Best Color Printer

The bottom line: Kodak's ESP 5250 multifunction printer isn't marred by the errors of its predecessors, but it still needs improvement before it can keep up with the competition. Right now, its pleasing photo quality and satisfactory output speed don't justify the $170 price tag and lack of features.

The 5250's wireless functionality is a nice touch, but the MFP itself is slow and minimally featured otherwise.

Graphics were easily good enough for any internal business need, including PowerPoint handouts. By today's standards the 5250's speed is best described as tolerable. *

The documentation accompanying the Kodak ESP 5250 is top-notch, and setting up the Wi-Fi connection is quite easy. The ESP 5250's scan and copy results were good overall, too. *

No fax functionality. *

Photo print quality is very good. Images are sharp and contrasty, with good details in both the highlights and shadow areas. Text quality is good, legible down to 3 points. The ESP 5250's single adjustable paper tray folds open and out from the front, and from it the paper-receiver tray and backstop pulls out. Scanning and copying times are slow. *

For the price (over $150), the Kodak ESP 5250 didn't perform as well as I hoped. In that price range it competes with some excellent Epson all-in-ones (including the WorkForce 610 and the cheaper NX 515 ) and even some entry-level Brother printers like the 255 CW . Photo quality is very good, print quality decent, but it's slow, takes a while to warm up, and had a number of photo-paper-related paper jams. Wireless was a nice option to have, but otherwise I liked the cheaper Kodak 3250 ...

All printers I have owned have provided acceptable image quality and this device is exceptional. *

Epson Artisan 810
Epson Artisan 810

The Artisan 810 is mostly easy to operate. Scans and copies were acceptable despite some general fuzziness; a photo enlargement looked murky. *

The Epson Artisan 810 is at the high end of all-in-one line; but for the price, it delivers a great value. It prints very quickly and photos in particular come out with startling quality and richness. It's got all the handy bells and whistles you could hope for, from built-in wireless (very easily configured) to automatic duplexing. And the printer's enormous (7.8-inch) and tiltable touchscreen makes it a snap to use. For a little extra money, this printer is truly a best buy.

Dubious build quality. Built-in fax and duplex printing. *

It is especially nice that the printer comes with a full set of standard color ink cartridges and two high capacity black cartridges, this is about $90 (MSRP) worth of ink. The printer is very compact. The Artisan 810 makes the process really easy because it is all built-in. The controls for the Artisan 810 are very unique. I was very happy to see that the fax did not actually dial until all the pages had been scanned into memory. The scanning was quick, taking about 5 seconds per page. *

Epson Artisan 810 includes a lot of features supporting Ethernet and Wi-Fi support making it easy to share. *

The bottom line: The Canon Pixma MX7600 multifunction is a huge improvement over the previous model. With additional features such as an autoduplexer, increased faxing options, and an upgraded control cockpit, we have no problem recommending the MX7600.

The quality was consistently high regardless of the kind of paper we used (although on plain paper, color images had a slight orange cast). Scans of text and photos looked slightly fuzzy but otherwise accurate. *

Text output in the middle mode is available at a fast 8.1ppm, and the resulting output here is both clean (especially for an inkjet) and dark. *

Like other Canon all-in-one printers, this all-in-one printer is a useful and hardworking tool. Print quality is exceptional and it's a real convenience to be able to use plain paper and still get good results. It's a big and heavy piece of machinery and it's certainly priced at the high-end of the all-in-one inkjet market, and I don't think the boost in print quality is enough to make it a much better choice than other Pixmas; but if you want the top-of-the-line quality and don't mind payin...

Replacement ink hard to find. Includes fax. *

Faxing with the Canon is relatively straightforward. *

The reduced height makes it easy to replace consumables; just lift the printer's top cover and slide the toners out. Text quality is very accurate at all font sizes but the printer's fine line quality option makes for better results at 7pt. Print speeds aren't fantastic, but the Brother HL-3070CW colour LED printer produces decent output. *

Extensive connectivity and simple configuration make Brother's HL-3070CW colour LED printer easy to setup and use in a networked environment.

The reduced height makes it easy to replace consumables; just lift the printer's top cover and slide the toners out. LED printers like the Brother HL-3070CW are allegedly smaller, cheaper, quieter and more durable than their laser counterparts. Text quality is very accurate at all font sizes but the printer's fine line quality option makes for better results at 7pt. Print speeds aren't fantastic, but the Brother HL-3070CW colour LED printer produces decent output. What's Not Small LCD display. *

Brother's HL-3070CW is a very good deal--for about $250 it can compete easily with color laser printers. (An LED printer uses LEDs rather than a single laser as a light source.) I found it fast, relatively easy to set up (though wireless could've been a tad simpler), and the output (color and black) excellent. Replacement toner isn't cheap (around $70 per cartridge), but the black cartridges are estimated for 2,200 pages and the color ones for about 1,400 pages, so they should last a long ti...

It is 41x47x25cm out of the box and the initial weight without toners installed is around 18 kilos so easy to move into position. *

The bottom line: The Lexmark Interact S605 multifunction device prints, scans, copies, and connects wirelessly with a streamlined user experience facilitated by an easy-to-use touch screen and customizable widgets called "SmartSolutions." Built for small businesses and home usage, the Interact S605 stands out in its price range and is well-deserving of our recommendation.

Setup is easy: Just insert the setup CD into your PC, and it walks you through everything, from inserting ink to connecting the printer via Wi-Fi. *

The Lexmark Interact S605 provides plenty of high-tech features like a touch-sensitive control panel, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Web-enabled widgets. However, expensive consumables and poor colour print quality dampen this printer’s appeal.

The Lexmark Interact S605 is reasonably quick to produce monochrome text documents, and the results are quite accurate. *

Photo prints looked very good indeed, with sharp, clear colors and images. Print speeds are decent across a wireless network, with a four-page, color-dense PDF taking about 40 seconds, and a four-page Word document averaging 15 seconds per page. Wireless printing was easy to configure thanks to the large touchscreen. *

At AU$399, the S605 isn't an entry-level MFP, and it doesn't carry the kind of print or photo speeds we'd expect from a premium unit. On the other hand, the LCD panel works beautifully, and the flexibility of Smart Solutions do give it an edge over a more locked down multifunction device.

Overall the print quality was good and the print speeds were very fast -- something you can't always say for inkjets. It's hard to ignore: it has Wi-Fi for network sharing, a very bright 4.3-inch touchscreen LCD , PictBridge straight-from-the-camera printing, and a memory card reader. *