Sum and Substance:

Thumbs Up:

Easy to set up through wireless interface, downloadable “SmartSolutions”, fast speeds for printing.

Thumbs Down:

No Bluetooth, very expensive.

Inside the Trunk:

Driver discs, power cables.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 is a thermal inkjet printer, it has four ink cartridges magenta, black, cyan and yellow. The printer has 2 trays for paper but the tray at the bottom cannot take paper for photo prints. The printer has Wi-Fi and Ethernet for connecting to the internet but doesn’t have Bluetooth.

Additional features include support for PictBridge support, card reader for SD, MMC, MS and xD cards. There is a 4.3 inch touch screen LCD and no physical buttons other than the power button. You can download widgets from the LCD for printing applications. The dimensions of the printers are 18.31 inches wide, 15.42 inches long, 12.1 inches tall, weight 32 lbs. The printer is compatible with Windows 7

Razzle Dazzle:

The look of the printer has changed a lot as compared to previous Lexmarks devices because the physical buttons are all dumped to make way for all touch screen interface. The printer is a typical office looking printer, but that doesn’t mean it has boring design. There are no sharp edges even on the feeder trays which is welcome anytime.

Inside Dope:

The touch screen technology for printers is here and everyone is jumping the bandwagon. The latest manufacturer to do so is Lexmark and they have done it in style. There is not a single button on the face of the printer except the power button and rest all is controlled by the touch screen interface. While some might say it is just a gimmick to induce curiosity and increase the sales some will feel that a touch screen is necessary. We feel that the touch screen is good but only if the price of the printer stays low.

We also thought that the Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 would have done well with some basic physical buttons. If you are in hurry to take copies it is better to push a button get the copies than to go through a series of sub-menus to finally dig the button that you need.

The Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 is 18.31 inches wide, 15.42 inches long, 12.1 inches tall and as mentioned earlier, there are no buttons except the power button. Other than the LCD there is a Wi-Fi indicator and a media card reader with PictBridge USB port. There are two trays in the bottom of the printer and each can take about 150 pages taking the total capacity to 300. But only the upper tray can take 4X6 inch paper for printing photos and the tray at the bottom is for letter and legal sizes paper. You can also remove the lower tray from the rest of the printer if you want to relieve your desktop of clutter but then you don’t get additional space for putting in more paper.

The LCD screen is the highlight of the Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 and even though the control panel takes about 9.5 inch space, the LCD is only 4.3 inch big. It is like an iPhone is landscape mode. The screen is quite good and the icons and text is good and bright but the screen is LCD and it is not visible from the sides or from the top of the printer (but probably you will never view the printer from here). This is a common problem with all LCDs even in mobile phones where you can’t see the display from sides. But high end mobile phones now have AMOLED but putting something like that in a printer would further inflate the price of the device.

The LCD is glossy which means it attracts a lot of finger prints on the Lexmark Platinum Pro 905. There are four large icons on the home screen which includes a button called “Smart Solutions” which is Lexmark’s name for downloadable widgets.  When you click on ‘add more applications’ you go to the Smart Solutions site where you have to register with a pass word and user name. For connectivity there are options of Ethernet or wireless interface. But the printer doesn’t have Bluetooth support.

Setting up the Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 is easy and it took less than 10 minutes in our test centers. Lexmark has a couple of applications that are free of cost for printing, scanning, copying and there are also applications like Google calendar. You simply surf through the web and then choose the application that you want. Once you are done just drag the application to the icon which is for your printer. Once you do this you get more options for customization like relabeling, changing icons, print quality, etc. Give final touches that you want to your application and then sync them with your printer, later it will show under the “SmartSolutions” button.

When we tested the Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 there were only 12 SmartSolutions available on the store and they were more like basic applications which are substitutes for the physical buttons like scan to file, scan to fax, etc. Lexmark says they are developing more applications and will be on their way out soon.

We really liked the Eco-Copy option in the SmartSolutions which prints on both the sides of the sheet and the features also claims to save on ink as it prints in low quality. There is also an application that prints a map of places where you can get cartridges for the printer.

The Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 uses the new Vizix individual ink cartridges, which has one cartridge of black ink and three of magenta, yellow and cyan. This printer is cheaper as compared to the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless, the only competitor in this class for now.

The Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 doesn’t come with a big reference manual, Lexmark claims this is done to save on paper. But the manufacturer has provided a disc which contains all the information that you need. The disc also contains drivers for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OSX and Windows 7. There is also an onscreen bar which shows your progress of printing or warns you when you are running out of ink in the printer. Along with it when ever you are running out of paper in the tray, it will alert you. You also get all these alerts on the LCD and along with this; you get a quick view of what you are printing right now.

Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 is very fast when it comes to taking copies but it is not the fastest. HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless is the only one which is ahead in the race and takes copies at 1.39 pages a minute. We expected this printer to be faster than HPs counterpart considering the cost. The story is similar when it comes to print quality, Lexmark is one of the best only HP’s printer eclipsing the quality.

Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 comes with a five year warranty and if you sell the device to another party in these five years, the warranty is transferred to the other party.

Nitty Gritty:

Lack of buttons, all touch screen interface make the Lexmark Platinum Pro 905 a super sexy device but we doubt if this is needed when it comes to office printers. What you need is low cost, high out put and low running cost. Lexmark does deliver well on some of these features but we are better off with HP Officejet Pro 8500. But if LCD is not important for you then we recommend you go for non-touch screen printers which would give you same features at a much lesser price.

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