Digital Home Thoughts: Touchscreen Printing from Lexmark

"However, Lexmark is using its touch technology–which it’s calling myTouch with SmartSolutions (not to be confused with T-Mobile’s myTouch 3G phone)–for quite different purposes than HP’s. The Lexmark printers, unlike HP’s consumery model, are designed for use in small- and medium-sized businesses. Lexmark’s screens are Web-enabled (they let you scan documents and e-mail them without a PC being involved, and include a simple RSS reader) but don’t let you print Web content directly in the way that HP’s does. Instead, Lexmark mostly uses the screen to simplify tasks that you’d normally accomplish with the dedicated plastic keys that most printers have. And the SmartSolutions part of myTouch with SmartSolutions is a nifty-looking feature that lets you save multiple custom sets of settings for use by different people–potentially pretty handy in offices where folks share a printer."

I'm a luddite when it comes to printers, I just have a really basic black and white laser printer. Sure I print photos, but Costco costs $0.13 a print and is a minute away from my house. But, I do find these features pretty compelling for the office. In fact the scan/e-mail function is something I use quite often on our workgroup printer at work.