This all-in-one machine from Lexmark fits the term better than most. As well as the usual functions of printing, scanning and copying, it has an automatic sheet feeder, memory card readers and fax functions. The X8350 is also a very compact device, mainly due to Lexmark's adoption of the front-in and front-out paper path, pioneered by HP.

Up to 100 sheets can be loaded in the front tray and printed pages feed out onto the tray's cover. Since the device is intended for the small office, the comparatively low capacity of the tray will mean more frequent refilling. Even the auto-sheet feeder, built into the scanner's lid, can take 50 sheets, and that will get far less frequent use.

The straightforward control panel at the front of the X8350 includes buttons to start the various scan, copy and print jobs, a number pad for dialling fax numbers and a bright, 63mm LCD panel with controls for navigating the control menus. The menus are generally easy to navigate and the LCD display can also be used to preview photos from memory cards plugged into any of the card slots. All the usual formats are supported, including xD and MicroDrive.

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Software provided with the machine includes Presto! Page Manager, ABBYY OCR software and a clever little utility that produces PDF files directly from scanned pages. This is particularly handy if you need to add PDFs to a Web site or create easy-to-read e-mail attachments.

The X8350 uses two ink cartridges; one black and the other tri-colour. You can replace the black one with a three-colour photo cartridge for six-colour photo prints, though from our tests there's little visible improvement. Print quality is generally pretty good, with black text printing clear and with little spatter.

Colour graphics are also good with less banding than we often see from this kind of printer. Photo printing on glossy photo paper is sharp and detailed with smooth gradations of colour, though dark colours can be a little light. Colour copies suffer from the lightening of tones that we often see from inkjet all-in-ones.

Print speeds are slow and we measured them at around 6ppm and 2ppm, for black and colour pages respectively. Lexmark is honest enough to quote print speeds in normal, rather than draft, mode, but its claimed figures look over-optimistic. Running costs are about average for a machine of this type, with black pages coming out at under 3.5p and colour ones at around 24p.

Lexmark's X8350 is an excellent all-round office machine. The extra functions provided by the automatic sheet feeder, fax support and memory card readers are well integrated through the device's comprehensive software bundle. Both print quality and costs are well pitched and, at the price, this device represents good value for money.