The world of all-in-ones tends not to be the place to find excitement, but every so often a brave manufacturer attempts something that really grabs our attention. You’ll already have noticed from the photo that the
has a totally re-imagined physical design, but the real interest lies in how it scans: inside sits a 10-megapixel camera.
To be more specific, it’s a 10-megapixel monochrome CMOS sensor with an RGB LED positioned on either side. To scan, the LEDs perform 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 three seconds. It’s a scanner, Jim, but not as we know it.
Even when you add the process of getting that scan to a connected 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 options for colour fixing, cropping and all sorts before you finish the job. Along with that blistering speed, the accuracy of the colours in our test images was excellent, with deep blacks, vibrant reds and the many graded blues of a summer sky detected and faithfully reproduced.
On the flipside, the 10-megapixel resolution and A4 platen size mean the maximum possible scan quality is 300ppi – this is very much a consumer rather than a professional device. Fine detail was its only notable weakness, with soft, frayed edges on text and small elements of busy photos blending into each other a little in places. Given the short distance between the platen and the lens – we’d estimate around 8in – we’re impressed with what Lexmark has pulled off, but it isn’t quite perfect yet.
The scan technology entirely dictates the unusual upright shape of the Genesis. The standard printer part remains at the base with a 50-sheet output tray at the front; above that, the platen sits almost upright, with a 100-sheet input tray also upright behind the main body. Open the lid towards you and, deep behind the glass, you’ll see the camera and LEDs, reflected via a 45-degree mirror at the rear. It makes for a tall and bulky body, but its desk footprint is no larger than a normal printer.
Lexmark has tried to pre-empt your needs: the lid hinges out by about an inch for thicker media, and you can comfortably hang a book over the top of the platen to easily pick up a single page. The on-device scan engine lets you keep adding documents before finalising a multi-page scan, plus it can scan up to four photos at once – a neat grip along the top edge of the platen stops gravity pulling them all to the bottom. In another nice touch, open the print flap at the front of the base and you’ll find a handy label with the serial number, technical support details and part numbers for the four cartridges , and even a little tray to store a cleaning cloth.
Although those cartridges are the same as those in Lexmark’s less extravagant all-in-ones, the engine has slowed very slightly. It managed normal-quality mono and colour print rates of 9ppm and 7.7ppm respectively, and churned out a 6 x 4in print at best quality in 33 seconds. That’s more or less up there with the likes of the A-Listed Canon Pixma MG6150, and when you combine that with the near-instant scanning, you know copies will come pretty quickly too.
Quality is where this generation of Lexmark printers have performed a little less impressively in previous tests, and the Genesis does nothing to change that. Text and colour documents are perfectly good, with thick blacks and solid areas of colour showing no speckling or frayed edges. But photo prints, even at best quality, are middling; colours are good but there just isn’t enough contrast or sharpness to come anywhere near the brilliance of the Canon.
That’s quite a significant weakness, but everything else about the Genesis gets a thumbs-up. It has both USB and 802.11n Wi-Fi connections, with one of the clearest and most intuitive setup routines we’ve used, and slots for SD, MMC, xD and Memory Stick cards sit in easy reach on the right-hand side. And it’s all controlled by the same excellent 4.3in touchscreen and SmartSolutions interface that first impressed us so much on the Interact S605.
Just as we’re hitting our stride, the brakes are slammed on by the cost. If you stick with high-yield inks, the three colours will set you back around £14 each and the black £13. That gives a cost per page of 2.5p for mono and 9.5p for colour – at the higher end of the consumer scale.
And the Genesis itself retails at ludicrous £400 inc VAT. At that price we wouldn’t go near it, but there is a temporary workaround: if you’re quick and order before 31 March 2011, you can claim a massive £200 cashback from Lexmark. With the price halved it’s more palatable, and although we can think of several ways in which the Genesis needs to improve, for its sheer bravado and inventiveness we can’t help but like it
