Epson Stylus DX7400 in Printers

Yes, that price surprised us too: an all-in-one printer, scanner and copier for an incredible £39 sounds too good to be true. As you'd expect you don't get a great deal for your money, but as a bog-standard home device it certainly has something to offer.

Much like the similarly bare HP, although not quite to the same extent, the DX7400's main strength is its quality. Both our colour document and tests photos were printed with sharpness and natural colours, sitting behind only the Canons in the results table. Be warned that draft quality is totally illegible, and normal quality text was a little rough around the edges, but for everyday tasks it isn't bad enough to really disappoint.

It also has the advantage of individual ink tanks, which the HP doesn't boast. As well as contributing to the good photo quality, this results in a low 4.3p cost per A4 page, and we obtained a decent 84 photos out of it before the first colours ran dry - far more than the HP managed, and we only had to replace a single tank to carry on printing.

There are problems with the Epson, though. We were taken aback when our first print job started, as the DX7400 is one of the most violently noisy devices we've witnessed, to the extent that it actually shakes while working. Then there's the limited number of buttons, like the HP - draft copying requires pressing Copy and Cancel simultaneously, an unintuitive combination we only discovered after searching through the manual.

Speed is also a weakness, with text coming out at just 3.9ppm, and our A4 photomontage took an age - more than six and a half minutes from start to finish, nearly four times longer than the leader. Scanning was just as slow: our A4 photo took a minute and a half, and our toughest 1,200ppi test took more than three minutes to come in. Text was captured boldly and clearly, though; and images were more than acceptable too.

It's not a bad device, and it's great value when you consider the incredible price. But with almost no notable features to speak of, and speed that'll suit only the most sporadic of printers, it cuts just a few too many corners to really appeal.

Author: David Bayon