Lexmark PRO915

The Lexmark Pro915 is a multifunction desktop printer designed essentially for business usage. A descendant of the Pro 901 and Pro 905, it includes scan, copy and fax as well as the SmartSolutions system of Internet applications that can also be customised. The printer is of course wi-fi enabled. The standard 256 MB memory means it can be shared comfortably by a group of fifty people.

With this model, Lexmark assures us that it has definitively sorted out the defective printhead issues suffered previously and is highlighting low print costs, rapidity and multiple print options.

Hardware

Its angular design and spec are reminiscent of the HP Photosmart 7510, which also has a touchscreen and wi-fi connectivity. It's quite compact (24.1 x 46.5 x 40.3 cm for a weight of 10 Kg) for a professional machine and the interface is simple and intuitive. A gauge at the bottom right of the screen shows the level of ink for each colour. Duplex and PCL 5, PCL6 and PostScript3 support are also included, which is particularly useful in an enterprise setting. Note that while the Pro 901 was guaranteed for five years, the Pro915 is only guaranteed for a year.

 

Front with a 4.5-inch touch screen

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. There’s also a slot for SD cards.

 

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

A nice initiative here: Lexmark has made it possible to order bags through SmartSolutions to facilitate cartridge recycling.

Choose the number of bags and send the request in

Another feature implemented in SmartSolutions is Xambox, for document handling. You simply scan documents and send them to a digitalised storage space. After being scanned, the documents are stored in virtual loaders with memorised positioning. You then indicate the position of your document to retrieve it.

Speeds

Print speeds are the same as on the Pro 901 and aren’t far behind the HP Photosmart 7510. This makes them 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.

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Quality

With the new cartridges, the 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 it a three star rating however (compared to four stars for the Pro 901). This is due to the new test procedure that takes into account 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.



As soon as you try and copy anything other than text you’ll see that the quality isn’t great but it is nevertheless of the same order as what you get with Canon or HP machines and the colour difference is comparable.

Energy consumption & Noise levels

The Pro915 records a very bad standby score: 6 Watts! This is extremely high, especially as most printers now manage under 1 Watt. Energy consumption when printing is pretty reasonable for an inkjet (19 W). Eco mode puts the printer in standby after 10 minutes and reduces screen brightness. This is a good initiative but we don’t understand why Lexmark hasn’t worked harder to reduce standby consumption. Annual consumption with this printer will be 6.1 kW (calculated on a basis of 1000 pages) and this is too high.
It is however a quiet machine with noise levels measured at just 44 dB(A).

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