Lexmark Targets Wi-Fi Printing

Lexmark is looking to lower the price tags associated with wireless printing, new inkjet models sporting friendly features...and one with an $80 price tag.

Last month, Lexmark announced it was planning to deliver a dozen new inkjet printers as part of its 2007 product line, with fully half of those units offering built-in Wi-Fi printing, an another couple offering wireless printing as an option. Now, the company is beginning to make good on its promise, delivering new inkjet printers available which offer integrated Wi-Fi printing…and one that has a price tag under $80.

The new Lexmark Z1420 inkjet printer claims to be the least expensive Wi-Fi enabled printer on the market with a price tag of $79.99. The four-color inkjet offers integrated 802.11b/g connectivity and has a maximum draft print speed of 24 pages per minute in black and 18 ppm in color (but realistic normal print speeds are more like 12 ppm in black, 5 ppm in color). The printer offers 1,200 by 1,200 resolution in black and 4,800 by 1,200 resolution in color, and provides an option to print in six colors, plus a feature to automatically align cartridges.

For folks who need more than bare-bones Wi-Fi printing, the X4550 Wireless All-in-One offers integrated 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and a selection of features designed to appeal to business and home office years, including two-sided printing, fax capabilities, copying, acting as a 48-bit color scanner, and photo printing. The X4500 is PictBridge compatible, and features media slots for popular media card formats (including SD, Memory Stick, Compact Flash, TransFlash, XS, MMC, and RS-MMC). The X4550 is available now for a suggested price of $129.99.

Lexmark’s Wi-Fi printers are compatible with WEP, WPA, and WPA Wi-Fi security, and work with Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X 10.3 or higher.