X6170 All-in-One

Editor's note: On June 4, 2003, we updated this review to reflect that the Lexmark X6170 does print on legal-sized paper.

Lexmark's full-featured X6170 all-in-one office center replaces several familiar pieces of equipment in a home office or at a cubicle desk, providing an easy, confidential way to fax, scan, and print documents in color or monochrome. Sure, the X6170 suffers from astoundingly slow print speeds compared to those of other multifunctions, such as Lexmark's own X5150. And if your business correspondence demands the sharp-quality text that only a laser printer can provide, you'll want a multifunction that's built around a laser engine, such as Hewlett-Packard's LaserJet 3330mfp. (Macintosh users will have to look elsewhere; Lexmark has no Mac drivers for the X6170.) Nonetheless, considering the X6170's impressive features, its ability to copy and fax without being attached to a PC, and its decent CNET image-quality test scores, its less-than-$250 price tag makes it a bargain.
 
More photos and the full review of the Lexmark X6170:
 Design  |  Features  |  Performance  |  Service and support

Multifunction printer text speed  (Longer bars indicate better performance) Pages per minute
Dell Personal AIO printer A940 5.5  Lexmark X5150 all-in-one 5.2  HP PSC 1210 3.7  Lexmark X6170 1.2

Inkjet printer quality • Poor   •• Fair   ••• Good   •••• Excellent

Printer  Text  Graphics  Photo Plain paper  Coated paper  Plain paper  Coated paper  Photo paper   HP PSC 1210 ••• ••• •• •• •••  Canon MultiPass F60 •• ••• •• •• ••  Lexmark X5150 all-in-one •• •• •• •• ••  Lexmark X6170 •• •• •• •• ••

Lexmark backs the X6170 with reassuring support policies. You get a one-year warranty that provides next-day exchange (though you pay shipping to the depot) and a year of free, toll-free, live-human, telephone tech support available weekdays from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m. ET. You can extend the warranty to two years for $44 or three years for $74.

Lexmark also includes a poster with crystal-clear instructions for setting up the X6170, along with a manual that provides good detail on using the machine. Unfortunately, the documentation is not as strong for the bundled software. When CNET called Lexmark's tech support to ask a question that the manual didn't cover, we got through to a technician within two minutes after navigating the voicemail system. Our technician admitted right up front that he wasn't familiar with the new X6170, then put us on hold for three minutes and came back with the right answer. Hide Review