The printer market is relatively odd, especially when you pay a lot of attention to It. At firs the standalone printer was the only type of printer you could find anywhere. Then all-in-one printers were introduced to the public but the main target for them was the small business and home office user. This was about the same time when the only models of standalone printers that still sold well were photo-centered ones.

Nowadays it seems like most of the multifunction printers recently released on the market are aimed at the photo enthusiast. Most likely manufacturers were bored of perfecting office features for multifunctions and as soon as they achieved that they asked themselves whether also including good photo capabilities in the same devices is possible.

A good example for this is the Epson Stylus Photo PX710W printer. Epson photo printers have always been remarkable and good value for money. But in the case of this multifuncton printer you get much more than you've ever dreamed of. The design of the printer is the first thing you notice.

The whole printer is black. The top half of the printer features a glossy black finish while the lower part as well as the top side (also housing an inset scanner) comes in a matte finish. The control panel is easy to spot and features a bright color LCD screen that serves well for navigation and previewing photographs. On the right side you can find a square of nine buttons that are also used for navigation while on the left there's a more specialized selection of buttons. Moving on to the lower part you'll discover the memory card slots, a USB port that also offers PictBridge capabilities and the paper tray with a 100 sheet capacity.


Since these Epson photo printers were mainly designed for photo enthusiasts, as mentioned before, under the hood they house six inks including magenta, light magenta, cyan, light cyan, yellow and black. All six cartridges are placed in the same holder. The printing quality for both photography and text is great. However the six-ink printing may translate into higher maintenance costs on the long run.

The only thing that's a bit odd is the printing speed the manufacturer claims. While Epson states that this printer can do about 40 pages per minute (which would be more than impressive if possible for an inkjet), reality begs to differ and claims a more realistic 7 pages per minute.

This still isn't bad but far from what you're told it's meant to do by the people producing it. On a final note, several features on this printer definitely make it worth a buy. It's got WiFi, which is always appreciated, six-ink printing which offers good quality and a CD and DVD printing function. On top of all that it isn't slow either so if you're out there scouting for a multifunction printer that can offer good photo printing then there's no reason why you wouldn't stop to give the Epson Stylus Photo PX710W a look.