Few, if any companies or magazines that we are aware of, have dealt with printing for a 3D artist’s portfolio’s needs. Usually we only think of reels and videos being our stock in trade. However, I know that I’ve spent many meetings showing my work, from still shot printouts. To this end we present the review of the Lexmark 7200.

With great anticipation I unpacked the Lexmark 7200 and connected it to the computer. The product information packet I’d received a few days earlier had made me most anxious to see how it would actually perform once installed on the test machine.

The actual installation procedure was as painless as a modern device should be. The drivers came on four 3.5 inch floppies. The 7200, like most high quality ink jets, has 2 bays for ink cartridges. The left and right slots are color coded to match which cartridge goes in which slot. You have 3 types from which to choose:

Black – Lexmark has developed a superior pigment based ink. Unlike most ink jet outputs it is highly resistant to water once thoroughly dry.

Color – Cyan, magenta, and yellow. Standard fare for four color printing.

Photo Color – Black, diluted cyan, and diluted magenta. Due to the fact that normal CYM are rather dark, with the light version you are able to more easily match your screen colors. Also by mixing these you are able to get smoother gradients and a wider variety of tones.

The Lexmark 7200 has a maximum output of 1200 x 1200 dpi. Which when compared to it’s closest competitor is about 38% greater. However, I’ve been mislead by numbers and statistics before and decided to see for myself. The purpose of this review is to look for real world results rather than technical superiorities. This is admittedly a subjective review, based on print quality and color matching with a slight consideration to speed and what print media is available (i.e. paper).

What a pleasant surprise awaited us upon commencing the actual print testing. Out test machine is a Pentium Pro 180 with 64 megs of ram running NT 4.0 workstation. All printing primarily done from within Photoshop, with the exception of one image.

Because our market is largely comprised of 3D artists we felt it was necessary to use these type images for our printing test. I selected our test bed images based on a variety of needs:

• Strong contrast, lots of black and white area.
• Bright solid colors.
• Very dark colors.

I was able to secure an Epson 800 for a couple days. This seems to be litmus test printer in the SOHO color ink jet market. Giving credit where it is due, the Epson 800 is a nice printer. It printed many of our test images a bit more quickly than the Lexmark, but when you are going for quality, speed may not that large of an issue unless the differences are truly dramatic. Though speed issues weren't a large concern in our testing, we've included the speed information for those who may be interested.

Perhaps most important in this review is the actual quality of the printers at thier different settings. We printed on plain copier paper, coated color ink jet paper, and Lexmark's Ink Jet Photo Paper. This photo paper stands out in my experience with other glossy ink jet papers. It is smooth, and doesn't have the rough coating that most papers of this class do. It can be printed on either side, which affords you the ability to print out a matte or glossy print.

The actual differences in the print quality varied between mediums and printers. We've included also scanned portions of corresponding areas to visibly demonstrate these differences.

With both the Lexmark 7200 and Epson printers being similarly priced our basic findings are as follows. On plain paper the Lexmark 4 color (CYMK) always looks better, with higher contrast and deeper colors than the Epson. With premium papers (Photo quality/glossy) and coated/sealed papers the Epson always had superior results -- at 4 colors. If you only had a choice between 4 colors and only used special papers the Epson would be the better choice.

But since the Lexmark is similarly priced it is our feeling that you should go with it. Simply because it's 6 color (CcMmYK) output is the best. It's print outs have less visible grain (dot patterns), good contrast, and accurate color.

I really like the Lexmark 7200, and if given the opportunity I plan to have one sitting on my desk as my printer of choice. The suggested retail is currently US$399, which is comparable to it’s closest competitor. Text printing is rated at 8 pages per minute, with the added value of water proof black ink. For a bit more money there is also a version of this printer with "Snappy" built in for capturing images you may want to print from your video camera.