Epson Stylus Photo RX650

The Epson RX650 is another addition to Epson's line of multifunction photo printers. We were reasonably impressed with the package as a whole, offering great print quality, adequate speed and a nice bundle of features that really make this unit a great choice for the photographer who also needs multifunction features.

Simply put, the prints we produced with the RX650 were stunning - to the point where it exposed some of the flaws in our shots themselves. Edges were clean, shadows were deep and colours were well balanced. Any home user would be more than happy to have such prints lining their home. Our one complaint is that they looked a little darker than their digital counterparts, but then again, most digital cameras have a tendency to oversaturate colours, so if anything the printouts looked even better than the originals in this regard.

The printer is supported by a full range of Epson photo papers, covering the major print sizes from 4 by 6 inch all the way up to A4. It also supports Epson sticker photographs and comes with a DVD tray, allowing you to print labels directly onto your disks. This is a pretty cool function, and one that is becoming more prevalent on multifunction devices, but on top of that this model also has the ability to scan an existing CD, then reprint that scan onto printable media. Making realistic looking "backups" is now easier than ever!

The RX650 offers a scanner and copier in addition to its printer functions, and we found the quality to be above average, but not on the same level as the printing. Scan speeds were reasonable, taking roughly 20 seconds for an A4 page at 100 DPI and two and a half minutes at the highest DPI. Using the reprint option, we copied several of our print outs and compared them. Colour saturation was slightly weaker and the edges weren't quite as well defined as in the originals, but the copies certainly looked very good and coming from such a device, they really impressed us.

Graphics printing speeds were quite impressive, taking roughly 2 minutes and 15 seconds to print out a five by seven inch shot. Text was even more speedy, printing out over 10 documents a minute in economy mode. Most multifunctions that have an emphasis on photographs struggle to get over seven pages a minute, so this is a strong result. If you need the printer for some day to day office tasks in addition to your multifunction needs then the RX650 is a solid choice.

In terms of design the RX650 is a fairly standard affair. It has a reasonably small footprint for a multifunction unit, and comes with a dark grey motif that looks good if not stellar. The small LCD panel is adequate for navigating the menu system, but doesn't offer much more than a basic preview of the image being printed. We found the interface to be simple to navigate with a breezy, idiot-proof install process.

It has flash memory slots on the front, supporting all the major formats (MMC/SD, Compact flash and XD picture card) as well as pictbridge support, so printing from a camera is a simple process. There is also an infra-red port for mobile phone connectivity, with an optional Bluetooth dongle available, meaning the full spectrum of formats are supported.

The RX650 utilises six individual ink cartridges, each of which cost $16. They are rated to print 430 A4 pages each, which equates to about 22 cents per page. Not the best in terms of economics, but reasonably affordable.