Epson Stylus Color 670

With an initial buying price this low, you might be suspicious that Epson is hoping to make a hefty profit on the consumables, but its running costs of 2.5p per mono and 7.8p per colour page are reasonable and slightly better than the DeskJet 840C. You also receive three Corel programs - Custom Photo, Photo House 5 and Project Designer 5 - and the usual plethora of Epson utilities for keeping the printer running at its best. Perhaps the most useful of them all is the graphical guide, which tells you how much ink is left in the cartridges.

Although the Stylus Color 670's plethora of good points theoretically outweighs its poor text printing, the fact is that most people use inkjet printers for producing text-based documents, and it's no use having a stunning photo when you struggle to read the caption. If you've got less than £100 to spend and need a photo printer to accompany your new digital camera, it's certainly an attractive option. However, if you also want to print letters, reports or newsletters, and don't want to keep on using expensive coated paper, the DeskJet 840C's higher print quality and near-silent printing make it the obvious choice.

Author: Tim Danton