Best All-in-One
Written: Apr 02 '01
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Pros: The best All-in-One unit on the market!
Cons: Bit noisy, large footprint.
The Bottom Line: The best All-in-One I was able to find, excellent printer, scanning and copying features are great!
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| Xorg's Full Review: Epson Stylus Scan 2500 InkJet Printer |
I've extensively used multi-function units from a number of manufacturers, including Brother, HP, Canon, and Epson. For a few dollars than than a regular printer, you can buy a device that also scans, faxes, and copies.
Unfortunately, many vendors try to cut costs by cutting corners on one of these major features. For instance, you can buy a unit that has great near-photo print resolution, but which offers weak 300x300 scanning. Or a unit that offers full featured color copying, but no fax, etc.
If you have an interest in buying a multi-function device, make a "Top Five" feature list, and pick the unit that best matches your particular needs.
In my case, I looked for the following, in this order:
- Great near-photo print quality
- High-rez scanning
- B&W and Color copying, reduce and enlarge, with feeder
- Compatibility with Windows 9x and Windows 2000
- Reasonable cartridge cost
- Tech Support
This Epson unit was the ONLY multi-function device I found that met my criteria.
The print quality is in a word, exceptional. Normal print jobs are near laser quality, and on high rez mode with photo paper, my digital photo prints look simply awesome. Cartridges are also very easy to find and affordable. I don't find ink usage excessive - which was the case with the Brother units I used before.
Scanning is also fantastic, and the quality is better than some of the stand alone flat bed units I've used. This is a pro and con - the scanning bed can handle legal sized paper, there is an option to add a simply wonderful 50-sheet feeder for long documents, and copying stuff from magazines and books is easy. The con is that the flat bed design means the unit has a somewhat large footprint compared to other single sheet multi-function units.
I also like the copy function - it does color and black and white, the quality is great, and it also offers reduce and enlarge. The only con is that copying seems to take a long time, especially in Fine mode.
What really impressed me is that the unit works with Windows 9x/ME and Windows 2000. Surprisingly, vendors have been very slow to offer W2000 drivers for their multi-function units - Epson was one of the only companies I found that fully supported W2000.
I've only had to contact Tech Support twice, and the experience was excellent both times. Once the scanning head got "stuck", but within 5 minutes a rep on the phone walked me through correcting the problem, which has never reoccured. The second time I contacted them about getting the W2000 driver and software (it wasn't posted on their web site at the time), and they FedExed it to me at no charge!
The unit has been a real workhorse for me, the only quibble I have with it is that it doesn't offer fax capability.
Not a big deal for me because I use eFax and fax directly from my PC apps, but if you do a lot of hardcopy faxing, this may be a serious drawback. (You can scan and fax, but this cumbersome.) The unit is also a bit noisy compared to others I've heard, but given all the great features it offers, I can live with that.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 350
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
Xorg
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Peter
Location: Manchester, CT
Reviews written: 57
Trusted by: 14 members
About Me:
Computer and Technology Gadget Addict/Guru.
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