Under-$100 Roundup: Lexmark Z816 Color Jetprinter

According to the reviews, this is a solid, all-around all-in-one at an exceptional price. One reviewer thought it offered fast speed, and two others felt the print quality was excellent for a device in this price range, especially for photos.

Price: $99.99
Type: Color inkjet all-in-one
Max. Print Speed: 22ppm black, 15ppm color
Max. Print Resolution: 4800 x 1200 dpi (optimized)
Special Feature(s): Borderless photo printing

CNET Review

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Liked: Sharp-looking design; fast.

Disliked: Average print quality; no extra features.

In Short: The Lexmark Z816 is a good-looking but otherwise humdrum color inkjet printer.

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PC Magazine Review

Rating: 3 out of 5

Liked: Optional six-color printing with a photo cartridge yields photo printer-like quality. Automatic paper sensing means one less setting to adjust.

Disliked: Graphics in default mode show obvious banding. Some highly stylized fonts are hard to read in sizes smaller than 12 points.

In Short: The Lexmark Z816 Color Jetprinter is a worthy contender for the price, with good quality ratings for text and graphics and very good for photos. Also welcome are features like automatic paper sensing, which helps make printing with expensive photo paper a little more foolproof.

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PC World Review

Rating: 3 out of 5

Liked: The $100 Z816 printed text pages faster than any other inkjet we've tested recently.

Disliked: The Z816 delivered lackluster text quality: A slight saw-tooth pattern was visible along the edges of letters at all type sizes. Glossy photos took an unacceptable 6 minutes and 40 seconds each.

In Short: The Z816 lags behind other printers in output quality, and has a steep cost per page with its standard cartridges, but it prints text fast and the unit itself is inexpensive.

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