You'd be hard pressed to claim that Lexmark is always top of the tree when it comes to making astounding quality printing products. Yet the company's canny focus on targeting products at specific users continues to pay dividends, and the new P6250 all-in-one device follows that hard and fast rule.

There are several factors that weigh in its favour. First, the versatility of the unit is an obvious boon. It prints, it scans, it copies and acts as a photo printer too. It's also wrapped up in an attractive, user-friendly design that clearly is going to tempt users fed up with their technology over-complicating matters.

Throw in the thoughtful packaging, the photo card support, the built-in LCD screen and the software package, and you have a solution that on the shop shelf could easily look like the answer to numerous questions.

And it is. Sort of. The hesitation is because where Lexmark has been very focused on putting out the right package, it has not quite got the product itself right. Undoubtedly, it's one of the easiest such devices to use that we've ever set eyes on. Lexmark really deserves a lot of credit for that, but in other areas its performance is slightly lacking.

For instance, a print takes a comparably long time to emerge, and overall its speed was a small area of concern. The printed output itself wasn't bad, although considering Lexmark is billing the unit as a photo all-in-one, it wasn't quite up to the standard you'd generally get from a standalone photo printer.

A similar complaint could be aimed at the scanning functions. Again, for the undemanding user, what's included is likely to be just fine. But the fussier buyer will soon spot that the quality suffers on tight and precise details, and this obviously has a knock-on effect when the copier functions come into play.

Turning to the consumables, the unit holds two inkjet cartridges, and here's where you have a choice. One slot is for a three-colour unit, and the other can be used for a black-only cartridge or a specific three-colour photo one. The optimum way to use the printer is actually to continually swap between the photo and black cartridges, as if you use the device for a multitude of output formats, that's the way you'll get the best value out of your purchase.

There are some highly positive elements to the P6250, and some genuine frustrations. The print preview option, in conjunction with the crystal-clear in-built LCD screen, is amazingly helpful, and combined with the media card slots, you really don't need a PC to enjoy a lot of flexibility over your printing.

Yet the quality of the device is lagging just slightly behind. It's not enough to worry a casual home user, but as soon as your quality demands become notably higher, it could potentially cause a problem.

Nonetheless, for the asking price this is a lavishly featured, user-friendly design. It's just that Lexmark has managed to leave itself some room for future improvement.

Quite possibly just the ticket for a novice, undemanding user, thanks to its heavy features list and user-friendly design. Its printing and scanning quality may discourage the more demanding user, though.