Printers/Scanners
| See also : | Brother printers | Canon Printers | Epson | Epson Printers | HP Printers |
| Hewlett Packard | Inkjet printers | Kodak | Labelling machines | Laser printers | |
| Lexmark | Multifunction printers | Photo printers | Printers | Scanners |
A laser AIO has a huge advantage for those needing to print a lot of documents, it always prints at the stated speed. It can copy without the PC being connected and of course the scanner does its work in colour.
The Canon i-Sensys MF4010 is 42x38x30cm and it weights only 12.7kilos. Of course it is creamy grey so may or may not pass the lounge police. Installation is from two different CD’s the driver files etc are on one and these took 50MB of hard disc space. Omni Page (for OCR) and Presto Page Manager together take around 300MB but the whole install is less than five minutes. The print speed is 20PPM and it does this for as long as there is paper in the open tray at the base of the unit.
Anyone needing to print a little, scan a little and copy a little then this small light All In One unit from Lexmark may be the answer you are looking for and with its predominately white colour it may just sneak past the lounge police.
The Lexmark X2650 is 42x30x15cm, add paper into the tray at the rear and that adds 20cm to the last figure the height. Should you also extend the output tray this adds another 13cm to the second figure the depth. Both the extended paper trays are a mid grey colour and there is a matching band in that colour that forms the left and right sides of the unit.
Over the past few years I have had the opportunity to look at a number of multi-function or all –in-one printers from various manufacturers. However this is the first time that the product comes with the Kodak brand.
The Kodak ESP 3 is an all-in-one printer that immediately catches the eye due to its clean-cut appearance. Box shaped with curved edges, and measuring 422 x 298 x 173mm, the combination of matt and reflective black, with a patterned top, certainly gives a stylish look to this piece of kit. As is standard with all-in-one devices, the ESP 3 brings together a printer with a scanner and includes photocopying capabilities.
This is a rather neat looking AIO (all in one) unit. However being black I doubt it will pass the lounge police. However for those making their own decisions only two things matter, quality and speed.
The Epson Stylus SX200 is 44x34x17cm when no paper is inserted and the output tray is collapsed. Insert A4 in the rear and the last figure increases by 15cm and fully extend the paper output tray and the depth increases by 18cm. This is a four ink four cartridge offering and although lots of units print somewhat faster the quality is excellent.
Rather like their cameras I suspect this AIO (All IN One) unit is aimed at the novice and occasional user. While not doing anything special it works reasonably efficiently and perhaps most useful has some acceptable hand holding software.
click to enlarge The Kodak ESP-3 All-in-one printer is 41x33x16cm. However depth (middle figure) increases by 12cm when there is paper in the drop down tray waiting to be printed. All the controls are grouped together to the right of the landscape flat bed. This is a total of seven bar buttons and eight LED's all clearly marked as to their purpose. Mine was black, very un-lounge.
A mono laser is the often forgotten workhorse. One thing you always get from a laser is the stated print speed, in this case 28PPM, something all but never achieved from an inkjet printer.
This is called a business mono laser -at this stage I was not concerned- but it is small and many home offices would benefit from it. It is 40x37x23cm with all leads inserted, assuming you use the built in paper tray you need no more space than this as pages are delivered face down on top of the unit. It does have a manual paper feed and this with paper loaded would increase the first figure the depth by 20cm.
With the MFU (multi function unit) or AIO (all in one) taking up little more space than a scanner and providing the functionality of three or four products then the scanner needs to do extra things to consider a stand alone product. There are units that read vast numbers of textual pages at 16 or 20 PPM. Here it can read slides and transparencies.
click to enlarge
First the all important dimensions it is 44cm long, 26cm wide and 9cm tall. It is a very dark grey in colour and has the power input and USB close together on the back and the on/off switch on the right side. There are four buttons on the front edge but everything can be managed from within Windows.
While a multifunction device can cover a range of eventualities, sometimes you just need the scanner element.
The popularity of multi-function, or all-in-one, devices has resulted in a drop in the number of standalone scanners available in the market. Rarely does a standalone scanner cross my desk but this is one of those occasions with the arrival of the Fujistu ScanSnap S300 product. However this is not a flatbed model but a page or document scanner.
This is a multi function unit (as it has fax) but for me anyway the major selling point is it’s ability to print A4 photo quality borderless images in 68seconds, yes I do mean one minute and eight seconds.
click to enlarge Speed of photo printing has never been that important to me only quality, but when a MFU can print lovely images with great sharpness and depth in this time I wonder why some other units take ten times this long to produce an image. It is quite large at 47x42x21cm and will never pass the lounge police as it is silver grey and matt black. The front edge has 45 buttons several LED's and a 5x4cm TFT display.
"It ain’t heavy, it’s my Brother" could well apply to a new desktop mono laser printer from Brother.
While inkjet printers can product excellent results with regards to quality, the running costs of such a device can quickly mount up as replacement cartridges are required on a regular basis. An economic and viable alternative, especially when colour is not called for, is a desktop mono laser printer. Compact in size, a fast print speed and quality output plus high capacity toner cartridges all add to the appeal of such a device.
A 15x10cm photo printer with a tiny footprint. It does not use conventional printer ink so the output is always dry when it emerges, it also prints onto postcards – remember them – so ideal to send from your holidays.
It is 19x13x8cm when closed up. There is a 5x3.5cm TFT on top of the unit and this can be at any angle from horizontal (when it takes no space sitting on top of the unit) to vertical.
This is a small All In One unit, meaning it can scan, copy and print. It has a small TFT screen so it is possible to print images direct from either of the two card slots or even from a USB stick.
This review has not been without it's problems. Initially I got a lot of paper jams, I thought I could see the reason as when the paper was stacked in the paper tray it was very slightly convex, the paper guides however seemed to be fully open. I eventually managed to get another few millimetres and from then on no more jams.
This is a rather squashed looking grey unit, but it does have some surprises, it is an All In One unit, it can print direct onto CD’s and DVD’s and while on printing, in custom mode you get close to 30PPM.
The Canon MP610 is 44x40x18cm the last figure the height increases by around 20cm when paper is waiting to be printed in the vertical rear tray. Although it has the squashed look it is remarkably clean as all the controls are under a lid that also has the 5x4cm TFT display inset into the rear of the cover.
This is purely a photo printer and one that’s maximum paper size is 15x10cm. However it is extremely easy to use it does one job, it does it well and it does it quickly.
While this can of course be connected to a PC it is not essential. It can just work anywhere there is a 13amp power plug. It is 21x16x14cm when closed. In use the first figure the width does not change. The last figure the height increases by 13cm when the lid is opened to form a backplane for the stored paper waiting to be printed, and this together with the front dropping down to reveal the card slots and tray for the images adds 11+12cm.
This is a mono laser (all in one) AIO product that is neat, compact and virtually silent. In fact when I first saw it I could not believe it was a AIO because it was so small.
It is 39x32x15cm and that includes the slight protrusion at the back for the power lead. You will need a few centimetres of space above to lift the lid to place items on the flatbed. You need to allow space in front for pages to come out and also access to the small paper tray at the base. When you first switch on there is no great whirring and churning noises, in fact the only way you know it's on is a blue light.
This is a sleek low slung AIO (All In One) unit that without the black front may have just passed the lounge police. However it still is a rather nice unit that does everything rather well.
It is 43x34x15cm the last figure the height increases by 17cm when A4 paper is in the tray at the rear of the unit. The scanner lid opens landscape front to back and to the right of the lid are the only controls a total of eight buttons and some LED's including a simple 1 to 9 counter for copies. You can of course copy either in colour or black without the PC being turned on or even connected to the unit.
This is a multi function unit (MFU) as it has a fax and it also has a wireless phone unit attached to the side. I remember reviewing many units with phones attached but never a wireless one.
It is 36x39x18cm with the phone and it's socket adding 8cm to the 39cm width. The power lead fits at the rear of the left side well behind the phone so needs to further space, note I said power lead as there is no external power brick. The USB cable fits inside the unit and exits at the rear on the right side.
While this may look like just another All In One it does have the odd surprise of two. Certainly the silver grey top and black for everything else is unlikely to pass the lounge police unless he/she is of the Goff persuasion.
The Epson RX585 all-in-one printer is 43x43x19cm but once you put paper in the tray (vertical at the back) this adds 14cm to the last figure the height. Installation is reasonable although it does have several (linked) parts and once started just make a cup of coffee and look in on it a few times.
This is a six ink printer that also has a display and accepts inputs from various card types and USB sticks. However it is not only USB and Ethernet but it can also print via Bluetooth.
This is quite a low slung unit at 45x41x16cm, only the final measurement could be greater if you have the TFT raised vertically it would add 7cm to the height. As paper is stored flat in the base and delivered on top of this store no further space is required. The depth includes the 3cm that the power lead sticks out the back of the unit.
Multi Function Machines with wireless are not that unusual, what is unusual is that it has USB but no Ethernet. So you can setup for Wireless or USB.
This is not a large unit it is cream in colour so it just may pass the lounge police. The dimensions are 44x30x20cm the last figure the height increases by 13cm when the vertical paper tray is lifted and paper inserted. This is a printer, scanner, copier and fax. The scanning can be either sheet fed or flatbed and the printing can be duplex. For a novice the excellent software can guide you with wizards to do everything.
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