Lexmark Genesis S815 Printer
The world of all-in-ones tends not to be the location to discover pleasure, but each and every so frequently a brave producer attempts something that really grabs our focus. You’ll already have noticed from your photo that the Lexmark Genesis S815 has a completely re-imagined bodily style, but the real interest lies in how it scans: inside sits a 10-megapixel camera.
Lexmark Genesis S815To be more particular, it’s a 10-megapixel monochrome CMOS sensor with an RGB LED positioned on either aspect. To scan, the LEDs carry out a quick double flash of red, then green, then blue and, with a tacked-on shutter noise for effect, the Genesis produces a composite colour preview image in just 3 seconds. It’s a scanner, Jim, but not as we know it.
Even when you add the process of getting that scan to a linked Pc, the time barely rises. We scanned an A4 colour page into Photoshop at 150ppi in just six seconds, and an A4 photo at 300ppi in just eight – and there’s a range of on-device choices for colour fixing, cropping and all kinds before you finish the task. Along with that blistering pace, the accuracy with the colours in our check pictures was superb, with deep blacks, vibrant reds and also the numerous graded blues of the summer time sky detected and faithfully reproduced.
On the flipside, the 10-megapixel resolution and A4 platen size mean the optimum feasible scan quality is 300ppi – this is very much a client instead of a expert device. Good detail was its only notable weakness, with soft, frayed edges on text and little components of busy pictures blending into each other a little in locations. Given the short distance in between the platen and also the lens – we’d estimate around 8in – we’re impressed with what Lexmark has pulled off, but it is not fairly perfect yet.
The scan technologies completely dictates the unusual upright shape of the Genesis. The standard printer component remains at the base with a 50-sheet output tray in the front; over that, the platen sits nearly upright, with a 100-sheet input tray also upright behind the main physique. Open the lid in the direction of you and, deep behind the glass, you will see the digital camera and LEDs, reflected by way of a 45-degree mirror at the rear. It tends to make for a tall and bulky physique, but its desk footprint is no bigger than a regular printer.
Lexmark has tried to pre-empt your needs: the lid hinges out by about an inch for thicker media, and you are able to comfortably hang a guide over the leading with the platen to easily choose up just one page. The on-device scan engine enables you to keep including documents prior to finalising a multi-page scan, plus it may scan up to four photos at once – a neat grip along the top edge of the platen stops gravity pulling them all towards the bottom. In an additional good touch, open the print flap in the front with the base and you will find a useful label with the serial number, technical help details and part numbers for the four cartridges, and even a little tray to store a cleansing cloth.
Although those cartridges would be the exact same as those in Lexmark’s much less extravagant all-in-ones, the engine has slowed very slightly. It managed normal-quality mono and colour print charges of 9ppm and 7.7ppm respectively, and churned out a 6 x 4in print at greatest quality in 33 seconds. That’s much more or much less up there with the likes with the A-Listed Canon Pixma MG6150, and whenever you mix that using the near-instant scanning, you realize copies will come fairly rapidly as well.
High quality is where this era of Lexmark printers have performed just a little less impressively in previous tests, and the Genesis does absolutely nothing to change that. Text and colour paperwork are perfectly good, with thick blacks and solid locations of colour displaying no speckling or frayed edges. But picture prints, even at greatest high quality, are middling; colours are great but there just is not enough contrast or sharpness to come anyplace near the brilliance of the Canon.
That’s fairly a significant weakness, but everything else concerning the Genesis will get a thumbs-up. It’s got each USB and 802.11n Wi-Fi connections, with one with the clearest and most intuitive setup routines we’ve used, and slots for SD, MMC, xD and Memory Stick cards sit in easy attain around the right-hand side. And it’s all controlled through the exact same superb four.3in touchscreen and SmartSolutions interface that initial impressed us so much around the Interact S605.
Just as we’re hitting our stride, the brakes are slammed on by the price. In the event you stick with high-yield inks, the three colours will set you back about £14 each and the black £13. That gives a cost per page of 2.5p for mono and 9.5p for colour – in the greater finish with the consumer scale.
And the Genesis itself retails at ludicrous £400 inc VAT. At that cost we wouldn’t go close to it, but there is a temporary workaround: if you’re fast and order before 31 March 2011, you are able to declare a massive £200 cashback from Lexmark. Using the price halved it is much more palatable, and even though we can think of several methods by which the Genesis needs to improve, for its sheer bravado and inventiveness we can’t help but like it.
The world of all-in-ones tends not to be the location to discover pleasure, but each and every so frequently a brave producer attempts something that really grabs our focus. You’ll already have noticed from your photo that the Lexmark Genesis S815 has a completely re-imagined bodily style, but the real interest lies in how it scans: inside sits a 10-megapixel camera.
Lexmark Genesis S815To be more particular, it’s a 10-megapixel monochrome CMOS sensor with an RGB LED positioned on either aspect. To scan, the LEDs carry out a quick double flash of red, then green, then blue and, with a tacked-on shutter noise for effect, the Genesis produces a composite colour preview image in just 3 seconds. It’s a scanner, Jim, but not as we know it.
Even when you add the process of getting that scan to a linked Pc, the time barely rises. We scanned an A4 colour page into Photoshop at 150ppi in just six seconds, and an A4 photo at 300ppi in just eight – and there’s a range of on-device choices for colour fixing, cropping and all kinds before you finish the task. Along with that blistering pace, the accuracy with the colours in our check pictures was superb, with deep blacks, vibrant reds and also the numerous graded blues of the summer time sky detected and faithfully reproduced.
On the flipside, the 10-megapixel resolution and A4 platen size mean the optimum feasible scan quality is 300ppi – this is very much a client instead of a expert device. Good detail was its only notable weakness, with soft, frayed edges on text and little components of busy pictures blending into each other a little in locations. Given the short distance in between the platen and also the lens – we’d estimate around 8in – we’re impressed with what Lexmark has pulled off, but it is not fairly perfect yet.
The scan technologies completely dictates the unusual upright shape of the Genesis. The standard printer component remains at the base with a 50-sheet output tray in the front; over that, the platen sits nearly upright, with a 100-sheet input tray also upright behind the main physique. Open the lid in the direction of you and, deep behind the glass, you will see the digital camera and LEDs, reflected by way of a 45-degree mirror at the rear. It tends to make for a tall and bulky physique, but its desk footprint is no bigger than a regular printer.
Lexmark has tried to pre-empt your needs: the lid hinges out by about an inch for thicker media, and you are able to comfortably hang a guide over the leading with the platen to easily choose up just one page. The on-device scan engine enables you to keep including documents prior to finalising a multi-page scan, plus it may scan up to four photos at once – a neat grip along the top edge of the platen stops gravity pulling them all towards the bottom. In an additional good touch, open the print flap in the front with the base and you will find a useful label with the serial number, technical help details and part numbers for the four cartridges, and even a little tray to store a cleansing cloth.
Although those cartridges would be the exact same as those in Lexmark’s much less extravagant all-in-ones, the engine has slowed very slightly. It managed normal-quality mono and colour print charges of 9ppm and 7.7ppm respectively, and churned out a 6 x 4in print at greatest quality in 33 seconds. That’s much more or much less up there with the likes with the A-Listed Canon Pixma MG6150, and whenever you mix that using the near-instant scanning, you realize copies will come fairly rapidly as well.
High quality is where this era of Lexmark printers have performed just a little less impressively in previous tests, and the Genesis does absolutely nothing to change that. Text and colour paperwork are perfectly good, with thick blacks and solid locations of colour displaying no speckling or frayed edges. But picture prints, even at greatest high quality, are middling; colours are great but there just is not enough contrast or sharpness to come anyplace near the brilliance of the Canon.
That’s fairly a significant weakness, but everything else concerning the Genesis will get a thumbs-up. It’s got each USB and 802.11n Wi-Fi connections, with one with the clearest and most intuitive setup routines we’ve used, and slots for SD, MMC, xD and Memory Stick cards sit in easy attain around the right-hand side. And it’s all controlled through the exact same superb four.3in touchscreen and SmartSolutions interface that initial impressed us so much around the Interact S605.
Just as we’re hitting our stride, the brakes are slammed on by the price. In the event you stick with high-yield inks, the three colours will set you back about £14 each and the black £13. That gives a cost per page of 2.5p for mono and 9.5p for colour – in the greater finish with the consumer scale.
And the Genesis itself retails at ludicrous £400 inc VAT. At that cost we wouldn’t go close to it, but there is a temporary workaround: if you’re fast and order before 31 March 2011, you are able to declare a massive £200 cashback from Lexmark. Using the price halved it is much more palatable, and even though we can think of several methods by which the Genesis needs to improve, for its sheer bravado and inventiveness we can’t help but like it.
