Epson Stylus CX5700F

Epson is targeting its Stylus CX5700F multi-function inkjet printer at the home and small business markets. It's a 4-ink (with individual ink cartridges) printer with a flatbed scanner and a rear paper feed that accepts paper up to A4 size.

Its functions include printing, scanning, photocopying and faxing and it also has a memory card reader and supports PictBridge. Multiple functions can't be executed at the same time so if you are printing, for example, you will not be able to use the scanner until the print job has finished.

The control panel atop the unit has only a one-line LCD status display, but luckily, all the function buttons are well-labelled, making tasks such as photocopying and printing from memory cards fairly easy. However, it does not have a button for scanning. All scans need to be initiated from the PC.

Printing from memory cards can be a time-consuming venture as index pages need to be printed first, on which you can then mark (with a pen) and then scan the index sheet to let the printer know which ones you want to print. A typical borderless 4 x 6 photograph takes just over three minutes to print in this fashion and printing photos at the highest detail setting on Epson's glossy photo paper attains results with good attention to detail, but with slightly too much brightness. The pigment-based inks combine with the glossy paper to also produce an image that is water resistant - and our under-the-tap tests proved this.

Plain and styled text printing in Normal mode was slightly feathered in our tests. It took 26 seconds for a full page of text to print.

A 300dpi scan of an A4-sized magazine cover took 76 seconds. It captured all the fine details of the original image, doing especially well in areas of high-detail and light and dark gradations.