making fun of Internet culture every morning on The 404 podcast.)

Proper upkeep and maintenance of your laser printer will keep it working properly for many years. With a little bit of time, and these 4 tips, you can keep your laser printer printing as well as it did the day you took it out of its box.

Get in the habit of performing these tips on a monthly basis. You can also use them to correct printing problems such as streaking, gaps in printing, and toner smears.

Tip #1 – Clean the inside of your printer

Cleaning the inside of your laser printer is very important. Toner is just like dust and will build up over time. To clean the inside of your printer you should:

• Unplug the printer and let it sit for an hour to cool down. If you have  not used your laser printer within the last hour, unplug it and proceed to Step #2.
• Remove the paper trays.
• Open the printer and remove the toner cartridge. To avoid leaking toner, be careful not to shake or tip the cartridge. You should also place it on a piece of newspaper.
• Wipe/dust the interior of the printer with a dry lint free cloth or a clean/dry paint brush. The paint brush will allow you to remove toner from hard to reach areas.
• If your printer has them, wipe the corona wires with cotton swaps dipped in isopropyl alcohol. BE CAREFUL! If you break a wire it is going to be expensive to fix. The corona wire is a charged wire that draws toner off the drum onto the paper.
•  Wipe the rollers with a slightly damp cloth to remove any dust.

Tip #2 – Clean the outside of your printer

Keep the outside of your printer clean too. Use a damp cloth to wipe down the outside of the printer. If you ever spill toner on the exterior of your printer (when changing a cartridge) make sure to wipe it up immediately. It can stain.

Tip #3 – Use high quality toner cartridges and paper

You should always purchase quality toner cartridges for your laser printer. Some say you should only purchase OEM cartridges, while others say remanufactured/compatible toner cartridges are just as good. Which you use is up to you, but just make sure you buy your toner cartridges from a reputable vendor. If you do run in to any problems they will support the cartridge and, often, the printer. The same goes for the paper you use . . . Make sure it is quality. Low quality paper can cause paper jams, smeared prints, and increased toner dust inside your printer.

Tip #4 – Use laser cleaning sheets

Laser cleaning sheets are a great supplement to the above tips. These sheets run through your printer like piece of paper would. Their special surface allows them to pick up exess toner and dust as the rollers pull them through.

Happy Printing!

Are you annoyed by poor quality print outs from your inkjet printer? Ever have prints with missing segments, incorrect colors, or horizontal bands running across your print?

Flaws in your printouts are very common, but the good news is that they can be prevented if you adopt a few routine printer maintenance habits.

TIP #1 – Use your inkjet printer regularly

When  your printer is left unused for long stretches of time, the ink in the print head and nozzles can dry and cause printing flaws such as jagged lines and incorrect colors. To avoid this, try to use your printer at least once per week.

TIP #2 – Perform nozzle checks

If you leave your printer unused for a long period of time, you should perform a nozzle check before you use it again. This will make sure your printer prints normally. The nozzle check can often be run thorough your printer’s utility function. Your printer’s user manual will have specific directions.

TIP #3 – Clean the print heads

If your nozzle is clogged, cleaning the print heads should fix any poor print quality issues. Cleaning utilities come with your printer drivers. Some printers even have a print head cleaning button on their control panel. Your printer’s user manual will have specific directions.

TIP #4 – Align the print heads

If your printouts have vertical lines or horizontal bands this generally means that your print head needs to be aligned. This utility can be found with your printer drivers or in your printer control panel. When you align the print heads, the printer will print a pattern on a piece of paper. You then follow prompts from your printer to adjust the pattern. Specific information for performing a print head alignment can be found in your printer’s user manual.

TIP #5 – Replace your inkjet cartridges

Flawed printouts can often be caused by cartridges that are low on ink. Your printer will prompt you when a black or color cartridge reaches a certain level of ink. Printer manufactures say you should replace your cartridge when you receive this warning because print quality will suffer if you don’t. When replacing your printer cartridges, be sure your purchase the correct replacement cartridge and install it as your printer’s user manual directs. Incorrect installation can cause more flawed printouts.

TIP #6 – Turn your printer off (the correct way)

Leaving your inkjet printer on for extended periods of time can cause clogged nozzles and flawed printouts. After you finish using your printer for the day you should turn it off using the printer’s own power button. In most printers, the power button initiates a process that seals the print head from outside air, preventing clogged nozzles. If you unplug your printer, or turn it off using a power strip, the print head sealing function may not run.

Happy Printing!

Paper jams! A big frustration for all of us who use inkjet printers. Here’s a few tips to help prevent them.

Tip #1
Paper leaves dust on the rollers, and two sided paper leaves ink residue. To clean your rollers get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs. Open your printer door and find a metallic bar with some rubber wheels on it. Those are the rollers. Gently place the cotton swab (with alcohol already on it) on the roller. Now, push the paper feed button on your printer and the rollers will begin moving. Let the cotton swab rub on the roller as it moves. Repeat this a few times for each roller.

Tip #2
Allow the paper to feed easier through the printer by leaving a 1/4″ gap between the paper tray guide and the paper in the tray.

Tip #3
Keep the paper more upright and closer to the feed rollers by placing a piece of stiff card stock in the paper feed tray. If you do this make sure you have plenty of paper in your printer so it does not try to pull the card stock through the printer.

Tip #4
Fan your stack of paper before placing it in to the paper tray. This separates the sheets, allowing for the feed rollers to pull a single piece easier. It also releases any excess dust on the paper.

Tip #5
Curl the edge of the first piece in the paper tray. The slight upward curl will help the feed rollers grab the paper easier.

Tip #6
If you are using heavier weight papers (more than 12ml thick) you should check to see if your printer has heavy paper settings. If so, use them! Your printer manual will have more information on this.

Happy Printing!

Disclaimer: These are just paper jam prevention tips, so we can’t assume liability if you use them. Damage could occur. We’ve been using these tips to prevent paper jams for years. So far no problems.

Inkjet printers may look, and feel, like cheap plastic boxes with some electronics inside, but they are quite the opposite. Just look at what you can print with them! They are pretty sophisticated machines. You can’t see what happens while you are printing (if you open the door on the printer, all printing stops), but  you can hear the print head moving back and forth. While it moves, it sprays ink drops, the size of red blood cells, on to predetermined locations on a piece of paper. These drops are sprayed at a rate of thousands per second. Pretty amazing!

To make sure your printer keeps doing an amazing job of printing you need to take care of it. Here’s what you should do.

1) Conduct routine maintenance with your printer software.

Almost all printers have functions called head cleaning and head alignment. The head cleaning function makes sure all ink nozzles are free of obstructions. If the heads are not clean, your printer will begin to print faint in some areas while printing normal in others. Periodic print head cleanings will prevent obstructions and keep your prints looking good. IMPORTANT – If your printer has not been used for a month you should definitely run the print head cleaning utility.

Print head alignment is a software routine that requires a little help from you. When you align your print head, you are making sure all the nozzles are pointing the right direction and firing in the right place. You’ll need to make sure that your printer has paper in the paper tray, then look at the print out after the alignment has run. If you see repeating white lines or grid patterns your print heads are still misaligned. Run the alignment utility repeatedly until they disappear. This maintenance step should be performed once or twice a year, or when you see white lines or grid patterns in your print outs.

2) Conduct routine maintenance of your printer’s roller and feed mechanism.

Standard copy printer paper leaves dust as it runs through your printer. Two-sided printer paper will leave a slick inkjet coating on your rollers. Ink, from your cartridge, can over spray and build up on the rollers. Over time the dust, inkjet coating, and over spray will result in streaks, inconsistent paper feeding, paper jams, or paper not feeding at all. All of these things lead to poor print quality, or no prints at all!

To make sure your rollers and feed mechanism always work properly, you should get a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs. First open your printer door then look down the paper tray of your printer. You should be able to see a metallic bar with some rubber wheels on it. Those are the rollers. You should be able to touch them with your fingers. Gently place the cotton swab (with alcohol already on it) on the roller. Now, push the paper feed button on your printer and the rollers will begin moving. Let the cotton swab rub on the roller as it moves. Repeat this a few times for each roller.

After you have cleaned the rollers, use a some canned air to blow any remaining dust and debris out of the printer. This type of maintenance should be done a few times a year, or whenever you notice inconsistent paper feeding.

Happy printing!

Disclaimer: These are just printer maintenance tips, so we can’t assume liability if you use them. Damage could occur. We’ve been using these tips to clean our printers for years. So far no problems.

If you are having some trouble with your Epson printer where can go you for help? Let’s talk about the best places to find Epson printer help.

The first place that will pop in to most of your minds is the Epson website (www.epson.com). After navigating to my local Epson website (North America) I found the easiest way to find information was to use the search box in the upper right corner. I searched for the RX600 and the first result was for technical support. Nice! The technical support screen offers the following options.

Drivers & Downloads
FAQ’s (for the printer)
Troubleshooting Guide
Documents and Manual
Material Safety Data Sheets
Contact Support

A very nice list of services and information, which proved to be quite useful.

The second place that comes to mind for most is their favorite search engine. For most that is Google. If you do a search for ‘Epson Printer Troubleshooting’. Three of the more popular help sites are shown (right under the Epson website); ehow.com, fixyourownprinter.com, and fixya.com.

The information on these three sites are all driven by Epson printer users. Visitors to the sites can post questions or describe the problems they are having. Other members of the community will then share their experiences, hopefully the same as yours, and what they remedied their printer troubles. Chances are your current trouble is something someone else has already experienced. You’ll probably be able to find the help you need within a few minutes.

Most read a title like this, “HP Has Raised Ink Cartridge Prices”, and don’t think to much of it. Cartridge prices are all ready high, right?

Effective July 1, HP raised prices for older DesignJet ink cartridge and print heads by around 10%. This increase is due to the rising cost of production and raw materials.

As discussed in the past, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are responsible for HP cartridges shortages. The natural disaster could also be responsible for the raw material shortages causing the price increase. The increased cost of crude oil (increased 20% from last year) is another reason. The manufacturing of ink cartridge casings (plastic) and other components in both ink and toner cartridges require crude oil.

This is the perfect cartridge storm! Combine the increased cost of raw materials with a shortage of supplies caused by the Japan earthquake, then add in the rising cost of transportation and HP has unlimited reasons for increasing cartridge prices for as long as they want. Let’s hope they don’t take advantage of the situation.

Hewlett Packard (HP) has introduced their smallest color multifunction printer, the HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw.

This printer has, perhaps, the longest name ever for a printer, but it also contains almost as many features as letters in it’s name. The M175nw is targeted at home office and small-business users with limited workspace. It is only 17 inches wide, 17 inches deep, and 13 inches tall. Easy to fit in small spaces, and easy for one person to move. It features HP ePrint remote printing, allowing users to print from any mobile device (BlackBerry, iPhone, Palm OS).  The M175nw has a 150 sheet input tray, wireless networking, Ethernet connectivity, and a 35 page top loading auto-document feeder. It uses four separate laser toner cartridges.

Other features to note on the new LaserJet include a 150-sheet input tray; wireless networking along with USB 2.0 and Ethernet connectivity; four separate laser ink cartridges; and a 35-page top-loading automatic document feeder for hands-free scanning and faxes.

Multifunction printers always offer a touch screen. HP has decided that this printer does not need a touch screen because it did not get good reviews on their inkjet version of this printer.

The HP LaserJet Pro 100 color MFP M175nw retails for $350.

Back in March I wrote about possible HP cartridge shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan (Possible Printer Ink Cartridges Shortages). While HP doesn’t necessarily manufactured their inkjet and toner cartridges in Japan, they do source components from a partner (Canon) that has a manufacturing facility in Japan. It’s hard to say how hard this partner was hit by the disaster, but it is becoming evident it was hard enough to cause shortages in some of HP’s more popular printer cartridges. In March, HP announced that it would be limiting the distribution of some of its toner cartridges.

Here we are, the first day of July, and distributors are seeing (feeling the effects) of the limited distribution. First the good news, HP has lifted the restriction on the 78A (C6578A) printer ink cartridge. Now for the rest of the news!

The HP 85A Black Toner Cartridge (CE285A) is still in very short supply. So is the high yield HP CE250X Black Toner Cartridge. Distributors are finding both of these cartridges to be very hard to come by. Consumers should be seeing the same.

If you typically shop at the larger office super stores you may not see the effects of this shortage. HP, as most businesses, will always make sure the shelves of their largest suppliers are always stocked. If you prefer to buy your cartridges from other vendors, you may find yourself being forced to look to someone new. Don’t expect your current cartridge vendor to have these cartridges in stock.

Finally, if you learn that an order you placed for one of these cartridges is back ordered, make sure you check with the vendor to see when they expect to have the cartridge back in stock. Despite what you are told, make sure you have a contingency plan in place. The vendor may have a time line, but HP’s supply restrictions will dictate what that actual time line is. Unfortunately, it is out of the vendor’s hands.