Lexmark Pro715

The Lexmark Pro 715 is an all-in-one colour inkjet that has plenty of features and has been designed for small and medium sized companies. With this model, Lexmark is giving us a slightly cheaper alternative to the touch-controlled Pro915. It embodies the multifunction wi-fi concept, with all the features you’d expect while remaining very reasonably priced. The standard 256 MB memory means it can be shared comfortably by a group of fifty people.

Hardware

It has pretty much all the hardware needed to satisfy users. With the same angular design and the same size (25.1 x 46.5 x 40.3 cm) and weight (10 Kg) as the Pro 915, the only major difference is that the touchscreen has been replaced by buttons, directional arrows and a very small screen. No touchscreen means no SmartSolutions. Instead you get a customisable shortcut feature that allows you to record the most commonly used features, such as scanning to a mail, and launch them straight from the keyboard or in a shortcut tab. While well thought out, the concept isn’t as easy to use nor as extensive as SmartSolutions. What’s more, the directional arrows don’t always respond very well. Anyone who has got used to touchscreens will therefore find the Pro715 less intuitive than the Pro915 with its big touchscreen.

Front: no touchscreen

Duplex and PCL 5, PCL6 and PostScript3 support are also included, which is particularly useful in an enterprise setting. This model is rich in possibilities when it comes to configuration of the paper, print modes and security parameters. The eco button, represented by a leaf on the front, allows you to reduce screen brightness by a notch.

The standard paper loader contains 150 pages but the machine configuration provides for the possibility of adding a double loader, making for a capacity of 700 pages in total. Right next to the paper loader there’s a USB port that’s high speed certified according to the USB 2.0 spec, however in contrast to the Pro915 there’s no slot for SD cards.

 

The paper loader

Inside the machine, you'll find new format separated cartridges, available in two sizes (standard and XL). The cheap cartridges that you could get for the old models are no longer available, which is disappointing!

4 separated cartridges

Speed

Print speeds are the same as on the Pro915 and 901 and aren’t far behind the HP Photosmart 7510. This makes it quite rapid but our rating is affected by the time it takes the printer to come out of off / standby position. Print speeds are however fine for office use and only lasers really give anything much faster (twice as fast).

10x15 photos with no margins take around 40 seconds. Count 1 minute 30 for A4 photos.

Quality

It's the same verdict as with the Pro915 here. With the new cartridges, prints are more precise, sharper and with more accurate colours. We compared with our photos from the archives and there’s no doubt about it, the quality is better than on previous generations. We only gave the Pro715 a three star rating however (compared to four stars for the Pro 901). This difference is due to the new test procedure that takes into account the results analysed by the sensor (the dE 94 among others).

Average deltaE 94 (colour difference): 7.9

Scanner and copier

The scanner has lots of features. You can record a scan profile and scan a document to a computer, a memory card, an email address or to the network. All you have to do then is choose the format (doc, pdf, photo) and set the brightness, contrast, document size, quality and so on.

20 seconds for black and white and 31 seconds colour is the time required to print a copy. which makes colour copies a bit slow. Once again, there’s no lack of options. There are settings for scale, quality, size, contrast, double-sided, assembling several copies on one page, integrating watermarks and so on.



With anything that isn’t text, copes are rather poor, in the same order as with those on Canons or HPs, with comparable colour difference too.

Energy consumption & Noise levels

You can use the eco setting to put the machine into standby from anywhere between 10 mn and 240 mn of inactivity. Why haven’t Lexmark provided for a threshold of 1 mn?
The Pro715 consumes too much in standby. 7.2 Watts, when most are under 1 Watt, and 16 Watts when printing gives you an annual consumption of 7 kW (calculated in kW for 1000 pages). Noise levels of 45 dB(A) class this machine among the quietest.

Cost per page: 11.3 pence with XLs

The cost per page is too high. higher than average and higher than the old generation.
11.3 pence per page is with the high capacity cartridges. With standards it’s almost double.


ISO lifespan for text - XL cartridges