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]

It’s great to see that Epson hasn’t forgotten about home workers and small offices - it offers an extensive choice of one business inkjet! The Stylus D120 is a smart-looking A4 colour inkjet printer designed for those who do more than print holiday snaps. As well as producing impressive text quality and colour graphics, the 4-colour unit is one of the fastest in its class. With speeds up to 37ppm in black and white and 20ppm in colour (Draft Mode), it is ideally suited to relatively busy offices producing marketing or in-house materials. The Stylus D120 is also pretty robust, unlike most flimsy consumer inkjets, so should be able to take the strain of office life.

The wholly-black Stylus D120 (£59) uses Epson’s individual ink cartridge system, so only the colour that is used needs to be replaced. The benefit of this is that running costs are kept to a minimum as you only need to replace individual colours as and when they are needed. Another couple of other features which stand out are that it’s Certified by the Energy Star international standard - with only 15-Watts power consumption it’s more energy efficient compared to a laser printer - and a Network Edition (includes 802.11b/g Wireless and 10/100Base-TX External Print Server) is available for those who want the convenience of wireless printing.

At first glance the Stylus D120 (435×240x161mm, 3.9kg) is like any other desktop inkjet. However, it has a few neat technical innovations under its hood. Epson has integrated an innovative Dual Black Ink System into the Stylus D120 which increases print speeds and page yields. As a result small businesses that need a productive and cost-effective printer should find the Stylus D120 a suitable low-cost alternative to a colour laser printer - it’s certainly more efficient than other inkjets. In addition, the printer supports high-capacity black ink cartridges, allowing for even higher print yields and larger volumes of text-based documents. Unlike similar-priced monochrome laser printers, it provides the flexibility to print high-quality documents and photos in colour.

The model’s impressive printing speeds are achieved as a result of Epson’s new Micro Piezo print head mechanism. The print head has hundreds of tiny nozzles for ejecting ink droplets with the very highest levels of accuracy. The number of nozzles dedicated to black ink has been doubled and when combined with an increase in the speed of ink ejection, the print speed for black text is maximised. This means that in its fastest mode it will print up to 37ppm in black-and-white, but when the quality of the document is paramount speed will drop significantly to around 5ppm.

Featuring the latest generation of Epson’s DuraBrite Ultra Ink, documents from the Stylus D120 are as durable and smudge-proof as any other from an inkjet, in addition to being water and highlighter pen resistant. Manual double-sided (duplex) prints are also supported, and the DuraBrite Ultra Inks do a good job of not bleeding through the page. Black text is sharp for an inkjet using regular copier paper, but to make the right impression with customers you’ll need to invest in high-quality inkjet paper. The Stylus D120 does a good job of doubling up as a recreational printer too, producing above-par borderless photos up to A4 size at a maximum resolution of 5760×1440dpi. Epson bundles its own PhotoEnhance software utility for improving photos quickly, and the utility also recognises skintones, landscapes and skylines to enhance colour settings.

Many small businesses are using inkjet printers for private offices or for the home office, due to their low initial cost compared to a personal laser printer. Epson has designed the Stylus D120 specifically with these customers in mind. In addition to print speeds comparable to an entry-level personal monochrome laser printer, the high-yield Dual Black Ink System offers extra convenience for more demanding customers with large volumes of black text printing. The printer is also much more compact and energy efficient compared to a laser, and with DuraBrite Ultra Ink it offers a range of colour printing options from text and e-mail printing to graphics and photos.

That’s where the good news ends. We’re disappointed the Stylus D120 doesn’t come with an Ethernet port (single USB 2.0 port only), and as it’s not an all-in-one printer you can forget about scanning, photocopying, and faxing. And unlike most personal lasers, the Stylus D120 doesn’t support automatic duplexing. Furthermore, its paper input try only accommodates 120 pages - hardly a workhorse!

For individuals wanting to print their own short-run promotional materials in brilliant, high-quality colour easily, the Stylus D120 is worth a look. For producing razor-sharp business documents to send to customers, as well as large-run materials in-house, you’d do better with a colour laser (available for less than £250). A colour laser would also be a much better choice for sharing within small work teams, due to better paper handling and driver support, as well as higher monthly duty cycles. [7]

The PictureMate 290’s (£179/$249) improvements over its predecessor are subtle but significant - it’s faster, more affordable, and easier to use - and allows you to produce lush borderless lab-quality 4×6-inch photos in just 37 seconds.

Designed for people like me who can’t be bothered with the hassle of a computer, the car battery-shaped PictureMate 290 lets you view your snaps on its large 3.5-inch LCD colour screen before putting ink to paper. And a new zoom button means close-up sections of the image can be selected and printed. Direct printing from a digital camera and memory card is another bonus, as is the ability to burn all your photos onto CD-RW/DVD-ROM for safe keeping.

The LCD screen acts as much more than a photo viewer. Its user-friendly menu provides access to a range of editing and printing options such as crop and red-eye removal, and you can choose from colour, black-and-white or sepia prints. Different photo effects such as clip-art and text are also easily added. Flexible layout options let you choose to create an index card for quick identification of photos or to print photos with or without a border. An optional rechargeable battery is available for printing on the move, though the extra expense isn’t really worth it.

Keeping the printer in tip-top shape is a snap thanks to Epson’s PicturePack, a convenient solution that includes paper and ink cartridge, providing everything required to print premium quality photos. The PicturePacks are available in 50 or 150 sheet packs - resulting in a cost of around 20p per print. Though not cheap, this is still on par with printers from other manufacturers.

Just when I thought that home photo printing couldn’t get any easier or better than the PictureMate 280, Epson rolls out this amazing small-format photo printer. For those wanting optimum image quality without the need for manual photo manipulation, the PictureMate 290 is a stunner. I’ll definitely be upgrading … [9]