Labs

This is the cheapest A3+ printer in this group test and going by the numbers should be here just to fill the space while the others shoot it out for the top prize, though as the saying goes, every dog has its day.

The Epson has six ink tanks and, as is standard nowadays, they're all separate. The design and construction isn't as impressive as the HP and Canon models here, but this is the cheapest device on test. Even taking the low price into consideration, the Epson does look and feel a bit flimsy - the buttons on the front feel like they've been salvaged from a Betamax video recorder and the paper trays are poor. You do get PictBridge support and a CD/DVD printing attachment as standard, though.

We have to say a word about the Epson software installation process here and that word is: bad. The installer looks as though it was based on a design commissioned by Fisher Price and it seemed to install thousands of items. On top of that it asked for our root password on several occasions, which though not the end of the world, it should to be noted that

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both Canon and HP manage to install their extras without nearly as much hassle.

On the speed front, the Stylus Photo 1400 was an impressive second. The Canon Pixma Pro9000 won by quite a margin, but the Epson managed a very respectable performance, with 3 minutes 20 seconds for our A3 prints. The printer is noisy though, and the aggressive way it grabs and feeds paper through itself is a touch unnecessary. This is not the printer to be using if you've just got the kids to bed or if you have neighbours because it'll keep them up, too.

As we mentioned earlier, this is the cheapest and least well-specified printer on test, which is why we were slightly shocked to see it clearly outdo the others in two of our print tests. The colour portrait showed an excellent level of detail and depth. Skin tones had a really pleasing and warm tone, though they remained natural. The level of detail was excellent as well. Even with fewer inks in its arsenal, the Epson also made the best of our standard colour test image, with a glossy and detailed finish that balanced the darker areas perfectly with the lighter section of the image.

In our other tests, the Epson provided very good results too, with it's only failing a magenta cast to the black-and-white portrait. Overall, this is a great device that produced high-quality prints with accurate colours and good detail. If you're on a budget, rest assured there's no need to stretch it to the more expensive devices here, as the Epson Stylus Photo 1400 is a fine printer. It doesn't carry off the Labs Winner award, but only by a whisker, and that's an impressive feat based on the printers it's up against.