The Stylus DX4800 is aimed at the budget-minded home user with light-duty needs. The price is reasonable and the output quality good, but its cartridges print relatively few pages, and there's no fax feature or automatic document feeder (ADF) for copying or scanning multi-page documents. In fact, you don't even get a built-in LCD for previewing photos on your digital camera or memory card. The unit's built quality is high and the bundled software makes light work of using all of its features, but Epson really needs to get a handle on what is expected from a modern all-in-one printer.
Pros: Good build quality; high print and scan quality; useful software
Cons: No ADF, fax or LCD preview screen; weak text performance
Epson has recently added to its consumer inkjet-based all-in-one range. The new Stylus DX3800 (Best Current Price:
£58.32) and Stylus DX4800 (Best Current Price:
£81.42) are designed for home users and small offices and permit printing, scanning and copying capabilities in an economical and space-saving package. However, you won't find a built-in fax modem, fax software to use with a modem you already have, or an automatic document feeder to make it easier to scan or copy multiple documents.
Each model has four individual ink cartridges and you only need to replace the cartridge you have used (£6.60 per cartridge). A value pack containing a set of four DURABrite Ultra ink cartridges (CMYK) plus 20 sheets of 10x15cm Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper is also available, offering a saving of up to 34 per cent. The printers use Epson's excellent DURABrite Ultra inks, which produce durable and long-lasting images whether you output on plain or glossy paper.
The Stylus DX4800 (430x354x181mm, 6.8kg) is more suitable where higher volumes of general purpose printing is required. Memory card slots and PictBridge compatibility have also been added for the benefit of the digital camera user, but there's no built-in preview screen for printing independently of a computer. This is very disappointing considering the cost of the device and the way the market is heading. Both models have the same print engine.
The Stylus DX4800 prints at a relatively high optimised resolution of up to 5760x1440dpi (3pl droplet size) using Epson's excellent Micro Piezo print head technology. Borderless photos can be printed and copied up to A4 size, and the on-board buttons provide fairly unintuitive controls for photocopying and printing documents and photos. You also get a copy of Epson's Creativity Suite, allowing you to manage and edit your photos, and you can attach images to e-mail, send them to the Web, print Web pages and adjust image sizes and resolutions.
Media handling is reasonable for an inkjet printer and the Stylus DX4800 can accommodate A4, A5, B5, A6, Executive, Legal, and envelopes (up to 241x105mm). Paper types supported include Epson's Premium Ink Jet Plain Paper A4, Bright White Ink Jet Paper A4, Premium Glossy Photo Paper A4, 5x7-inch, 4x6-inch, Premium Semigloss Photo Paper A4, 4x6-inch, Ultra Premium Glossy Photo Paper/Ultra Glossy Photo Paper A4, 10x15cm, 13x18cm, Matte Paper (Heavyweight and Double-Sided Matte Paper A4), Photo Quality Self Adhesive Sheets A4, Photo Paper A4, and Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper A4.
You can achieve decent results with most types of plain bond paper, but coated papers provide superior printouts because they absorb less ink. Epson provides special papers that are formulated for the ink used in Epson inkjet printers, and recommends these papers to ensure high-quality results. Depending on the type of paper you opt for, the paper input tray can accommodate up to about 100 sheets (at 64gsm). There isn't really an output tray, but rather a slightly raised tray to catch a few sheets.
The intray's paper support is good quality and it's easy to load and unload paper types - unlike Dell's
Photo AIO Printer 944 (£92.77 ex. VAT). Having said that, you do need to ensure that you set the front-mounted paper thickness lever to the correct position. If you print on paper other than envelopes when the lever is set to the envelope position, print quality and speed will be compromised. Unfortunately, there's no separate paper-input slot for printing on thick substrates, such as card.
Printing and scanning from your computer is a snap. Epson's excellent Scan is a TWAIN-compliant scanning interface that lets you control all aspects of scanning. You can use it as a standalone scanning program or use it with another TWAIN-compliant scanning program. A fully automatic mode and two manual modes are also available. The printer driver allows you to adjust printer settings, such as paper type and paper size, and the P.I.F. Designer lets you create and edit P.I.F. (PRINT Image Framer) Frames to use with supported digital cameras, products with a memory card slot, or Epson Easy Photo Print software.
Epson's Web-To-Page utility makes printing Web pages easier by resizing them to fit your paper and giving you a preview of your printed output. You can also select it from your Internet Explorer's toolbar. Easy Photo Print lets you lay out and print digital images on various kinds of paper following step-by-step instructions, and the Copy Utility lets you use your all-in-one printer connected to your computer just like a copy machine. You can enlarge and reduce, print in colour or black and white, restore faded colours, remove dust, enhance text, and adjust image brightness and contrast as you copy.
Finally, Epson's Creativity Suite is a group of programs that let you scan, save, manage, edit, and print your images. Using the main program, File Manager, you can scan and save your images, and then display them in an easy-to-use window. From there you can print them, attach them to an e-mail message, or open them in an image-editing program. Harnessing the true potential of an all-in-one device needs a solid and easy-to-use interface, which Epson has successfully provided with its range of utilities.
When you take photographs using an Exif Print-compatible digital camera, information about camera settings and scene conditions is embedded in the photo file. This includes exposure mode, white balance, gain control, contrast, saturation, and sharpness. The Stylus DX4800 corrects and enhances the photo using this information, then prints your image as it was captured by the digital camera.
PRINT Image Matching gives control of the printing process to the digital camera, so your printed images can reflect the camera's distinctive qualities. In a PRINT Image Matching-compatible digital camera, print command information from the camera is embedded in the photo file. The print commands instruct your printer how to correct colour and details based on this information, which includes gamma, colour space, colour balance, shadow point, contrast, and brightness settings. The PRINT Image Matching-compatible Stylus DX4800 then prints your image as it was captured by the digital camera.
Print and scan quality is always a strong point with Epson devices. Sitting at the top-end of good for text, graphics, and photos compared with other all-in-one devices under £100 or less, the Stylus DX4800 is even a touch better than most for graphics and photos. To get the best from text, you'll have to use dedicated paper. The printer even did a credible job with our standard business documents, but it did have trouble printing stylised fonts. The only downside to the print and copy quality was moderate banding, but its performance overall is certainly good enough for schoolwork, research, or internal business correspondence.
[7]
