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Scan Features (6.00)
Scanning features are very limited on the X342n. On the printer’s menu, users can only select the location of the scanned image. The software program that the scanner communicates with is QLink, a rudimentary scanning program which comes bundled with the multifunction unit. More options can be accessed through the Presto! PageManager file managing software. See the software section (link) for more information on this and other included software programs.
Scan Speed/Timing (5.59)
The X342n proved to have very quick scanning times. Compared to the three all-in-one photo inkjet printers we’ve tested, the X342n’s times were among the best. Some of the others, namely the Canon Pixma MP600 and the Kodak EasyShare 5300, had the same or better times at low resolutions. However, the Lexmark beat all the others when scanning at 600 and especially 1200 dpi.
In the case of black text documents and 4" x 6" photos, the multifunction printer only needed a few more seconds to scan at 1200 dpi than 600 dpi. A color graphics document took the longest, at 2.5 minutes, and an 8.5" x 11" color photo took a half minute less. It took the Canon four minutes to scan these last two document types, and the HP Photosmart C5180 took many minutes to perform the same task. All of the scans on the Lexmark X342n were conducted with the Presto! PageManager software, which comes bundled with the multifunction printer and has the most options for scanning.
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Multifunction Printer
Document Scanning Times
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Resolution (dpi)
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Lexmark X342n
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Canon MP600
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Kodak ES5300
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HP C5180
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75
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n/a
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12
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12
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7.9
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150
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16
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12
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13
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7.6
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300
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17
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15
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19
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8.7
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600
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34
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25
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51
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58.8
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1200
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38
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83
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fail
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254.5
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Scan Color Quality (4.76)
Color quality is scored based on how well the scanner reproduces the Gretag Macbeth Colorchecker chart, a standard chart used for testing cameras and other optical equipment. The chart, reproduced below, contains 24 color patches of ideal skin tones, grays, and colors often reproduced photographically, such as blue sky, green foliage, and others.
The X342n’s mean color error was 10.5, among the highest tested so far. The mean color error is the mean of the difference between the scanned and ideal color values of the chart. Reds, yellows, and greens showed up very undersaturated. The colors showing closest affinity with the ideal were dark and light flesh tones. The chart below is a representation of these values; the circles represent the scanner’s colors and the squares the ideal values.
The Lexmark X342n’s scanned colors were very undersaturated, with a mean chroma (saturation) of 74.6 percent. (Ideal would be 100 percent.) Many scanner and camera manufacturers tend to oversaturate colors to make them more appealing to the eye, or they make them adopt a different hue, as in making green foliage appear more yellow. Other than undersaturation, the X342n only exhibited shifts in some colors, notably cyan, which drifted both toward white and magenta.
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