Reviewed: Epson Stylus BX625FWD


20 Nov 2010

This all-in-one Wi-Fi enabled device offers scanning, faxing, printing and copying capabilities for small businesses.

Look and feel

This Epson device is certainly compact for a business printer. Weighing 7.6kg, though not including ink and paper, and with size dimensions of 446 x 360 x 221mm, it’s not something you could lug about the office but it takes up very little room when you find a space for it.

Its boxy shape is suited to fitting in an office and its features, such as the control panel and the automatic document feeder, flip in and out when you need them to save space.

The printer accepts USB sticks and numerous forms of memory cards, letting you choose particular photos you wish to print. It also features Wi-Fi connectivity, which is useful for an office environment though it also can connect through an Ethernet cable or to a single device with a USB cable.

Control

Its control panel is pretty detailed, understandably so, considering its functionality. To the left are buttons for copying, entering photo mode, printing and resizing the document.

At the bottom are buttons for two-sided options, general settings and help buttons. To the right of the screen are navigation buttons and a stop button. And further right are fax buttons.

I found a lot of the icons on the buttons did not make their functions as readily apparent as I would have liked.

There is a long sticker supplied that tells you what each button does, but because the words are not beside the buttons, I found myself cross checking the button with the sticker a few times, which slowed down the process of what I wanted to do.

The 6.3cm colour LCD screen worked well for searching through options and functions. The menu systems were pretty straight forward, too.

Printing

According to Epson, this device can print speeds of up to 38 pages per minutes (ppm.) On my test, I found it printed text documents at a rate of about 14 sheets per minute, which was pretty speedy.

It also offers automatic duplex printing, which is printing two sheets on different sides of the one sheet, which was also quite fast. It dried instantly, too, which is convenient if you’re in a hurry.

Its Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) provides the ability to photocopy sheets without the need to feed the pages in by hand. For me, it took 42 seconds for the ADF to scan and print three mostly black sheets. Again, the printer showed it worked quite fast in this regard.

Quality and ink usage

The quality of the printouts were pretty sharp. The black ones were crisp and clear and the colours were quite accurate and natural.

The printer takes four ink cartridges either from the Stag T3101-4 series or the Apple T1291-4 series. It’s a little expensive to operate, however, I found the printer was quite economical on ink, meaning it may be a while before you need to change the cartridges.

Verdict

The Epson Stylus BX625FWD is a pretty impressive device for its price. With its fast printing speeds and the fact it’s relatively easy to use, its minor downfalls won’t ruin this all-in-one printer for you.

The Epson Stylus BX625FWD costs €247 and is available now.