Printers/Scanners

This is quite a sleek All In One unit from Epson. As it can be wireless then the ‘lounge police’ become less effective as it could live in a cupboard or even behind the sofa as once up and running only a power lead will be needed.

A squat black box, this will be unlikely to pass the lounge police – unless they are goth – but it can be used wirelessly, however for those with no fashion taste – like me – I am only interested in quality of printing, copying and scanning.

Do you opt for a cheaper inkjet and pay extra for ink cartridges or select a more expensive printer with reduced running costs? Kodak believes the latter is the way to go with kit such as the ESP3250.

This is quite a large unit that is certainly a multi function unit. My interest was the claim made with that it 'cost 50% less per page than colour lasers'. I am sure we all know normally a mono laser is far more frugal than an inkjet.

This is an inkjet unit that is unlikely to be any smaller if it was only a printer. Yes, the scanner is only a flatbed, but I doubt anyone would use an inkjet to scan dozens of pages as the cost per page would make it uneconomic.

A small wireless laser printer that cannot annoy the lounge police as it can sit in a cupboard of behind the sofa and once you have connected it to a recent PC by a USB lead everything is done automatically no need even to insert a CD.

With the HL-2250DN Brother has produced an entry level mono laser printer to meet the needs of a growing number of homes and small businesses who have a limited budget but need a networked printer to be shared between two or more computers.

Currently occupying a portion of my available workspace is the Canon PIXMA MP640. This is an All-in-One device that offers print, scan and copy capabilities while giving you a choice of USB or 802.11bg WLAN connectivity when connecting to your computer system which can be either a Windows or Mac machine. Also included with this product is a duplex feature for those jobs that require printing on both sides of the paper.

Unless you need to print colour pages this is a very efficient way to work, I often need to print single pages this has virtually no warm up time. I scan single pages to print again very quick and finally email the signed page once scanned also very efficient.

Taking over my recent printing tasks has been a new product from Brother. This particular model is the multi-function DCP-J125.

This is described as a business inkjet. It is reasonably fast but its big selling point is that the cost per page is less than 1ppp when printing in monochrome. Mind you every plus has a minus it is unlikely to ever pass the lounge police.

You only find out how good a supplier is when things go wrong and have to be put right. The service that I’ve had from Brother to deal with problems caused by a faulty laser printer toner cartridge was exemplary but what are the underlying issues.

This is a multi function unit (it has fax). It is almost all cream in colour apart from a black band and black vertical paper tray. As an All In One it would cost less, if anyone out there still uses fax either at home or in a small business write a comment.

Joining the merry-go-round of various printers and all-in-ones that have been incorporated into my computer set up if one of Canon’s new models.

Continuing my examination of various Brother All-in-One devices brings the MFC-795CW into focus.

Giving my regular printer and flatbed scanner a rest, I have been checking out a multifunction device from Samsung.

This black and grey Multi Function unit (it has Fax) from Canon is both easy to use while allowing the more experienced user to get more out of it with ease. My only doubt is how many people today still require the fax function.

First came the Lexmark Interpret and this was followed by the Lexmark Intuition. Now it is the turn of the Lexmark S305 which follows the same pattern of being assigned a name beginning with “I”. In this case this multifunction device is known as Impact.

Following my recent review of the Brother MFC-255CW multifunction inkjet unit, it is now the turn of the company’s DCP-365CN model.

Most people say if it has fax it’s a multi function unit, why then do Kodak call this an All In One? That I cannot answer but I can be more helpful by telling you about the abilities of this ESP Office 6150 unit from Kodak.

This is an All In One (copy, print and scan) unit that is smaller than a lot of equivalent ink jet printers. At last manufacturers realise that fax is not required by the majority of small businesses as email has long overtaken it.