BIOS: Technology Means Business

Lexmark's P450 is the first-ever inkjet photo printer with a built-in CD burner. The innovative P450 makes it easy to print 6x4-inch images directly from a memory card, Bluetooth-enable handheld device, digital camera (PictBridge), CD-ROM, or computer. You can even burn images from a memory card directly to a CD-R without your computer, a neat feature for less technical users who don't want to get involved with the complexities and cost of CD authoring. The downside is that the P450's print quality is disappointing, it's slow, and you're paying a premium price for the built-in CD recorder. There are better and cheaper alternatives if you're not bothered about being able to burn images to a disc without your computer.

Pros: Very easy to use; built-in CD-R drive; low cost-per-print
Cons: Mediocre print quality; very slow; can't print CDs

The white-and-silver P450 is a compact device (153x276x235mm, 2.95kg) that provides easy-to-use features for viewing, printing, editing, saving, organising and sharing your digital photos. In addition, you can print photos in JPEG format from a USB flash drive, view photos on a TV using a standard video cable (video port located at rear of printer), view and edit photos using the flip-up 2.4-inch colour LCD screen, as well as edit photos using crop, rotate, colour fix and red-eye removal features with popular photo effects such as sepia and antique grey.

Unfortunately, there's no fun image-framing options, retractable carrying handle, or optional battery pack, unlike Epson's PictureMate 500 (£149 ex. VAT). The P450 isn't designed for high-throughput printing either, as indicated by its maximum monthly duty cycle of 500 pages. Having said that, it's unlikely that you'd use this type of product for such large print runs, especially considering it takes around 3m 30s and costs around 19p to print a single photo.

The P450 has a thermal inkjet print resolution of up to 4800x1200dpi using a 3-colour printing system (cyan, magenta and yellow). The single ink cartridge is quick, clean and easy to install, so even technophobes should have no problem managing the device. The P450's paper handing is reasonable, supporting A6 Card (105x148mm), Hagaki Card (100x148mm), and 4x6-inch Photo or Post Card (up to 100x150mm), which is typical for this type of device.

Memory cards supported include CompactFlash I & II, SmartMedia Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Secure Digital (SD) Card, MultiMediaCard (MMC), xD-Picture Card, Memory Stick Duo (with adapter), Mini Secure Digital (with adapter), and Memory Stick Duo Pro (with adapter). As we've already mentioned, you'll need to purchase an optional Bluetooth adapter if you intend to print directly from a Bluetooth-enabled gadget.

Setting up the printer is a little quicker compared to a regular inkjet printer because you don't have to worry about attaching paper trays or inserting separate ink cartridges. You do have to run a printhead alignment test though, which wastes ink and paper. The only thing you have to do before printing is insert the 3-colour photo cartridge into the dedicated compartment at the front of the printer, place up to 20 sheets of photo paper into the paper input tray, and then connect the supplied AC adapter - you don't even need to connect the printer to your computer using the supplied USB cable if you want to print directly from a memory card or CD-ROM.

The P450 makes printing a snap and at around 19p per-print is one of the most competitive products on the market. Output quality is only reasonable however, with images suffering from noticeable dithering and lack of gloss. Photos also lacked a certain crispness and skin tones weren't quite natural, although saturation levels were good. This was due largely to the printer's use of only three colours and optical resolution of 4800x1200dpi. By comparison, Epson's PictureMate 500 uses 6-colour hi-gloss Micro Piezo inkjet technology for creating 5760dpi prints (2.5pl). Lexmark's printer paper was also disappointing, feeling course and unfinished.

The biggest strength of the printer is undoubtedly its built-in CD recording facilities, ease of use, and its ability to print from multiple sources. However, it's a real shame Lexmark hasn't managed to add a facility that lets you print directly to CDs, or create slideshows with transitions, as this would have been perfect for sharing with friends and family. If you do burn a slideshow to CD, you have to manually skip through each image one at a time. Also worth noting is that once you've burned images to a CD, you can't then add or delete images because the CD-R drive finalises the CD for use in another device. [7]