Lexmark Interact S605 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer with Web-enabled Touchscreen Reviews

5 Comments

1. vettekid95 says:

   July 8, 2010 at 6:30 pm

   Review by vettekid95 for Lexmark Interact S605 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer with Web-enabled Touchscreen
   Rating:
   I purchased this printer the other day to replace my Lexmark X74. The X74 printer still works perfectly (in WinXP), but will not work with the new Windows 7 OS. There is no new driver available for it. Lexmark has determined that the printer is too old and they will not develop a new printer driver for it. So, I was basically forced to upgrade my printer.

   I really liked my old Lexmark so I decided to purchase another one. I did some research and settled on the S605. I liked the look of it and the wireless feature so I purchased it and took it home to set up on my wireless network.

   I have to tell you that the installation went flawlessly. As mentioned in some of the reviews I read, that reading and following the directions made it go smoothly. In about 30 mins. I had all THREE of our computers setup and printing with this printer.

   I gave this printer a 3 star rating due to it’s printer cartridges. I am a little disappointed that the cartridges can’t be refilled and are a little pricey. The cartridges (#100) have a chip installed in them that prevents the cartridges from being refilled. I’ve had my X74’s cartridges refilled in the past and they worked perfectly - and cost a lot less than new cartridges. I only hope that I can at least get close to the number of pages printed, that Lexmark says I should get. Somehow, I don’t believe that’s going to happen. Probably will turn out like the estimated mpg your supposed to get on your new car - time will tell.
2. Bob Feeser says:

   July 8, 2010 at 7:02 pm

   Review by Bob Feeser for Lexmark Interact S605 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer with Web-enabled Touchscreen
   Rating:
   For more years than I care to remember I used the Lexmark X83 that scanned, copied, and printed better than the competition; yes even better than the HP’s. I took a blank check, scanned it in my brothers HP and scanned it in my Lexmark, and the resulting printout was almost scary how true to life it was and the colors were more accurate. That being said, I quickly became a Lexmark printer fan. The one problem is that I hated having to buy the expensive cartridges. This S605 comes with multiple cartridges, so when you run out of yellow for example that is the only one you have to purchase, instead of dumping the whole cartridge when only one color is low.

   Then I discovered the advantages, and economy of laser printers. The ink never dries out because it is already dry powder. With its large capacity it comes to a penny or two per page instead of the dollar plus for a full page color photo. But, for photographic excellence the inkjet’s have the reasonably priced lasers beaten. Pertaining to the text quality, the laser wins hands down. I admit that I took out a magnifier to see the real difference, but the difference between the laser on black and white text and this Lexmark, the S605 was substantial (under a maginfiying glass). Inkjets, this one included spray out wet ink and that causes slight fuzziness on the edges when compared to a laser my latest laser purchase, which was the Brother HL-2170W 23ppm Laser Printer with Wireless and Wired Network Interfaces That one is a network ready wireless unit but does not scan, nor does it copy, have color capabilities or any of the sophisticated web enabled touch screen features of this S605. So if you want to print out the occasional photo and enjoy color capabilities, and being a Lexmark fan, I highly recommend this S600. One other thing I want to mention is that after comparing the print quality results of both the laser and the inkjet is that although the inkjet costs more for ink costs it also creates a much higher quality, thicker richer text image. It looks like it was poured on the page. The laser prints cheaper but in addition to the powder equation, it also uses less ink resulting in a thinner text; clear clean but thinner.

   With the color instead of all black and white reminds me of some marketing and advertising data I had read. They conducted a study to measure the comparison between an all black text written advertisement, and the same ad with a second color, and the one with 2 colors produced 40% better results. I printed out a page with all black text, and just a small logo in blue that immediately attracted me to the page, rather than just a boring page of plain text. Of course there are color lasers as well, but they are usually more expensive in making the initial purchase. For about the same money, you can pick up the brother 2170W and this printer and have the best of both worlds, plus you have the ability to have printers in 2 locations. With both printers loaded, you always have the option of a printing job coming right out alongside of you, or from coming from the printer in a more distant location (another room for example) in the other format.

   Setup was relatively easy. I tried the CD setup to automatically recognize my Verizon supplied wireless router for FIOS and it didn’t automatically setup using the one touch button on the router as instructed. But when I went with the USB cable wireless setup, I was able to choose manual setup and it worked like a breeze. I was surprised to see that the manual setup was that easy; all that all I needed was to input my WEP key number when it asked for it, and it took care of the rest. So overall Lexmark did their engineering, and made setup very easy. I was also pleased that I could add another computer, or as many as I would like, even my XP machines. My interest in newer printers was due in part to my need to find something that would work with Vista and XP in the same network.

   The web enabled touch screen feature is impressive. It has a large LCD screen right on the front of the printer that you can actually access the web from as well as a lot of other functions. It’s the most modernistic approach for a printer that I have seen. All you do is create a user name and account to access Lexmark’s “Smart Solutions” such as Apple Hot News, Business Card Scan, Eco Copy, Google Calendar, Mobile Me Photos, MSNBC Headlines, and more… Once you have saved your choice of these solutions, they are immediately ready to use right at your fingertips on the printers touch screen. So this printer does a lot more than just scan, copy and print.

   One last thing that I want to mention is that when I was using the Lexmark X83, although I loved the machine one of my pet peeves was that when the electricity went off, like during a summer storm, the printer, even though it was off, when the juice was restored, it would turn on, and place the cartridge in the middle of the carriage, and just sit there for days drying out, unless I would notice it, and go over and hit the power button, which would immediately park the cartridge in the protective position. Needless to say, I went through more cartridges than were necessary. This one the S605 automatically parks the cartridge after a certain period of inactivity time. I would prefer that they park the cartridge after every run, but I am not an engineer, so maybe there is a reason for that beyond wanting to sell more cartridges. Hands down you cannot beat a laser for saving money on printing supplies.

   I’m glad I have this, and am already looking forward to being able to print T-Shirts, with the iron ons for fun, and cards, photos etc. I also like the idea of having a scanner handy. The only thing is that I wish I had gotten the one with the 4 way that does faxes as well. Overall a nice machine with tons of features not normally found in a printer and I also have to say that my 10 year old X83’s never failed, so I am expecting a long life out of the S605 as well. From one Lexmark fan to another, buy it.
   
3. Susan says:

   July 8, 2010 at 7:22 pm

   Review by Susan for Lexmark Interact S605 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer with Web-enabled Touchscreen
   Rating:
   These are just a few of the items that are needed to have a complete kitchen. The printer was a perfect match to the computer, which is an MSI touchscreen and is small enough to fit almost anywhere. You just never know when you might need to print out that recipe, store coupon, or perhaps a knitting pattern.

   This was an interesting printer to set up, different from the ones I have done before. I say this because the quick start manual says to make sure the printer is not connected to anything and install the software. In all the other printers I have set up, the manuals walk you completely through the setup. This printer walks you through the complete procedure using the CD and the LCD screen on the printer. The package print head is located inside the printer and the CD will make you aware of that. But, I investigated inside first before I did anything else, and removed the printer head. The ink cartridges are in the area where the paper is ejected. After completing the steps of installing the print head, and then the ink cartridges, the printer will want to align the print head, and upon doing so a page is printed out. Make sure the paper tray is fully extended. Otherwise, the paper will either jam or wrinkle, inside the area. The paper tray has a small lip at the end to prevent the paper from sliding off. Next comes the procedure of finding your network. Again, this is where the Lexmark is different from any other printer. I have set up a few wireless printers, and most printers are set up using their LCD display, usually somewhere in settings or network or however the printer manufacturer describes it. The Lexmark does it through the computer that you’re setting it up for. Going through the steps it will ask you if you have a certain type of router that has a button on it that I have never seen. When you answer no, the next window that comes up asks you to connect the provided USB cable from the computer you are working on to the printer. By pressing continue it will search for your network, which you can identify and enter an encryption key if needed. After that, Lexmark lets you know it has made the connection and to disconnect the USB cable. Now you are able to print wirelessly. So I gave it a try just to see if there was a lot of lag time between sending the data from the computer to the final print out. My setup goes from the kitchen to a room where the router is and back to the printer in the kitchen and to my surprise the lag time was very short.

   The next thing I usually do is to try out the software that was installed on the computer. Under Lexmark there’s a program called Printer Home. This is what you want to click on in order to have the versatility of the printer. There are four scan categories to choose from - photo, documents, e-mail and PDF. The scan to photo has two options; one, the single photo, and the other is split into individual photo. The second one was interesting. Lexmark will ask you if you want a test page printed out at the end of the set up. It prints out a page with a color bar on the top, the Lexmark logo on the right hand side, some hot air balloons in the middle and another color bar at the bottom of the page. When you select the second option of splitting the photo into individual photos it literally saved four versions of the photo. The color bar was one, the logo was the second, the hot air balloons was the third, and the color bar at the bottom was the fourth. This was an interesting first for me. I can definitely see some interesting possibilities. Of course the rest of the categories are pretty straightforward. Scanning to a document or to an e-mail or making it a PDF. The Printer Home software gives you the most options of how you want to scan and save different things in different formats. Plus it has other options at the bottom of its page, such as print head alignment, wireless setup, and so forth. Next it was time to use the LCD control panel on the printer. The LCD panel swings out from the body of the printer and stays in its 45° position by friction. So I wondered if the panel would stay in his position as you push down the different icons on the screen. The touchscreen is very sensitive, so pushing on the screen is a very light touch, and that helps the panel stay in position.

   Copying offers a lot of options. Things like number of copies, color or black-and-white. You can also select more options, which expands the versatility of copying, such as two into one, eight to one and 16 to 1. Along with other options such as paper type, paper size, quality, and the band plays on. This is where an automatic document feeder is missed. If you had a two-sided sheet that you wanted to print out, you have to scan one side and then the other manually. This printer does have the capability of duplexing, which does add to the features.

   Next feature tried from the LCD control panel on the printer was scanning. The options here are a little limited, compared to using the software. When you choose scan you have the option of scanning to the computer, scanning to memory device or scanning to e-mail. When I say a little limited, I mean that everything I scanned to a file was always in JPEG form, whereas the software gives you the option of other formats. The computer would have to be on anyway in order to scan to the computer or to e-mail, but if you are just scanning to a memory device, I guess this would be very convenient.

   The last icon on the LCD control panel is Smart Solutions. It comes with a few smart solutions on it to begin with, I.D. card copy and photo reprint. But in order to get the full features of smart solutions you need to go and create an account at the Lexmark website. This is easy to do. You can either click on the link that the software provided on your computer under Lexmark or on the LCD panel under the smart solutions icon then click on more options. There’s a link there that will send your browser to the smart solution page. The only other one I added to my smart solution was the MSNBC link, but there are quite a few to choose from. There are even smart solutions that you can customize for copying and scanning.

   I also had to see what would happen by plugging in a USB thumb drive into the printer. It recognized the thumb drive and gave me three options on the LCD screen. One is photo, the other is document, and the last is send to e-mail. I chose photo to see what the LCD screen would display, and lo and behold, two pictures I had put on the thumb drive showed up. So I decided to print out one of them. You can just accept it and print it or you can go into more options and adjust all the settings. Then I tried looking at a document. It listed of all the supported documents, which are many, on the thumb drive. Next I removed the thumb drive and inserted a USB cable from my camera to the printer. The Pictbridge icon came up. When I tapped the icon, it told me to print from the camera, so I scrolled through the LCD on the camera, picked a picture, clicked on more options, selected my settings and printed the picture. With the 4.2 LCD screen, looking at pictures makes it easy to decide what you want to print out. The bottom of the LCD panel has four icons, one for eco-mode (duplexing, printing in draft, and reducing the backlight on the LCD panel), one for duplexing, one for settings, and the one that I appreciate the most is the amount of ink that is left in the cartridges.

   My first all-in-one was the original Lexmark for home users. This continued to work flawlessly until the day I got rid of it. The biggest reason I upgraded to another type of printer was because of the cost of the ink for the Lexmark and the problems of the ink drying out when not in use. I hope this situation has improved. I like the uniqueness of this printer because of the LCD screen and the option that it gives you to interact with the outside world rather than just print or scan. Is this a printer I would use for a small business - No. Is this a printer I would use for the home office? I think that would depend on how much printing I was planning on doing every day. With each cartridge having a yield of 100 you could be using ink at a rapid rate. Is this a printer I would have for personal use, most definitely. This is a fun printer to use, and it has enough versatility to suit my personal needs at a reasonable price.
4. Michael says:

   July 8, 2010 at 7:33 pm

   Review by Michael for Lexmark Interact S605 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer with Web-enabled Touchscreen
   Rating:
   The Lexmark tradition continues: wonderful, well-engineered hardware, and bloated software that simply tries to do too much without any regard to the computing resources it takes away. My computer, after installing the mandatory Lexmark software, seems almost to become a dedicated extension of the printer. That a print utility requires over 250MB is just obscene in my opinion, regardless of how inexpensive disk space becomes and how many processor cycles may be available to service a printer. When I purchase a printer from ANY manufacturer, I just want a basic driver written to Windows, Mac, Linux standards. I do not want a printer that has the power to launch applications on my desktop. I do not want a printer that requires any background processes to be running at all times. Is that really too much to ask? Ridiculous! Less is more, when it comes to general purpose functionality like printing. I next will uninstall the boatload of components the drivers disk put on my computer (in addition to the driver, the only software that was really necessary), and then return the printer to the store from which I purchased it. Lexmark, sadly, remains a no-buy for me.
5. Silea says:

   July 8, 2010 at 8:27 pm

   Review by Silea for Lexmark Interact S605 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer with Web-enabled Touchscreen
   Rating:
   Setting this printer up for the first time is a bit interesting. The ink cartridges and print heads are hidden inside the printer. It’s a miniature easter egg hunt to find the pieces you need. Then, of course, the ink cartridges don’t quite click into their slots as definitively as you might hope, so that takes a bit of trial and error. Setting the printer to work when connected to the computer takes a while of watching the software work, but is pretty brainless. Getting it to work wireless is a process full of mystery and confusion. I followed all the steps, and it didn’t work because my computer couldn’t detect the printer, even after the printer itself had found the wireless router. Annoyed, i went to lunch, and when i came back, my computer could detect the printer. So, eventually it got it to work, and i don’t exactly know how (i have a degree in Computer Science, by the way).

   Once everything’s talking to everything, it’s great. My only complaint is that i keep opening the whole printer instead of just the lid to the flat-bed scanner. It doesn’t break anything, but it is annoying.

   The touch-screen is responsive, and the icons are big enough that adult fingers can hit them reliably. The almost-one-touch copying/scanning is handy.

   Ok, apparently i lied, i have another complaint: scanning to your computer is handled very strangely. Instead of just scanning to jpg or pdf, as it does when you’re scanning to a USB drive or memory card, it scans to an application. Not only is that strange, but it’s opaque. There’s no indication on the scanner itself of why, for example, scanning into Preview (on a mac) will produce a TIFF while scanning to photoshop will produce a jpg. It’s so, so easy to scan to a USB drive, i wish i could just tell the printer to dump a PDF on my desktop. When you do scan to your computer, you can choose to ’scan to file’, which opens up a window on your desktop (on a mac, at least) that lets you choose the format, but that’s still several steps more than it should be.

   There are little perks, too, like the microfibre cloth to clean the scanning glass, and a USB printer cable (no printer i’ve participated in unpacking in the past five years has had a cable packaged with it, until this one which, ironically, is wireless-capable).

   –

   Updating after many weeks of use. I’m beginning to wonder if my printer is possessed. It turns itself off after being idle for a while, which is great. Now, though, it randomly turns itself on as well. And yesterday, a new quirk: it turned itself off in the middle of printing, causing a massive paper jam. Now it’s printing fine again, but it grabs each new sheet of paper with such force that it crimps the center of the top edge. I’ve fiddled with it to no avail. I’ll be calling customer service when i have a chance.