The Photo Easy 260 is a commendable entry into the photo printer market but needs a little work to knock out the competition.

For its price, this unit is worth a look, especially if you need faxing capabilities.

The well-priced Photosmart C5180 has much to offer for printing photos and for sharing on a small network. It delivers high-quality glossy photos, but its plain-paper photo prints are not great.

For a small office where cost effectiveness in an issue, the HP Officejet Pro L7380 provides an excellent multifunction solution. The only real problem is the lack of networking options.

Despite combining plenty of functions in a single unit, the Dell Photo All-In-One 966 isn't a good value for the money due to its modest quality and performance. It's nice that you can configure the unit with several options, but you're looking at quite an investment (about $576) if you choose them all.

Priced at $299, the D7360 is exceptionally easy to use and has the best software bundle in the business. But, its image quality is merely good, and plain-paper printing is clearly not its strong point.

If your quantity and quality needs are modest, the Brother HL-2040's sticker price will make it at home on your desk.

The Lexmark X6570 isn't particularly cheap, and there is obviously the question of whether the text output would really be good enough for business work -- in many cases, a cheap mono laser would be a better bet. However, you do get good fax facilities and colour printing, and if the wireless facilities are of interest then this makes a very decent buy.

Fast print speeds and a lot of features--including wireless capability--would make the IP4000R a good buy even if its printing costs weren't so low.

This package distinguishes itself by offering a good software suite that would benefit anyone who has not had much experience with a multi-function device. It is highly recommended for the small office, although for photo printing you may have to tinker with the colour balance of your photos first to get good results.

While this unit has plenty of great features, we were disappointed by its print and photocopy quality. Photo printing may require a little fiddling in an image editor beforehand to get the colour balance correct.

Epson's Stylus Photo RX430 offers excellent--if slightly slow--four-colour printing.