The Epson Stylus NX430 Small-in-One All-in-One Printer

The good: 

The Epson NX430 stuffs a printer, scanner, and copy machine into a device that also fits in tiny places, and Epson's iPrint software extends your printing reach to compatible Android and iOS devices.

The bad:

The printer lacks an Ethernet port for wired networking, and its "moderate-capacity" cartridge bay may be a money sink if you print a high volume of photos and color documents.

The bottom line: 

The Epson NX430 "Small-in-One" printer is a solid investment for students and office jockeys who print high-quality photos and documents however don't have the space for a large format device.

Released in time for the back-to-school season, Epson squeezes a printer, scanner, and copy machine into a little device it's calling the "small-in-one." The Stylus NX430 occupies roughly the same quantity of desk space as your average Blue-ray player, and it performed twice as fast as the four other competitive models, with high-scoring quality results to boot. We suggest investing in Epson's extra-large-capacity ink refill tanks if you print a large volume of full-color documents and photos, but if price and space hold top priority on your printer shopping list, the $99 Epson Stylus NX430 is worth your dollar.

Design and features:

The Stylus NX430's space-saving design is that the printer's main focus, measuring a little more than 15 inches wide, 20 inches deep, and 11 inches tall. Relative to different printers, its size falls somewhere between a single function inkjet and a color laser printer, but at 9 pounds it's only half the weight of the average color laser printer and ideal for offices that regularly move workstations.

The center control panel sits within a console that rotates up an appropriate viewing angle. Though I'm not usually a fan of virtual-only button layouts, I like that the only buttons that light up on the NX430 are the four-way directional pad and the power on and off controls--the rest of the functions enlighten depending on the particular function you are accessing.

I did notice that the screen on this machine feels distinctly less responsive than the capacitive touch dials on the higher-end Workforce 845 All-in-One. By contrast, NX430's plastic surrounding the screen contains a tendency to flex as you press down on it, lending a mushy feeling to menu navigation. The screen itself never gave me problem in terms of virtual button actuation, however.

I can't fault a $99 device for not including an auto-document feeder or multiple paper input trays, thus all paper handling is fed through the single tray on the back and exits through the "mouth" below the controls. You'll also notice a memory card reader up front that lets you walk up and print from an expansion card without really touching a computer. You can preview your photos on the ample 2.5-inch LCD touch panel, and even make simple adjustments to crop dimensions, resize, or perform one-button touch-ups.

Epson offers you the option to connect the printer to your computer using direct USB or Wi-Fi. I assume most of you will prefer the latter, since Epson doesn't include a USB cable in the box. Smart setup on the touch panel may be a two-part process: turn on the machine and click Network Setting, then designate your wireless network and enter its password and that's it. The complete setup from start to finish, with a connection established on our lab network, took us less than 2 minutes. 

The installation procedure also includes a step that asks if you want the system to automatically hunt and install firmware updates, and we recommend you click "yes" when prompted; the appeal of Web-connected printers like the NX430 means you don't have to wait for Epson to ship you software updates, so take advantage of it.

Connecting through Wi-Fi also means you can take advantage of Epson's host of free mobile printing apps that allow you print directly from mobile devices. First, the Epson iPrint application for iOS and Android devices enables you to print Web pages, photos, documents, and anything else on a Smartphone directly to the Workforce NX430, though I noticed the printer cropped photos when I flipped orientation from portrait to landscape and vice versa, so I wouldn't suggest using the app to print important images like business presentations this way; it's more appropriate for quick outputs of snapshot photos and to-do lists.

HP Deskjet D1600 Printer series-Overview

Overview:

HP's most reasonable printer comes with a simple one-button design that offers you only the features you need for easy color printing.

Features:

Affordable reliability and one-touch simple of use, all for one low price.

HP's most reasonable printer performs reliably with one-touch ease of use, so you can enjoy effortless printing all at one low price. Get up to 2 times more printed pages using the optional high-capacity cartridges1?

Easy to set up and install for printing within minutes.

This printer is designed to fit in small places with its handy industrial design, and features only one button (power button) for easy printing. With its easy set up and installation process, you can also start printing within minutes.

Save more with resource-conserving printing.

Recognized for consuming less energy, this ENERGY STAR certified printer is intended to help save both resources and money. Its paper-saving printing choice lets you print multiple pages onto each side of the paper, saving paper while you print.

HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf MFP

The good:

 The HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf may be a compact mono laser MFP that boasts a cheap price, a compact design, dead-simple installation, and quick print speeds.

The bad: 

To hit its low cost, the HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf leaves off a few features, including autoduplexing, Wi-Fi, and a full-size paper tray.

The bottom line: 

The HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf is the company's least expensive monochrome multifunction laser printer. For the money, it earns our recommendation for its Smart Install feature and wonderful price.

The HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf is an entry-level monochrome multifunction laser printer that cuts only a couple of corners on its way to supplying print, copy, scan, and fax functionality for only $200. Built-in autoduplexing for double-sided printing and Wi-Fi networking are two features that didn't make the cut, however there are plenty of useful features that did, including a 35-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF), and HP's Smart Install application, which makes setup a gentle wind. We also found the LaserJet Pro M1212nf's print speed and quality more than acceptable, even if text isn't quite as deep and rich as the output from the HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn. With its low cost, compact size, and easy setup, the M1212nf is a great choice as a first multifunction laser printer for home offices and small businesses.

Design and features:

The HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf is matte black, lending it a little more of a consumer inkjet look than your typical gray or beige corporate laser printer. It's also compact and light for a laser printer, measuring 12 inches high, 17 inches wide, and 10.5 inches deep and weighing 18 pounds. Two cutouts on the bottom of every side are useful handles, adding to the printer's portability. As is frustratingly common, HP does not include a USB or Ethernet cable within the box.

HP's Smart Install app makes it easy to set up the LaserJet Pro M1212nf. Plug it into a wall, connect it to your PC (via USB), and turn on the printer, and a few mouse clicks later, you're done. Smart Install loads drivers and software stored in the printer's memory. After running our tests on a Windows 7 machine, we tried connecting it to a Mac Book and found Smart Install did not work, which is why HP also throws a CD in the box.

Setting up the printer with an Ethernet cable is almost as easy as setting up a direct connection. As with USB installation, you can use either the included CD or Smart Install. We opted for the latter. First, you must print out a configuration report using the printer's control panel by pressing the setup button, using either of the arrow keys to select "Reports" from the Main menu, and then selecting "Config report." 

The printer will spit out two pages of configuration details, one of which is the printer's IP address. Type the address into the browser of a PC on your network, and on the resulting Web page, click the HP Smart Install tab. From there, click the green Download button to install the software. After a quick download, the printer will print out a test page confirming it’s connected to your network.

After you get the HP LaserJet Pro M1212nf set up, you'll find it's a considerate officemate. Energy Star-qualified, it doesn't waste electricity, and it's fairly quiet during operation.

HP Envy 110 e-All-in-One

The HP Envy 110 e-All-in-One inkjet multifunction printer looks like a classy VCR, acts like a Transformer toy, and prints magnificent photos. It’s also fully equipped for cloud printing. Is all that sufficient to make you forget its costly inks? Aesthetically oriented home and small-office users who don’t print much might be willing to make the trade-off.

Virtually everything on the Envy 110 e-All-in-One is designed with appearance in mind. It forgoes basic black for a dark-mocha casing with copper-colored metal accents. Thanks to it’s extremely low profile--just 4 inches high--it can sit discreetly on a deep shelf. When needed, the motorized control panel tilts upward, and therefore the arm that catches the paper swings outward; otherwise, they tuck neatly into the machine’s smooth chassis.

Another classy touch is the heavy scanner lid, which slowly settles into place rather than slamming when you let it go. Everything on the printer feels rock-solid--an increasingly rare attribute when it involves any printer, let alone a consumer model. The solid construction also makes the Envy 110 quieter than most printers.
HP makes setting up the Envy 110 e-All-in-Ones easy. We chose Wi-Fi; USB is also available. The very attractive HTML-based interface lets you access printer settings across the network using your browser. The software bundle includes Photo Creations and HP Scan, which are both capable and attractive applications.

• See HP Photo smart 7510 e-All-in-One review
• See Brother MFC-J825DW review
• See Canon Pixma MG6250 review

The control panel is wide and flat, with contextually lit controls. The 3.45-inch LCD touch screen offers a crisp picture and smart response, though one might argue that HP tries to fit too much information on every screen.

The Envy e-All-in-One prints, copies, and scans, but doesn't fax. USB/PictBridge, SD Card, and Memory Stick slots are included for printing directly from flash memory. With the focus on looks and a sleek profile, the Envy 110's paper handling is, not surprisingly, low-volume. Although automatic duplex printing is standard, the bottom-mounted input tray holds only 80 sheets, and the output arm holds just 25 sheets. The worst compromise is the nontelescoping lid on the letter/A4 scanner bed. The design doesn't put much of a margin between the glass platen and the edge of the cover, so it allows in more light than usual; it created shadows around our magazine scan. Such shadows are easily cropped, but in our tests they seemed to fool the scanner software's automatic-crop function.

HP was in the vanguard of cloud printing. Web-based printing apps have been available for select HP models for over a year, and the company's ePrint remote-printing feature launched in early 2011. The Envy 110 e-All-in-One offers all of that functionality, as well as support for Apple’s Air Print.

In our tests the Envy 110 e-All-in-One printed very nicely. Images we printed on HP Advanced Photo Paper looked rich. Text was dark and sharp at both the default and best settings. We did notice some slight banding in images printed on plain paper; this effect became more pronounced in draft mode, especially with monochrome graphics. Scans and copies were good overall.

The nice-looking output arrives somewhat slowly, however. Our text pages with scattered monochrome graphics printed at only 5.2 pages per minute on the PC and 5 ppm on the Mac--poky compared with the speeds of other inkjet MFPs we’ve tested. Printing a snapshot-size photo at default settings on plain paper took 22 seconds, or about 2.7 ppm; but it slowed to 56 seconds, or a little better than 1 ppm, when we switched to HP Advanced Photo Paper and better settings. On the Mac, a full-page, high-resolution color photo took a slower-than-average 3 minutes and change to print.

Epson WorkForce 845 All-in-One Printer

The good:
The Epson Workforce 845 is excellent print speeds and quality of output, with overtime work in automatic duplex network hardware, wireless and mobile media through Epson's suite of services to connect mobile printing.

The bad:
Photo print speeds are slightly lower than the average inkjet, and the packaging does not include cables for USB and Ethernet connection attached.

The bottom line:
Although a bit more expensive than the workhorses of inkjet competitors, it is recommended that Epson WorkForce 845 for its refined design and connection of the cloud base Epson printer.

The Epson WorkForce 845 is the latest flagship of the company all in one printer for medium and large offices that need a multifunction device for printing a large volume of documents, photos and presentations.

The 845 serves a lot of features to help with the workload - in addition to the standard array of Epson printing, copying, scanning and faxing, the device packs triple connectivity options via Ethernet, Wi-Fi cable networks, as well as duplexing, automatic document feeder for hands-free scanning, and a 7.8-inch touch panel display with intuitive navigation.

The 845 is also supplied with the new Epson Connection portfolio of mobile printing features that not only work together with Google and Apple cloud services printing, but also include a free application for iPhone and Android application and the ability of print jobs to the 845 e-mail directly from any Web-connected device. With all these impressive features in an attractive package, do not hesitate to take the labor force 845 for the printing needs of high performance.

HP Office jet 7000 Wide Format Printer series - E809

High-performance wide-format printer with the capability to print stunning color documents up to A3+ (13 x 19 inches), best-in-class1 cost-per-page, and embedded Ethernet networking at an reasonable price.

Get lowest cost-per-page versus in-class inkjet1 and up to 40% less cost-per-page and energy use than lasers2. With individual inks, replace only the inks that need it. Plus, get more printed pages with optional high-capacity cartridges3.

• Enjoy fast print speeds 4 of up to 33 ppm black/32 ppm color (draft mode) or speeds equivalent to a laser printer with up to 8 ppm black/7 ppm colour5. Share your printer on a network using the built-in Ethernet, and the 150-sheet input tray.

• Print laser-quality black text, professional color graphics and stunning photo-quality images, using HP Office jet inks, and enjoy the flexibility to print on a wide range of papers from 3.5 x 5 inches, up to 13 x 19 inches in size.

HP Officejet 6000 Printer series - E609

High-quality, reasonable printer with up to 40% less cost-per-page and energy use than lasers1. Prints specialized color quality documents, plus, delivers high-speed performance and includes Ethernet networking for greater productivity.

Features:

• Print professional color documents for up to 40% less cost-per-page and energy use than lasers2. With economical individual inks, you'll replace only the inks that require it. Plus, get more printed pages with optional high-capacity cartridges.

• Enjoy fast speeds up to 32 ppm black/31 ppm color (draft mode), and speeds equivalent to a laser printer with up to 7 ppm black/colour3. Share resources with built-in Ethernet, and handle high print volumes with the 250-sheet input paper tray.

• Print high-quality photos, cover pages, fliers, and other documents with borderless printing, and enjoy fast-drying documents, using papers with the ColorLok logo.

Dell Wasabi PZ310 Mobile Photo Printer

When Dell gave the Wasabi PZ310 Mobile Printer its distinctive name, it clearly wanted to convey the none-too-subtle message that it's hot. The name virtually begged for bad puns from reviewers who debated whether the printer was hot or not. Personally, I wish the folks at Dell had named it the Salsa, which would give me the choice of branding it mild, medium, or hot, in which case I'd call it medium.

The PZ310 is the second printer available in the U.S. to use ZINK technology. The first was the Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer. These two are the first examples of a really new category of printer, clearly separate from traditional small-format dedicated photo printers.

Small-format photo printers—like the Editors' Choice Epson Picture Mate Dash for example—are typically designed to print on a maximum of either 4-by-6 or 5-by-7 paper, and they are aimed at people who want to print photos at home that at least match drugstore-level photo quality. The Dell and Polaroid printers are limited to 2-by-3-inch photos and are aimed at anyone who wants the freedom to print pictures from their cameras and camera phones anywhere and anytime. Some suggest that the category will be particularly popular with teenagers, but I'd argue that these printers will appeal to gadget freaks of any age.

For both small-format printers and the new category of instant digital printers, the paper size determines how small the printer can be. The Picture Mate Dash, for example, is about the size of a lunch box and weighs about 5 pounds. Some printers in the category are a little smaller and lighter, but all weigh at least 2 or 3 pounds. In general, these small-format printers are small and light enough to be reasonably portable so that you can occasionally carry them to print pictures at special events. But you definitely wouldn't want to carry them with you all the time.

The instant digital printers, by difference, are much smaller and weigh only a few ounces each, so you can carry them with you virtually all the time—much like a cell phone. In fact, they are very pretty much designed as companions to camera phones and digital cameras. Polaroid, the inventor of the classic instant camera, also draws the parallel to its roots, pointing out that its ZINK-based printer offers the same functionality for digital photos as its film-based instant camera did for analog photos. 

The same is true of the Dell printer. You can take a picture, print it, and have it to look at, all in about 60 seconds. In short, if you miss your old Polaroid film-based instant-photo camera, you can recapture much the same experience with either the Dell or Polaroid ZINK-based printer.

When you are second to market with a new technology, as is Dell in this case, it helps to bring something new to the table so that you can stand out from the original. The Wasabi doesn't really do this—in fact, it's nearly identical in almost every way. Though not quite twins, the two are certainly close cousins.

HP Deskjet 1000

The advantage of doing without scanner, copier and all those extra features is that it keeps the price of your printer down, and the DeskJet 1000’s current price of just is hard to beat if you’re on a tight budget. Yet despite the low price the DeskJet 1000 actually performs pretty well.

Text quality is very good, with smoothly detailed text that would give a more luxurious laser printer a run for its money. The print speed was attractive good too – right on HP’s estimate of 5.5 pages per minute. Colored documents were somewhat slower at 3ppm, but that still makes it a match for many of its more expensive rivals.

Photo output on plain paper showed some very slight signs of banding, but wasn’t a problem when using the photo papers designed for this purpose. However, the 100 seconds printing time for a 4x6in postcard print makes it clear that the DeskJet is really only suitable for occasional photo prints.

That impression is confirmed by the DeskJet’s running costs. HP’s ink cartridges cost roughly the same as those of its rivals, but the page yields for those cartridges are definitely below average – less than 200 pages for simple black and white documents – and that pushes the printing costs up to almost 7p per page for black and white, and 17p per page for color documents. To be fair, HP does sell ‘XL’ cartridges and value packs that can cut those costs considerably, but it’s clear that the DeskJet 1000 is really just intended for home users with very light printing requirements.

Needless to say, as well as being a single function inkjet printer, the DeskJet 1000 has neither Wi-Fi nor a memory card slot for printing photos straight from a digital camera.

HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One C310a

HP’s Photo smart Premium e-All-in-One (C310a) is an inkjet multifunction with a letter-sized flatbed scanner with scans and copy capabilities. It also offers a long list of hot printing features, like 802.11 wireless printing, a 4.3-inch Touch Smart control screen, the capacity to download and use dozens of Internet printing apps, support for Apple’s Air Print, as well as HP’s own ePrinttechnology. Compared to the like-priced Epson Artisan 725 and Canon Pixma MG5220, the Photo smart Premium e-All-in-One is faster, but not quite as well equipped.

The Photo smart Premium uses five individual ink cartridges: cyan, magenta, yellow, black and photo black. The Photo smart Premium comes with special setup ink cartridges that actually have more ink than the standard ink cartridges. The extra ink in the setup cartridges is there to compensate for the ink used during the initial printer calibration.

The costs for replacement inks are just average; the standard-size cartridges include a 250-page, $12 black and 300-page, $10 cyan, magenta, and yellow. It all adds up to 14.8 cents per four-color page. High-yield supplies are significantly cheaper: The 800-page black costs $35, while each 750-page color costs $18, making for an 11.6-cent, four-color page. A fifth color, photo black, costs $10 for the standard size, which lasts for about 130 4-by-6-inch photos; the high-yield, 290-photo size costs $18.

It’s been a short time since I’ve reviewed an HP printer, and it seems that the software has been refined considerably—dumping fewer icons into the dock and giving more control over what appears where.

In our speed tests, the Photo smart Premium turned in remarkable results. It joined a pretty exclusive club of competitors who needed less than a minute to print our 10-page colorless text file in Word at normal settings. At the other end of the spectrum is our Adobe Photoshop test, a 22MB, letter-sized color photo printed at Best quality: the Photo smart Premium took about two and a half minutes to emerge—an above-average time.

The resulting print was of superior quality; colors were pleasing, with no visible dot patterns or banding, and good detail in darker areas. Choosing a lower-quality setting will, of course reduce the print time, but the quality suffers as a result. Interestingly, choosing Highest DPI print settings, while taking longer to print than the Best setting, did not make much of a difference in image quality. Text quality was also very good, with clean type filled in nicely, though we noticed that the edges were a bit soft.

HP Photosmart Premium e-All-in-One C310a

HP’s Photo smart Premium e-All-in-One (C310a) is an inkjet multifunction with a letter-sized flatbed scanner with scans and copy capabilities. It also offers a long list of hot printing features, like 802.11 wireless printing, a 4.3-inch Touch Smart control screen, the capacity to download and use dozens of Internet printing apps, support for Apple’s Air Print, as well as HP’s own ePrinttechnology. Compared to the like-priced Epson Artisan 725 and Canon Pixma MG5220, the Photo smart Premium e-All-in-One is faster, but not quite as well equipped.

The Photo smart Premium uses five individual ink cartridges: cyan, magenta, yellow, black and photo black. The Photo smart Premium comes with special setup ink cartridges that actually have more ink than the standard ink cartridges. The extra ink in the setup cartridges is there to compensate for the ink used during the initial printer calibration.

The costs for replacement inks are just average; the standard-size cartridges include a 250-page, $12 black and 300-page, $10 cyan, magenta, and yellow. It all adds up to 14.8 cents per four-color page. High-yield supplies are significantly cheaper: The 800-page black costs $35, while each 750-page color costs $18, making for an 11.6-cent, four-color page. A fifth color, photo black, costs $10 for the standard size, which lasts for about 130 4-by-6-inch photos; the high-yield, 290-photo size costs $18.

It’s been a short time since I’ve reviewed an HP printer, and it seems that the software has been refined considerably—dumping fewer icons into the dock and giving more control over what appears where.

In our speed tests, the Photo smart Premium turned in remarkable results. It joined a pretty exclusive club of competitors who needed less than a minute to print our 10-page colorless text file in Word at normal settings. At the other end of the spectrum is our Adobe Photoshop test, a 22MB, letter-sized color photo printed at Best quality: the Photo smart Premium took about two and a half minutes to emerge—an above-average time. 

The resulting print was of superior quality; colors were pleasing, with no visible dot patterns or banding, and good detail in darker areas. Choosing a lower-quality setting will, of course reduce the print time, but the quality suffers as a result. Interestingly, choosing Highest DPI print settings, while taking longer to print than the Best setting, did not make much of a difference in image quality. Text quality was also very good, with clean type filled in nicely, though we noticed that the edges were a bit soft. 

About Dell 5230dn Laser Printer

The Dell 5230dn monochrome laser printer may cost more up front, but its speed and expandability make it an excellent choice for a medium-size workgroup. And with its three-year limited warranty with next-business-day on-site service--not to mention its cheap toner--it's a great buy in the long term.

The 5230dn offers plenty of standard features, plus room to grow. It supports a combined 350 pages of input from the main and versatile trays. You can add up to three 550-sheet drawers and a 2000-sheet drawer feeder for a maximum capacity of 4000 sheets.

Equipped with USB and Ethernet ports, the 5230dn also has a slot for optional serial or corresponding connectors. An empty bay lets you add a hard drive for fonts or forms. The control panel has a 3-inch, four-line, backlit monochrome LCD that can tilt upward slightly, plus clearly labeled buttons, a keypad, and a front USB port.

Built for high-volume printing, the 5230dn has a 200,000-page monthly duty cycle and very good speed. It averaged 23.4 pages per minute on a PC and 21.5 ppm on a Mac when printing mostly plain text with some simple monochrome graphics. Though the text quality was as good as you had expected, images suffered from a limited grayscale range and slower print times.

A high-volume office needs cheap toner, and the 5230dn delivers that. Replacement use-and-return cartridges come in $140, 7000-page standard and, 21,000-page high-yield sizes, working out to 2 cents and 1.4 cents per page, respectively. Nonreturnable cartridges are available at a significantly higher cost.The printer even ships with a standard cartridge rather than a lower-capacity "starter" unit. Cartridges are easy to remove and replace; the cartridge itself displays clear illustrations, just in case.

A busy office needs a printer that can keep speed. The Dell 5230dn can do that--and it can grow with your business. The inexpensive toner and generous warranty sweeten the deal.

Canon Pixma MG5120 All-In-One Photo Printer

The Canon Pixma MG5120 All-in-One Photo Printer is an attractive multifunction printer (MFP) for its budget price. It provides good photo quality, a solid feature set, and enough paper capacity that it can do double duty in home and residence office, provided that you don't need to share the printer—it's limited to direct connectivity with a PC over a USB cable.

The MG5120 can be able to print, copy, and scan. It uses 5 ink tanks, including a pigment black. One of the MG5120's strengths is that it can print directly from a variety of media sources, using its tilt-up 2.4-inch LCD screen to preview images. It has a port for a USB thumb drive or PictBridge-enabled camera, and its card reader supports a number of memory-card formats. You can connect it to a Bluetooth device with an optional Bluetooth adapter.

It also has a relatively new Canon feature, Full HD Movie Print, which enables users of compatible Canon EOS and Powers hot digital cameras to print out frames from HD (either 720p or 1080p) videos shot with these cameras. From Full HD Movie Print, a user can select a video, play through it forward or backwards, capture frames, and print them out.

The glossy black MG5120 measures 6.3 by 17.9 by 14.5 inches and weighs 17 pounds. It has a 150-sheet paper tray, enough for light-duty home-office work, and a built-in automatic duplexer. As the MG5120 is limited to USB connectivity, we tested it connected to a PC running Windows Vista.

Dell 1350cnw Color LED Printer

Small enough to fit on a desk to use as a personal color printer in any size at your office, but capable enough to use as a shared printer in a small office or workgroup, the Dell 1350cnw Color LED Printer delivers laser-class output quality and speed in a surprisingly small package. It also delivers a balance of speed, output quality, and features that are impressive enough to make it an Editors' Choice.

Design and Features:
Not moderately twice the price of the Konica Minolta magi color 1600W ($180, 4 stars), which is aimed primarily at personal use, and a little less than half the price of the Xerox Phaser 6280DN ($649, 4 stars), which is clearly aimed at a small office or workgroup, it not only offers a middle ground in price but also in other key features as well, most notably speed.

At 8.9 by 15.5 by 11.8-inches (HWD), the 1350cnw takes up less desk space than many ink jets and is actually smaller than the 1600W in every dimension. It also weighs little enough, at 23.4 pounds, that most people should be able to move it by themselves.

The printer offers both Wi-Fi and wired network support. Setup on a wired network it's mostly standard fare, except that the automated installation can be a little confusing. In my tests, when the program searched the network, it found two choices for the one printer and waited for me to choose one, with no indication why I should pick one or the other.

Dell says the program normally returns only one choice, and the company is still looking into the issue at this writing. In any case, if you run into the same problem, and you're not highly knowledgeable about network printer issues, you may need to call Dell tech support to get through the installation.

Polaroid Grey Label GL10 Instantaneous Mobile Printer

It never happen to me that one day I had be reviewing something designed by Lady Gaga, much less that the something would be a printer. But that day and that something are both here, in the form of the Polaroid Grey Label GL10 Instant Mobile Printer ($169.99 direct). How much Lady Gaga, or more precisely Haus of Gaga, actually had to do with the design in her role of Creative Director is unclear, but Polaroid has certainly come up with a stimulating portable photo printer.

Built around a much enhanced, second-generation ZINK technology, the GL10 carries forward most of what was good about the first-generation Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer while enormously improving on its shortcomings. The result is a much more attractive product, not even counting whatever touches Lady Gaga threw in on the industrial design side.

ZINK technology, which we have also seen in the Polaroid Pogo Instant Digital Camera and Pan digital Portable Photo Printer, is still new enough that you may not be familiar with it. Briefly, the name is short for zero ink, the point being that paper is the only thing you need to load in the printer. The ZINK paper includes its own ink (in the most generic sense) embedded in the paper as clear dye crystals. The printer creates an image by using heat to activate the crystals, so they'll show color.

The GL10 differs from earlier ZINK printers in two key ways. The first generation printers were limited to 2- by 3-inch photos. The GL10 prints at 3 by 4 inches. More important, the image quality is far better.
The Polaroid Grey Label GL10 Instant Mobile Printer delivers far better-looking photos than Polaroid's first-generation ZINK printer—and larger photos, too.

Canon Color imageClass MF9280cdn

The Canon Color image Class MF9280Cdn ($2,295 list), a color MFP (multifunction printer) for workgroups and small offices, is a slightly improved version of the Canon Color image Class MF9220Cdn ($1,000 street, 3.5 stars). Although the additional features it offers will be helpful to some offices, at least one (two additional printer drivers) comes with a downside that may limit its usefulness, and it may be hard to justify the premium you'd pay over the cost of the MF9220Cdn.

The price difference between the models isn't virtually as great as the stated prices would indicate, as street prices are often substantially lower than list. A spot check of the prices offered by 5 e-tailors who stock both models indicates that the MF9280Cdn sells for about $450 more than the MF9220Cdn.     

             

What do you get for the extra $450? Two card slots, for one thing. The larger slot supports Compact Flash, which many printers eschew these days, and the smaller handles various formats including the SD, Micro Drive, and Memory Stick families (an adaptor is needed for mini-SD and Memory Stick Duo). The MF9280Cdn also ups the printer and copier's shared memory from 384MB to 768MB, and adds a 100-number address book to the MF9220Cdn's 200 one-touch speed-dial numbers.      

                     

Features:

The MF9280Cdn is a big and heavy MFP, weighing 94 pounds with cartridges in place and measuring 24.9 by 21.5 by 20.8 inches (HWD). Its large tilt-up front panel includes an alphanumeric keypad, a 4-way controller, and a 3.5-inch color LCD display. On one edge of the panel are two ports for USB thumb drives; on the other, the two memory card slots.

A 50-sheet duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) lets users copy, scan, or fax both sides of multipage documents at up to legal size. A 250-sheet main paper tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose feeder are included, as well as an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. An optional 500-sheet paper tray is also available, for $299 (direct). Speaking of paper handling, the MF9280Cdn has a rated duty cycle of 65,000 pages, which should be more than enough for most small offices.

About Dell 2350dn

If you're looking for a printer for modest to heavy-duty printing for your small office or workgroup, don't need color, and must have high-quality text, the Dell 2350dn ($299.99 direct) should be on your short list. Although it's slower than you would expect from its 40 page-per-minute (ppm) rating, it offers reasonable speed, high quality output across the board, and suitable paper capacity for a small office, making it a more than reasonable choice, particularly if you care more about output quality than speed.

Even if output quality isn't your primary need, you might still want to consider the 2350dn. Although it isn't a match otherwise for the Editors' Choice OKI B431dn ($349.99 direct, 4 stars), which is smaller, lighter, faster, and offers a bit higher paper capacity, it doesn't cost as much either. That should be enough to keep it in the running in any case.

Basics and Speed:
At 10.5 by 16.8 by 14.6 inches (HWD) and 31.2 pounds, the 2350dn is a touch too large and heavy to qualify as a personal printer. However, it actually takes up less desktop space than many inkjets, which means it shouldn't be hard to find room for even in a small office where space is tight.
The paper capacity is 300 sheets, divided into a 250-sheet drawer and 50-sheet multipurpose tray, so you can have two different types of paper loaded at once and change paper easily. For offices with more heavy-duty print needs, Dell sells a 550-sheet tray ($99.99 direct), for a total 850-sheet capacity. The printer also comes with a duplexer for printing on both sides of a page.

Output Quality and Other Issues:
The 2350dn's output quality is its strongest point. Text quality in our tests was just a touch below the absolute best I've seen. I'd call it suitable even for demanding desktop publishing applications. It's certainly good enough for any business use, even if you have an unusual need for small fonts.

Graphics quality was similarly just a touch below the very best for mono lasers, although that's not unusually high quality, since you can say the same for the vast majority of the competition. That makes the output good enough for any internal business use, up to and including PowerPoint handouts and the like. Photos are at the high end of the tight range where most mono lasers fall, making them easily good enough for printing Web pages with photos or a client or company newsletter.

Canon Pixma MX420 Wireless Inkjet Printer

The Canon Pixma MX420 Wireless Inkjet Office All-in-One ($149.99 direct) is the core model of the three new Canon business multifunction printers (MFPs) I've recently tested. It lacks the speed and output quality, and some of the frills, of the Editors' Choice Canon Pixma MX882 Inkjet Office All-in-One ($199.99 direct, 4.5 stars), but packs in more features than the Canon Pixma MX360 Inkjet Office All-In-One ($79.99 direct, 3.5 stars). It offers a good range of features at a reasonable price for a home-business proprietor, and can pull double-duty as a household MFP as well.

The MX420 prints, copies, scans, and also faxes. It can scan to e-mail, and fax either from your PC or your computer. A 30-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) lets you scan, copy, or fax multi-page documents.

At 7.8 by 18.1 by 16.4 inches (HWD) and 19.3 pounds, it's lesser than the MX882, yet is similarly styled, shiny black with rounded corners.

Towards the top, the sides viewpoint upward to meet the ADF and input tray. This gives the front panel—which holds a 2.5-inch color LCD screen, alphanumeric fax keypad, and various function buttons—an upward tilt.

Below the panel and to the right of the output tray is a port for a USB key or PictBridge-enabled camera. Next to it is a door that protects three slots that fit a variety of memory-cards formats, including Compact Flash.

Speed and Output Quality:

we clocked the MX420 on the latest version of our business applications suite (as timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software), which combines graphics pages, text pages, and pages with mixed content, at 1.8 effective pages per minute (ppm). This matched the Pixma MX360's speed, and lagged the Canon Pixma MX882's 2.9 ppm. The Epson Stylus NX625 ($149 direct, 4 stars), also an Editors' Choice, zipped through the same tests at 4 ppm.

The MX420's text quality is typical of an inkjet MFP. The text is fine for general business use, though not good enough to use in documents like resumes with which you're trying to convey a professional appearance.

Canon imageClass LBP6000

The Canon image Class LBP6000 ($140 street) is a tiny, single-function monochrome laser printer that is limited to direct USB connectivity to a computer. This makes it most appropriate as a personal printer in any size office. To that role, it brings laser speed and text quality, albeit with a sparse feature set.

In a word, the LBP6000 is very cute. It's white, with rounded corners and a somewhat bowed top, with a lid that folds outward to become the paper output tray. The front folds out to reveal the input tray, which fits 150 sheets of up to legal-size paper. The printer measures just 7.8 by 14.2 by 9 inches, and weighs 12 pounds with the toner cartridge in place.

Not only is the LBP6000 tiny, it's also minimalistic, with a grand total of 2 controls: the on/off switch and a paper-feed button. It doesn't have a display, and the only port is a sole USB port, used strictly for connecting to a computer. We tested it over this connection using a PC running Windows Vista.
Its 150-sheet paper capacity should be sufficient for light-duty use as a personal printer. It lacks an auto-duplexer, and Canon offers no additional paper-handling options.

Print Speed and Output Quality:

On the new version of our business applications suite, the LBP6000 came in at an effective 10.6 pages per minute (ppm), a decent speed that should easily meet if not exceed its 19 ppm engine rating. It's a tad slower than two Editors' Choice Brother Printers, the HL-2270DW ($150 street, 4 stars), which was timed at 11.7 ppm and the Brother HL-2240 ($120 street, 4 stars), which came in at 11.4 ppm, the same speed as the LaserJet Pro P1102w ($149 direct, 3.5 stars).

Text quality was typical of lasers, not good enough for desktop publishing but fine for nearly any other business use.

Photo quality was on a par with mono lasers, good enough to print recognizable photos from files or from Web pages, or to output a company newsletter.

Graphics quality was below par. The most significant issue is that it was unable to render certain backgrounds in PowerPoint documents. Also, thin white lines against a black background in one document didn't show up at all, and many images showed some dithering, the breakdown of solid areas into fine dot patterns. I would avoid using the LBP6000 for printing PowerPoint presentations or other graphics-heavy documents for distribution to colleagues or prospective clients.

Like the LBP6000, the Brother HL-2240 only offers USB connectivity, yet it costs $20 less. Both it and the Brother HL-2270DW, which adds both Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity, trump the LBP6000's 150-sheet paper capacity with a 250-sheet tray plus 1-sheet bypass. The two Brother printers also have slightly lower claimed running costs, at 3.5 cents, than the LBP6000's 4.1 cents. Not a huge difference in itself, but it adds up over the life of the printer, particularly if you print a lot.

HP Photosmart Plus e All in One

 Most lower-priced multifunction printers (MFPs) can fill a dual role as a household and home-office printer, but tend to lean towards either the home or business side. The HP Photo smart Plus e-All-in-One ($149 direct) leans noticeably towards the home side, although it could also be used in a home office if need be. If you're looking mostly to print photos, it should be on your short list as a household MFP.

The Photo smart Plus E-All-in-One can print, copy, fax, and scan. It can scan to a computer or to a memory card, though not to e-mail, and it lacks a port for a USB thumb drive. Under the scan menu, there's also a Reprint function, which lets you scan a photo and print out a copy on 4-by-6, 5-by-7, or 8.5-by-11 photo paper.

Design and Features:

A black box with rounded corners, the Plus eAIO measures 7.8 by 17.8 by 15.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 16.4 pounds. The lid has a tasteful honeycomb pattern etched into it. The dual paper tray (125-sheet regular plus a 20-sheet photo-paper compartment) seem to jut out in front. The paper capacity is adequate for light home-office as well as personal use, and the photo tray is a nice extra. It lacks an automatic duplexer, a feature we're seeing as standard on many sub-$200 MFPs these days, both home and business models.

The front panel is dominated by a 3.4-inch touch screen that allows you to access, with the touch of a finger, icons for Scan, Copy, Photo, Apps, and Snipefish. 

The Photo smart plus can print selected content directly from the Web as a standalone device using HP's Web apps. You can output business forms, daily newsletters, coupons, recipes, even coloring book pages with Disney and Nickelodeon characters, and much more. Additional free apps are available for download from HP's ePrintCenter.

The ePrint function lets you e-mail an attached image to the printer for it to automatically print out. The printer is assigned an e-mail address when you register at the ePrintCenter. From a single e-mail it can print out up to 10 attached files with a total size of up to 5MB, printing out first the cover e-mail and then the attachments.

Even better, the Plus eAIO is one of a select group of printers, all HP models, that supports wireless printing directly from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using the Air Print feature in Apple's iOS 4.2. You simply open a document on your "i-thing"—say, an e-mail, or a photo—press Print, and then select Printer. The I-device should recognize the Photo smart Plus eAIO (if they're both on the same WiFi network) and let you print to it.

The Photo smart plus eAIO offers both USB and 802.11b/g/n WiFi connectivity. I tested it over a USB connection to a PC running Windows Vista.

Epson PictureMate Printer PM 300

The Picture Mate Show is a snapshot printer and more: Epson has integrated a digital frame into its design. Getting two products in one makes the Picture Mate Show's relatively high price more pleasant.

Insert a memory card or key drive, or upload photos to the printer's 270MB of internal memory, and the Picture Mate demonstrate can display them on its 7-inch, WVGA (480-by-800-pixel), 15:9-aspect-ratio color LCD. A dozen slideshow formats let you incorporate a clock, a calendar, simple animation, and other effects.

You can also print, of course, and the Picture Mate Show does a great job of that. In our tests, it printed color photos as fast as 1.4 pages per minute (ppm), with natural flesh tones, stunning landscapes, and attractive objects; black-and-white photos showed smooth grayscales. Its less-expensive cousin, the Picture Mate Charm, is slower but produces equally outstanding photos. An infrared remote that comes with a CR2025 lithium button battery controls the printer and frame; menus appear on the LCD.

The remote worked well from many angles but not from the frame where it rests on top of the printer; Epson claims that it has a range of 16 feet, though we didn't test this. If you lose the remote, you can buy a replacement from Epson for $30.

The Picture Mate Show is considered to work independently of any computer. But in standalone mode, it has a few quirks. The cropping tool requires a lot of tedious zooming and shifting. For layouts smaller than 4 by 6 inches, you can't choose photos at random; instead, you have to print a single photo, all photos taken within a certain date or month, or all photos on the media. For greater flexibility, you must install the printer on your PC or Mac and use Epson's bundled Easy Photo Print or another application.

About Canon Pixma MX870

The good: Large 2.5-inch LCD; built-in memory card reader; stylish design; robust software suite; fast output.

The bad: Output speed prone to intermittent lags.

The bottom line: Like Canon's other printers in its Pixma MX-series, the stylish MX870 has versatile features, including a handy scroll wheel and an ample 2.5-inch LCD, to help you get the job done. We recommend the Canon Pixma MX870 as a do-it-all device with an affordable price tag; just be ready to stomach its intermittent print lag.

Design:

The Pixma MX870 is the similar shape as the Canon Pixma MX860 is, measuring 18.1 inches wide by 16.2 inches deep by 7.8 inches tall with grooved handles on its bottom that makes it easy to move around. Its curved boundaries and integrated control panel both exude a very sleek, attractive appeal that works just as well in an office as it does at home.

Its large 2.5-inch LCD screen is fixed inside the smartly organized control panel; the left side houses the power button as well as shortcuts for copy, fax, and scanning, and you also get a convenient run dial to the right that lets you quickly scroll through the onscreen menus. The rest of the right side contains the general fare of menu, settings, numerical keys, and navigation buttons. 

Canon also includes a dedicated "Memory Card" button for copying and printing images directly from the reader at the bottom and some smaller keys that automatically dial your preset fax numbers.

Canon offers three different options for paper input; the easiest method is throughout the 150-sheet tray that pulls out from underneath the folding output bay. You can throw another 150 sheets into the rear-loading tape, and both trays have small plastic guides to fit a variety of sizes from four inch by six inch all the way up to legal sized media and No. 10 envelopes.

HP Laser Jet Pro M1216nfh

Tackle your everyday office tasks with an inexpensive, full-featured MFP. Easily print, copy, scan and fax and use an integrated handset with one compact machine. Share resources with Ethernet connectivity. Plug and print with HP Smart Install.

Full-featured of MFB:

Share a printing network, by built-in Ethernet connectivity. This MFP saves office space with its compact size and combines four functions—print, copy, scan and fax, plus an integrated handset—into one efficient product.

• Create professional-quality documents with bold, crisp text and sharp black-and-white images, using Original HP print cartridges.

• Send and receive faxes from your PC, using the 33.6 kbps fax.

• Print documents at up to 19 ppm letter/18 ppm A4.

With Instant-on Technology, pages start and finish printing fast—get a first page out in as fast as 8.5 seconds.

HP Photo smart Premium Touch Smart Web

The good:

 Printer ships in recyclable bags; new design reflects present aesthetic; comprehensive driver features; separate photo and paper trays automatically select the right size for the job.

The bad:
Onscreen apps take a long time to access and feel gimmicky; lacks auto document feeder; slow response from touch screen; applications have a tendency to freeze up; small scanner bed.

The bottom line:
Aside from the boundless name, the HP Photo smart Premium Touch Smart Web All-in-One Printer looks good and prints high-quality photos at competitive speeds.

We also are glad about the effort put into the downloadable applications for the interactive touch screen, but the innovation is offset by a hefty price tag.

Unless Web connectivity and touch screens are a top priority, we recommend checking out HP's other multifunction printers, which still offer high performance but at a much lower cost.

PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II

It is said that beauty is in the look at of the beholder. The same can be said for works of fine art when you take a photograph; you are capturing your artistic ideas through the images.

The time has come for you as a photographer to invigorate and enlarge your artistic spirit through printing. The best way to reach these extraordinary heights is to print, exhibit and protect your works of art up to 13" x 19" with the Pro9500 Mark II Inkjet Photo Printer.

The revered 10-full color pigment LUCIA Ink system includes gray, black and matte black inks that collectively produce monochrome photographs of unrivaled quality when using the professional finish and texture of Canon Fine Art Photo Papers.

These genuine Canon papers combined with LUCIA Inks provide phenomenal photo vividness and prolonged existence. This power is fully utilized with the all-new Ambient Light Correction1 feature, improved functionality within Easy-Photo Print Pro plug-in software2 and two separate paper paths, including a front feeder for heavyweight paper types.

Canon PIXMA MG5150

PIXMA MG5150 is an highly developed, feature-rich All-In-One with 5 Single Inks, Auto Duplex print and 2-way paper feeding. Get to the function you need more quickly with Quick Operation & 6.0cm TFT display.

Features:

• 5 Single Inks & 9600dpi
• ISO ESAT 9.7/6.1 ipm mono/col
• Full HD Movie Print
• 10x15cm photo in 39 sec
• Auto Duplex print & 2-way paper feeding
• Easy-WebPrint EX
• Intuitive interface with 6.0cm display
• CREATIVE PARK PREMIUM
• Auto Photo Fix II & Auto Document Fix
• ChromaLife100+

Superior print quality in the home:

• The PIXMA MG5150 combines speed with superb photo lab-quality prints for all the family.

• Enjoy smoother gradations and grain free images thanks to 1pl ink droplets and a print resolution of up to 9600x2400 dp

Full HD Movie Print:

• Capture memories by turning your Canon digital camera movie moments into beautiful prints with Canon’s Full HD Movie Print.

• Simply play your movie using the Full HD Movie Print software, and pause to capture a frame or frames to print.

Maximize ink efficiency:

Employing 5 Single Ink tanks means only the ink that runs out needs replacing - reducing waste and optimizing ink usage.

Advantages of Digital Photo Printers

You need a digital photo printing service that lets you upload a digital photo conveniently and place print orders easily. Digital photo services should produce high-quality prints, deliver prints quickly and provide extra services, such as creative gift choices. Ease of Use/Ordering Process.

In general, placing orders with digital photo printing services takes several steps. The best online digital photo developers make ordering easy for their clients by breaking the ordering process down into easy-to-follow steps.

Quality of Prints:
Digital photo printing services be supposed to duplicate the original digital photo as closely as possible, avoiding over-cropping and incorrect tones and coloration.

Turnaround Time:
We looked for digital photo services that offer quick turnaround times, processing orders quickly and efficiently.

Other Digital Photo Services:
We looked for online digital photo developing services that provide you options beyond basic digital photo developing, such as canvas prints, poster prints and custom calendars.

The service should offer a huge selection of creative, photo-based gifts to suit a wide array of ages, occasions and tastes. These services should also offer different types of prints in addition to the standard sizes.

True wireless air print

No cables necessary” means exactly that. AirPrint printing is 100 percent wireless.

iPad automatically locates and connects to AirPrint-enabled printers on your wireless network.

Whether you’re on the other side of the house or on another floor from your printer — or you’re walking from one room to the next — you can still print what you need, when you need it.

In fact, it’s all so easy and fast that by the time you finish reading this sentence, you could have printed it from your iPad.