Alps MD-1000

Another small thing that might just affect your purchase is speed, or rather the lack of it. If you've got no patience, or simply not enough time to wait an average of nine minutes for a five-page text document to print, this is printer is probably not for you. Printing full-colour images is relatively quick by comparison, but even the five minutes and 15 seconds it took to print a standard snapshot-sized photo is slow.

The Alps MD-1000's price tag of £254 is very reasonable considering the print quality and is close to Epson's Stylus Colour 600. It won't cost you an arm and a leg to run either. To give you an idea, a full A4 highest quality photographic print, including paper, will set you back just 62p on average, and a page of text, at five per cent coverage, is 2.4p per page (ink only).

The Alps MD-1000 is a good-value printer capable of superb quality output across the board if you use the right paper. It is slow, however, so if you've got a little more cash to spare, I'd advise you buy the A-listed Lexmark 7000 (reviewed issue 33, p156).

Author: Jonathan Bray