Lexmark Genesis S816 All-in-One Printer Review

General Printing and Use

The touchscreen on the Genesis S816 is sensitive enough that a quick press will get a full response. The interface is clean and uncluttered. We like the idea that choices that are not available for the current function are completely hidden. We also found the Menus easy to navigate.

Print quality was good, but not the best we’ve seen. It is, however, good enough for most everyday tasks, and you won’t notice the slight pixilation unless you put the text under a magnifying glass as we do.

The Genesis S816 is compatible with both the standard capacity 100 cartridges (included in the original packaging) and the high capacity 100XL cartridges.

The high-yield cartridges are the most cost efficient. The high yield black, which is rated for 510 black pages, costs USD 28 (about 0.054 cents per page) and each color, which is rated for 600 pages, costs USD 29 (about 0.049 cents per color per page). (The page yield ratings normally assume 5% coverage.) While ink costs are reasonable, we would have liked to see these cartridges have more capacity so we wouldn’t have to change out the cartridges so often.

We were surprised to find that when the black ink ran low, the Genesis S816 just kept printing. It never posted a low ink reminder on our PC. We later found that it did show a warning on the LCD touch panel, but if you put the printer in another room, that is not terribly helpful.

When photo printing on this Genesis S816, colors were bright and accurate. There was a tendency for dark solid areas to show a slight dithering with the solid areas breaking up into small dots. Yet performance was adequate for occasional photo printing.

During several weeks of testing, we encountered no paper jams or misfeeds.

Lexmark claims that the Genesis S816 can print up to 33 ppm in black and 30 ppm in color when in draft mode, excluding the first page out. You will note that this speed is accomplished only in draft mode. Printing in the regular mode will be considerably slower.

The printer is rated to print up to 3,000 pages per month, making it appropriate for light business use. But with a paper tray that holds only 100 pages, if you do print 3,000 pages a month, you will be adding paper quite often. Add to that the fact that even the regular cartridges only print about 200 pages and the high-yield cartridges only print about 600 pages, you may spend more time adding paper and ink to this printer than you anticipated.