The X4950 is a nice little work printer. Either at home or in the office, its wi-fi connection is a plus and the document charger practical for photcopying or reports (up to 25 pages) and there’s a two-sided mode. There’s no fax however. You have to step up to the X6675 to get one. On the other hand, those who only want wi-fi should take a look at the X4650, more basic but less expensive.

The front of the printer has a small screen with command buttons on the right. There aren’t too many of them and they make navigation easy and simple.

Speed and office print quality

Speeds are better than on older Lexmark models. In standard mode with our test documents we got 5.8 ppm in both black and white and  colour and 24.4 ppm in black and white draft mode. These are ok scores in terms of what the competition gives, except the record-breaking Canons: up to 13 ppm in standard mode.

Draft mode means just that. The blacks are very light: these prints are good only for checking page layout. Standard mode is just right for text (deep blacks, precision of characters…). In colour prints however, the tinted areas could be more even. Nevertheless, the quality is ok for both personal and professional use.


This image is from our product face-offs

 

A colour photo in 4x6” format takes more than a minute. Several months ago this would have been considered more or less average but since then several multifunction machines have come out with speeds of 40 seconds and this now seems rather slow. An A4 print takes almost 3 minutes.

Photo quality is a bit disappointing. You get Canon’s lack of colour accuracy with the visible ink drops of an HP. Shame… Even if, lets be honest, we are being a bit fussy. Nevertheless, our criticisms are important if we compare the prints with the competition. The colour Lexmark photos could well earn a place in an album or on the wall all the same but the black and whites are overly blue for our liking.

Cartridges

The printer is delivered with “standard” capacity cartridges. Do not get any more of these! They will make your cost per page very expensive, perhaps double what you’d normally pay. Get the XL ones for much better value for money.