Labs

Olivetti's Linea Office is one of the larger printers on test and the cheapest device here that can send faxes. Setting the language and date was fiddly, but the drivers were easy to install. Print head alignment is automatic, and we were pleased with the sturdy build quality. It's one of only two printers in the group without a memory card reader, though.

The Linea's draft and normal print speeds were among the slowest

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in the group, and it took the longest to print a single page at normal quality. However, draft print quality was excellent, if not quite as sharp as that of Canon's PIXMA MP520. Normal-quality prints looked good, with dark, well-defined text. Colour documents had sharp text, although there was speckling on large blocks of colour. This effect was more visible on colour copies, while mono copies were banded and patchy.

Our photo prints had accurate colours, and dark areas looked sharp, but lighter areas of colour were grainy and striped. The printer had trouble producing borderless 6x4in prints. When we chose borderless photo printing, the preview didn't reflect this and our prints had a white line along the top and left-hand side.

Text from our low-resolution document scans was fuzzy, while higher-resolution photo scans were very grainy. Colours were accurate, though, especially in light areas. The scanner interface is basic and closed after each scan without retaining settings or previews.