Tech Bitch

The DX7400 is Epson’s mid-range all-in-one. There are much better machines if money isn’t an issue, but if you’re value driven the dark grey-blue DX7400 is worth considering as it features Epson’s excellent DURABrite Ultra individual inks, memory card slots and PictBridge direct printing. Print quality isn’t too bad either and it’s a snap to use, though if you’re looking for a machine for your home office you will miss the lack of a built-in fax, optional ADF (Automatic Document Feeder), and even Ethernet.

Epson pitches the Stylus DX7400 (£49/$64) at the home and small office user, offering a complete printing and copying solution. But as we’ve already mentioned above, it lacks a few core features necessary for a work machine. It does allow you to make colour photographs on the flatbed scanner independently of your computer, but it really comes down to your individual needs and what you need to get from an all-in-one.

The Stylus DX7400 is primarily a 4-colour inkjet printer featuring Epson’s DURABrite Ultra Ink. It offer relatively fast print speeds of up to 32ppm in draft mode and it takes just 26 seconds to print a 4×6-inch photograph in draft, borderless mode. However, bump up the quality settings and you might as well put the kettle on - text documents drop to around 16ppm and an A4 photo will take a staggering 5 minutes. If you’re keen on digital photography, you may want to look at the slightly more expensive DX8400 (£99.99) which sports a 2.5-inch LCD viewer.

The printer is equipped with an improved Epson Micro Piezo print head. It features a new printing mechanism that increases the rate at which ink droplets can be ejected from the nozzles, resulting in faster printing for all document types without a sacrifice on quality But Epson’s DURABrite Ultra Ink is the star of the show. It’s a pigment-based ink technology that encapsulates each pigment particle in a protective resin coating. This makes the ink resistant to water, smudging and fading - useful for busy families. The resin and pigment particle have also been optimised to offer higher gloss photos when printing on glossy media and sharper laser-like text for printing documents, but you’ll still need quality Epson inkjet paper to get the best results.

Physical controls consist of a total of eight buttons arranged down the left-hand side of the machine, along with five status LEDs and a larger display that shows a single number for the amount of copies to be produced. There are two memory card slots on the front left edge as well as a PictBridge socket. As there is no LCD display, printing from the camera cards requires you to print a thumbnail page first - so hardly quick, convenient or economical.

Epson’s easy-to-use and feature-rich Creativity Suite software is included to manage, file and print photos. The interface makes it easy to access images from a range of devices such as a digital camera or scanner, while Epson’s Easy Photo Print makes it simple to remove red-eye if you don’t want to use your regular image-editing software. Epson’s PhotoEnhance software is also bundled and automatically detects skin tones, landscapes and skylines to give the best colour settings for high-quality photos. Again, advanced digital imagers will likely stick to manipulating photographs in Photoshop, but at least the features are there for less experienced users or those trying to minimise the complexities of printing high quality photos.

With a 1200ppi flatbed scanner it is easy to make PC-independent copies or scan using your computer. Epson’s Easy Photo Fix software helps to restore colour, remove dust and correct backlight on faded or old scanned photos, and ABBYY’s FineReader OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software allows you to edit scan text. Unfortunately, unlike the company’s Perfection V500 Photo (£180), the Stylus DX7400 doesn’t feature Epson’s awesome hardware-based Digital ICE Technology to remove dust and scratches from colour films.

The Epson Stylus DX7400 would make a decent addition to a home or small office user looking for an affordable machine to meet general printing, scanning and copying needs. There are much more powerful and capable all-in-ones on the market if you intend to print high quality photographs or scans, but the DX7400 is unquestionably good value. There’s no fax or wireless print options, but again this is reflected in the price. In addition, the individual ink cartridges are also cost effective to operate as you only have to replace each colour that is used, though these do cost around £5 each (£20 for a full set). [6.5]