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All-in-one printers aimed at the photo enthusiast are getting more and more advanced and Epson’s Stylus Photo PX710W is competing with the latest offerings from both Canon & HP.
The PX710W is a big, black brute, with beautifully rounded lines and an inset scanner, which sits below the top of the control panel.
The control panel can be hinged up and locked in up to seven different positions. The machine has a bright 63mm LCD screen with a large bold square of nine navigation buttons to the right and two, specialist selection buttons to the left.
At the bottom right hand corner of the front panel are the usual two memory card slots, one for CompactFlash cards, and a dual-function PictBridge and USB drive socket. The paper tray, takes around 100 sheets of plain paper, and there is a photo tray integrated into it. Both trays can be left loaded with paper and switch between them through the supplied software. On the rear are sockets for USB and Ethernet , the machine also has the ever popular wireless connection.
Epson Stylus Photo PX710W ink cartridges are six in number and part numbers are T0801 through to T0806 inclusive.
Epson optimistically quote this machine as being able to print 40 pages per minute? This is achievable in draft mode, but trust me, you wouldn’t want to use that facility.
Epson ink cartridges installed, we started with our five-page text document took 44 seconds to complete , which is a speed of about 7 ppm and the 20-page document didn’t fair much better, producing a speed of 7.41 ppm. These speeds are quite respectable , when compared too the machine’s main rivals , but as usual these days, well over exaggerated by Epson.
On the up } side the machine doesn’t slow down a lot when you print color, still managing 6ppm in our test and a single page colour photocopy completed in an impressive 19 seconds, almost twice as fast as some of its competitors.
Epson also claims the machine can produce a 15 x 10cm photo in 10 seconds, hmmm! We found around 25 seconds, but then we didn’t try printing in draft mode – why would you want to print a photo on good photo paper in draft mode? 25 seconds is still better than print times from equivalent Canon and HP machines.
Text printing was better than previous models, with very little feathering or jaggedness that can haunt other models. On the down side, text did look a little grey rather than black. This is true of text on all-black print outs and those with colour components, but the colours themselves are relatively insipid, too. Text over colour registration is good, but our colour photocopy was lighter than the original.
When it comes to photographs, Epson as usual does a fantastic job with bright vivid colours and natural looking skin tones.
As mentioned before this machine needs six ink cartridges to buy to keep the PX710W running, you might want to try a good set of compatible cartridges as a full set of oem cartridges will cost a small fortune.
Verdict
Good features, wireless connection that’s easy to install, cd and dvd print facility and a quick printer. Let down a little by its normal print quality, but photo print quality is excellent.
