The Stylus CX3600 sits at the bottom of Epson's all-in-one printer range and is suited to home workers, students or small business users. It's not the most stylish or capable device, but its relatively compact form factor and good print quality on plain paper should suit general users who don't want the expense of purchasing and running a high-end photo-imaging solution. The Stylus CX3600 is no powerhouse, but it does allow you to scan, copy and print in colour. It also includes individual ink cartridges for more cost effective printing, DURABrite inks for long-lasting prints, Web-To-Page software for printing Web pages, as well as support for borderless printing and computer-independent photocopying up to A4. Unfortunately there's no built-in fax, which will likely limit the all-in-one's appeal to consumers, and built-in connectivity options consist of just USB 1.1. It's also painfully slow, but this may be less of a consideration for individuals printing at home.
Pros: Good quality on plain paper; individual ink tanks; flatbed scanner
Cons: Slow prints; no fax; doesn't support film scanning; no LCD
Epson's new entry-level all-in-one printer, the Stylus CX3600 (430x344x170mm, 6.52kg), combines a 4-colour inkjet printer with a 48-bit flatbed scanner (600x1200ppi) and standalone photocopier. Sitting at the bottom of Epson's consumer printer range, the Stylus CX3600 sports a new design that should appeal more to the design conscious, and comes with a built-in LCD window that displays the number of copy pages.
Although the Stylus CX3600 is an entry-level model, it comes with some benefits that are unique to Epson printers, such as the company's excellent DURABrite inks that help to produce relatively sharp blacks and vivid colours that are waterproof, smudge proof and fade resistant for up to 80 years (based on independent tests). Furthermore, the inks are supplied in individual cartridges, which helps to keep costs to a minimum.
The product's print engine offers a claimed print speed of up to 15 pages-per-minute and print resolutions up to 5760dpi optimised. Similar to other printers, you can choose from different paper types depending on what is being printed - from simple text documents on plain paper up to vibrant photos on DURABrite Photo Paper. The printer supports borderless prints and copies, but there are no built-in memory card readers for computer independent printing. Less surprising is the lack of a NIC, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi networking options.
Similar to Epson's
Stylus CX6600 (£127 ex. VAT), the Stylus CX3600 comes with Web printing and photo-restoration software. Other key features include the ability to photocopy independently of a computer. There's no fax functionality, which may limit its appeal to home workers, and no USB interface on the front of the unit for connecting PictBridge or Direct Print-enabled digital cameras, should you want to print directly from your digital camera or attach a Bluetooth print adapter.
The Stylus CX3600 sports a robust and practical design that's untypical of products in this price range. There's no flip-out 2.5in. LCD monitor like on Epson's excellent Stylus Photo RX600 (£237 ex. VAT), or even a LCD panel on the front of the unit that is used to configure settings and read status/error reports, but the scanner lid is easy to lift and conveniently rests at a 90-degree angle to the platten, making inserting and placing material to scan an easy process. The lid can also be removed by gently lifting it and away from the unit's body, should you want to scan bulky materials. The way the whole top part of the unit lifts and rests to allow you to change the four ink cartridges is also practical.
The all-in-one printer can be used to print and copy independently of a computer. If you want to scan material, you first have to connect the unit to your PC or Mac. There is no LCD panel on the front of the unit to configure settings and read status/error reports though, but there is a LED window that indicates the number of copies or whether an error has occurred.
Copying documents is straightforward. You simply lift the scanner's lid and place the source material onto the platten. From the front control panel you can then set the number of copies (1-99). Because there is no LCD monitor, settings are basic and only let you change between plain and photo paper, select paper size (A4 or 10x15cm), copy in black-and-white or colour, and fit a copy to a page (reduces or enlarges the size of a copied image to fit the selected size of paper). Unlike more powerful models you can't reduce, enlarge and zoom in/out of images, or alter copy density.
Printing independently of a computer is also not supported, so you'll have to connect the unit to your computer in order to reproduce a file stored on your hard disk. The Stylus CX3600's paper-in tray can accommodate up to just 100 sheets (64-206gsm), and the flip-down paper-output tray is equally restrictive. Paper sizes supported are moderate and include A4, B5, A5, Letter, Executive 7, A6 index card, 5x8in. and 8x10in., as well as envelopes (C6 and DL).
On a more positive note, the Stylus CX3600's print quality is actually very good on a variety on media, especially considering the relatively low cost of the device. The printer's 4-colour printing system (up to 5760dpi optimised) uses variable-size ink droplets to create relatively detailed images, although there was noticeable dithering on regular paper using the software's default settings. Text quality on regular paper was much better and appeared tight and controlled with little evidence of bleeding. Areas of solid black appeared rich and convincing, too, a feature rarely seen with other entry-level inkjet printers.
Photo reproduction was also above par on regular paper for a sub £100 all-in-one printer, although dithering and banding was more obvious. As expected, swapping plain paper over to Epson's special photo paper produced much better results. Print speed was a real issue, though. For example, an A4 photograph took 10m 17s to print at its highest resolution, and a 20-page presentation took a painstaking 20m 55s to print in draft mode. A high-quality 6x4in. photo printed in 4m 29s, whereas a 12-page PDF file took 10m 10s when printed in draft mode.
The Stylus CX3600 is a good value offering that should appeal to home users who don't intend to print high volumes. The lack of computer independent printing and support for film scanning will deter photographers, and no support for faxing will limited its appeal to business users. There's also no built-in control panel for fine-tuning copy features or support for an optional ADF, which further makes the device unsuitable for shared offices. Having said that, regular home users who need a good value and capable product for general printing, scanning and copying should be well served.
Links:
Stylus CX3600
Web site
Stylus CX3600
brochure (1.1MB PDF)
About our tests:
BIOS uses a range of popular office-type documents to test the image quality and speed of printers and all-in-one devices. Our test suite comprises an A4 photograph (34MB, PSD format), 6x4in. photograph (5MB, PSD format), 12-page text file (90KB, RTF format), 12-page PDF (1.2MB) and 20-page presentation (2.5MB, PRZ format). For our throughput test we print a single dot onto multiple A4 pages. Unless otherwise indicated, printers are tested using default print settings. In all but the throughput test, the higher the number, the slower the printer. Print quality is subjectively analysed by the reviewer, based on experience and comparisons to printers we've previously tested.
