Lexmark’s inkjet printers have had a pretty rough ride from PC Pro in recent reviews and Greg Caster, senior development manager for inkjet R&D, admitted to me yesterday that its 2008 range was simply a step behind its competitors. To change that, Lexmark is finally moving to individual inks for its next all-wireless range of inkjet all-in-ones, and introducing a fantastic touchscreen interface that I’ll come to later.

But the real news for me – and for anyone who ever has trouble choosing a printer – is the way Lexmark’s eight-product line has been assembled.

Currently, buying a printer is a confusing experience, with too many competing manufacturers, each with too many printer ranges that contain too many similar models and accept too many different cartridge types. Even within a single manufacturer’s product range, the variation in quality and speed can be staggering.

So Lexmark is taking a different approach, one that makes choosing a printer so simple for consumers I can only beg and plead with Canon, HP, Epson and the rest of the inkjet world to flagrantly copy it.

Put simply, whether you buy the base consumer model for $99, the premium $399 business device or any of the six models in-between, you’ll get the same underlying print engine.

Yes, that means the cheapest budget model will print at the same speed and produce the same quality prints as the dearest premium all-in-one. They’re essentially the same printer. They’ll also all accept ‘XL’ high-yield cartridges to cut print costs.

Where Lexmark will differentiate is in features, beginning with a basic all-in-one and progressively adding document feeders, ports, LCD screens, a 4.3in touchscreen, fax capabilities and all the usual extras as you move up the price scale. So, if you don’t want to pay for Ethernet and extra print trays you don’t need, just don’t buy them – the price you’ll pay is determined solely by the feature set, with quality and speed a reassuring constant.

That delightful approach aside, Lexmark was here to show off its touchscreen interface more than anything, and I have to say I came away impressed. It’s only on the top models, but the large 4.3in panel has room for nice, clear icons, and the designers have ensured the main copy, scan and fax menus contain the bare minimum of major options. Should you need to dig deeper, standard list menus can be accessed from there. (Click the image for a closer look.)

But many business users have specific copying tasks that they repeat on a regular basis, so Lexmark has come up with an innovative PC-based time-saving solution. Create an account on the website and, in a browser-based version of the printer’s menu, you can pre-select all the settings for a particular print, scan or copy job. Give it a name and save it; it will be pushed out across the internet to your associated Lexmark inkjets where it will appear in the custom job menu as an icon.

For example, if you regularly copy and resize your day’s invoices two-to-a-page and in draft mode to save paper and ink, you just choose those settings online, save the job as ‘Invoice Copy’ and it’ll be sent to your office printer’s menu. Next time you place your two invoices on the platen, instead of going through the copy menu you simply press the Invoice Copy icon and the settings are chosen for you. It’s exceedingly simple and saves both time and money.

There’s also a range of Eco options that can be enabled to save paper and ink, along with a similarly pre-configurable scan-to-email option that goes one step further by actually sending the email itself – no PC required.

It remains to be seen if Lexmark has significantly redesigned its laboured menu system on the non-touch devices, but premium users will certainly see a huge improvement. And the move to individual inks has long been required; sample photo prints I was shown looked promising but only our tests will tell for sure. A claimed 90-second top quality 6 x 4in print also piqued my interest.

They’re due to launch officially next week, and we’ve been promised a top-end Platinum Pro905 as soon as Lexmark receives them in the UK, so look out for a full review in the next few weeks. I didn’t think I’d be saying this following our last Canon-dominated group test, but Lexmark could well be stepping up to the plate at last.