Lexmark Genesis; All-In-One Printer with Camera Based Scanner

In this day and age, multifunctional printers are a thing of the past, with the norm being scanning printers and such, but now Lexmark has put a twist to the design by using a camera-based scanner, instead of the run-of-the-mill flatbed kind.

The US$399 Lexmark Genesis all-in-one printer has a 10 megapixel digital camera with a fish-eye lens that produces an image 750 milliseconds after you close it’s scan bay. The CMOS sensor generates a preview of the scanned image on its 4.3-inch colour touchscreen. 2.2 seconds after that, it has a full 300 dpi image saved on either your USB connected computer, or through 802.11n WiFi. The company calls the system FlashScan, and it lives up to its namesake.

What’s also unique about this printer is that it stands upright, which makes it somewhat of a space-saver.

Announced along with the Lexmark Genesis are the Twitter and Facebook SmartSolutions. These will enable users to scroll through and search their Twitter feeds as well as view their Facebook walls and print photos right from the device. Twitter is currently available for download. Facebook will be available next month.

Personally, I think this is a great improvement as old-school scanners take a long time to scan just one page, while the Genesis takes mere seconds. The price is a little steep, but I suppose you get what you pay for.