Epson Stylus Office TX510FN inkjet multifunction

Epson's Stylus Office TX510FN is an affordable inkjet multifunction printer that provides Ethernet connectivity for the networked small office. Consumable pricing and mono document print quality are big advantages of this multifunction, but we don’t recommend it for photo printing.

Built for the home and small office, the Epson Stylus Office TX510FN inkjet multifunction integrates an automatic document feeder and fax but it lacks automatic duplexing. Epson has not included a media card reader, a feature normally found on home-based inkjet printers. The monochrome display isn’t as friendly as the colour LCDs provided on more expensive printers but it suffices for navigating the menu and settings.

However, there are several frustrating elements about the Epson Stylus Office TX510FN inkjet multifunction. The rear paper feeder is difficult to see and hard to reach; we would have preferred a front paper cassette in the design instead. The hinges and pull-out trays can require effort to adjust, although it won't affect the multifunction’s durability over time.

The Epson Stylus Office TX510FN makes use of five ink cartridges in total — three colour inks and two black cartridges. According to Epson the black cartridges will provide a composite yield of 795 pages while three high yield colour cartridges will get you 885 pages. Based on current cartridge prices, this makes the approximate cost per page of 12.6 cents, making it one of the cheapest printers to run in this price range.

Although the Epson Stylus Office TX510FN inkjet multifunction uses the same print engine as the more expensive Stylus Office TX610FW, the print speeds between the two machines differ significantly. In our tests, the Stylus Office TX510FN output monochrome documents at a rate of 22.2 pages per minute (ppm) in draft mode. This is slightly faster than the Stylus Office TX610FW’s print speed of 19ppm. In normal quality mode the Stylus Office TX510FN’s speed slowed to 17.2ppm; again, this is faster than the 15.1ppm achieved by the TX610FW.

The Epson Stylus Office TX510FN is significantly slower when printing in colour, producing prints at speeds of 9.2ppm in draft and 4.1ppm in normal mode. By contrast the Stylus Office TX610FW achieved 20.1ppm and 8.4ppm respectively. These slower speeds were also reflected in our photo printing tests — it took the Stylus Office TX510FN inkjet multifunction 2min 40secs to print a standard 4x6in photo and 5min 50secs for an A4 photo.

Surprisingly accurate document print quality was produced by this inkjet multifunction, although in our tests the colours were under-saturated even at the highest quality setting. Also colour components didn't combine well with the text in the test documents. similarly photo prints also produced poor quality and were under-saturated and noticeably grainy. Both the colour and monochrome test photos produced had a noticeably blue hue instead of black tones.

There are a number of scan options available on the Stylus Office TX510FN inkjet multifunction’s control panel, including the ability to scan directly to create a PDF file or e-mail an attached file. However, the scanned file can only be sent to a USB-connected computer — you can't choose a networked computer or shared hard drive.

Apart from a few design choices that may prove to be inconvenient to your work flow, the Epson Stylus Office TX510FN inkjet multifunction works well as a networked document printer. However, if you're looking for a quality colour inkjet printer the print quality results in our tests revealed this multifunction’s doesn't print photos and colour documents capably.

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