Dell V313W inkjet multifunction printer

The Dell V313W inkjet multifunction printer is cheap — the wireless-enabled version is $99 and a barebones USB-only model is $20 cheaper. It has a 2400x1200dpi scanner and copier, card slots and a PictBridge-compatible USB input. Its ink costs are high though, and quality in Draft and Normal printing modes is not the best we've seen at this price.

Running a business? Look at our guide to buying a laser printer.

Need an inbuilt scanner, fax or copier? Read the multifunction printer buying guide.

Buying for your home or small business? Have a look over the inkjet printer buying guide.

Dell V313W: Design and features

The Dell V313W uses a standard all-in-one inkjet printer layout. The A4 flatbed scanner is on the printer's top and paper feeds in from the top.

The Dell V313W can connect to a computer using its USB 2.0 port or via inbuilt 802.11b/g wireless networking. Basic operations can be carried out without a computer connected, but the controls are sparse and the two-line LCD screen isn't able to display much information.

Dell V313W: Print quality, print speed and ink price

Printing with Dell's V313W wireless printer is a simple process — Dell's software is generally unobtrusive and quick to operate. The printer is fast, producing 27 Draft quality colour pages in a minute of printing. Draft monochrome printing is even faster, and over a longer print run we were able to achieve Dell's quoted 33 pages per minute figure.

This Dell wireless printer makes compromises in print quality to output documents at this pace, however. Draft prints are generally slightly fuzzy and aren't too well saturated — we noticed a bit of graininess in areas of solid colour. Stepping up the quality to Normal halves print speeds but printouts are generally cleaner and more detailed. The Dell V313W is able to produce acceptable quality 6x4in photos, but A4 photo prints lack detail and have some smudging.

Dell offers standard and high-yield ink cartridges for the V313W. The standard tri-colour and black cartridges are $45 and $36 respectively, and high-yield cartridges are $65 and $55. The rated yield for the regular colour cartridges is 170 pages for an ongoing running cost of 26 cents per print, with a high-yield cartridge pushing that price down to 19 cents. Black printing is slightly more affordable at 20 cents per page for standard and 15 cents for high-yield cartridges, but these prices are significantly higher than competing printers like the Epson WorkForce 320.

Dell V313W: Conclusion

The Dell V313W is a cheap multifunction inkjet printer, but its only strength is in speedy printing. Print quality is unspectacular and ink cartridges could be cheaper.

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