Epson Stylus RX700

The RX700 is an all-encompassing digital photo production unit. It can print full-bleed A4 and 4x6in photos either from your PC or directly from your PictBridge-enabled digital camera's memory card.

Additionally, it can produce excellent photocopies, not only of magazine clippings and thick books, but also of CD/DVD artwork. Simply place the disc you want to copy in the scanner, place a printable disc in the input tray and you're set. We tested this function with printable Ritek DVD-R discs and the results were impressive.

Printing on paper is aided by the inclusion of two paper trays. The rear tray holds your photo paper; the front tray holds your plain paper. Printing documents on plain paper in normal mode produced slightly feathered results, but printing on glossy media in photo mode produced super-sharp images. Colour tones were very accurate and the level of detail in each print was excellent. Photo prints were also quick. A full-bleed A4 photo dropped onto the output tray after only 3m12s!

Most interesting is the segregation of its six ink tanks and its print head. The ink tanks reside at the front of the unit and are easy to access. Ink travels from these to the print head via tubes, which helps keep the weight of the print head to a minimum. We noticed very little vibration and whisper quiet operation.