By Alexandra Savvides
10/02/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/printers/0,39051175,44279348p,00.htm

Design

It's a rarity to come across a printer that has such strong design aesthetics as the TX700W. Coming from the same design house that gave us Pinocchio washing lines and mouse-shaped objets d'art, the Castiglione Morelli-designed printer is definitely a little different from the rest of the pack.

Sporting a piano black finish on the upper half and a matte-black plastic base, the TX700W also houses a control panel at the front, which pops out from the body and tilts up and down. Backlit buttons and the vivid 2.5-inch color LCD screen are equally as sexy as their surrounds. An array of memory card slots sit at the bottom right, completing the rest of the specs.

Its rather cumbersome size is the one disadvantage to all the clean lines--the TX700W seems to spread out rather than up, making its footprint a rather large 44cm across by 38cm deep.

Features

With support for CD and DVD printing, plus wireless and Ethernet connectivity, the TX700W is positioning itself as a do-it-all unit. Certainly, it's a multifunction machine in the sense that it can print, scan and copy, but the addition of these other extras has the potential to position it as a leading printer in its class.

The double paper trays (for smaller 10 x 15cm prints on top and A4/legal on the bottom) are positioned at the front of the device, though they feel rather flimsy because of their thin construction. This is a bit of a letdown compared with the build quality of the rest of the printer. The optional duplexer, which can be attached to the back of the unit, is sold separately.

Unfortunately, navigating through the photo prints from a memory card was a little cumbersome--there is no quick way to skip to the photo that you want, though there is the option to print a proof sheet or index sheet of images.

The TX700W has six ink tank slots for Epson's proprietary Claria ink cartridges. The company is claiming some incredibly fast print speeds for this machine--10 seconds for a 10 x 15cm photo print. So, naturally, we put our skeptic's hat on and put it to the test.

Performance And Print Quality

The setup process was relatively straightforward, though the bundled software was a little confusing to use at first. Documentation for installation is kept to a minimum; however, there is a substantial brochure provided, which will step you through the process of using the printer as a standalone unit.

We particularly enjoyed how there were snap-to-print levers in the paper trays, with common paper sizes marked on them ready to line up your pages properly. Unfortunately, the novelty soon wore off when we observed the flimsiness of the paper trays themselves. We even found that our unit came with paper lodged at the back from the pages (and tray) being inserted incorrectly.

For our first test, we printed a number of 10 x 15cm photos directly from the printer onto Epson's Ultra Glossy Photo Paper, and were astounded by the speeds that this printer could achieve. The longest we waited for a print was 29 seconds--incredibly impressive. Even so, the time did fall fairly shy from Epson's stated specifications for a 10-second printout.

In terms of photo quality, the TX700W was able to produce some very high-quality printouts. Even the smallest details appeared crisp and tack sharp, colors were even and not oversaturated, and blacks were very deep. Compared to printouts from one of the other multifunction inkboxes we tested recently, the HP Photosmart C6380, the TX700W's output was not as vibrant. The hues from the Epson were not as punchy, but there was greater tonal range in our printouts due to the extra color tanks (this unit has six and the HP has only four ink tanks).

For our next test, we performed a scan of a 10 x 15cm print that we had produced earlier. The TX700W scanned the image in an astounding 11 seconds, but while it was incredibly quick, the resulting scan was only just passable, but not ideal--colors looked a little washed-out and the image was certainly not of a high enough standard to make another print from.

Black-and-white text printouts were very speedy once the data had been sent to the printer--from final click to first page dropping on the tray, the Epson managed a respectable 34 seconds. The rest of the pages almost flew out, averaging around 5 seconds each. A4 color prints took a lot longer though--we timed our test shot at 3 minutes 7 seconds for a borderless print on heavyweight paper.

Cartridges

As the TX700W uses six separate color cartridges, the cost to replace the entire lot in one go is quite expensive. At the time of writing, we found the prices for these cartridges to be around US$14 each on average (though they retail around US$16), which makes the total cost of replacing all six an exorbitant US$84. Considering the speed at which you're likely to use up the ink, the cost of ownership is the big deal-breaker for the Epson. Add into this equation the additional cost of branded photo paper and the running costs will skyrocket.