Epson Stylus Photo RX500

Epson's Stylus Photo RX500 multifunction printer is reasonably priced at £229 (inc. VAT) and accepts a wide variety of removable digital camera media cards. Better yet, for those wanting to archive old images, the RX500 includes a built-in slide and film-negative scanner attachment. However, like most photo printers we've seen, the RX500 prints good photo-quality prints at the expense of text and mixed-graphics results, which are merely fair. If you're looking for an all-purpose multifunction printer for the home or the office, consider the Epson Stylus CX6400. But for home users who just want to create digital photo albums, the RX500 is the ideal all-in-one printer for occasional productivity tasks, such as faxing, printing or copying.

Design
Like most all-in-ones, the Stylus Photo RX500 looks like an office copier grafted onto an inkjet printer. Measuring an average-size 45.6cm wide by 43.9cm deep by 29.9cm high, the RX500 has a flatbed scanner on top, a paper-input tray in back and an output tray on the bottom. There's a control panel on the front of the unit with an LCD, buttons to scroll through the LCD's menu, dedicated Copy and Scan buttons, and a numeric keypad. The panel is well designed, so the various functions are easy and intuitive. Below the LCD, there is an array of removable media options for Secure Digital, Memory Stick, CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Microdrive and xD cards. Epson includes a connecting USB cable, which is a rarity these days. Unfortunately, the location of the USB 2.0 port is not immediately obvious. As we set up the RX500, we were surprised to find that the port wasn't in any of the usual places, and there was no direct mention of it in the setup poster – in fact, the setup poster showed the cable already in place. We had to consult the CD manual to learn that that USB port lives deep inside the printer, under the scan carriage. While this location makes some sense, we think that the unusual configuration may cause unnecessary confusion and should be mentioned up front in the printed setup poster.

Features
The RX500 copies, scans, prints and faxes (using your own Mac or PC fax software), and it does all of these things with a minimum of fuss and effort. The graphical software interface (called the Smart Panel) leads you through various tasks from performing simple jobs such as faxing, to scanning a photo into email or to the included PhotoImpression editing software to create a greeting card from a scanned photo. We got a kick out of the copy submenu of Smart Panel: the icon-based interface looks exactly like the LCD on a high-end office photocopier. Epson's scan drivers offer three modes: Full Auto, which scans without asking you for preferences; Home mode, for new users who want to choose basics such as the destination application (email, photo-editing, and fax software); and Professional mode, which gives you the total control you'd expect from any TWAIN driver (a standard image-capture interface). But what really sets the RX500 apart (besides its bank of removable media slots) are its high-end photo features. For example, Epson includes a plastic grid that holds slides and film negatives in place so that you can scan them; the grid can be stored inside the lid of the scanner when not in use. You can also scan hard-copy photos directly to your removable media and easily print borderless photos -- perfect for creating photo albums. Perhaps the best feature is Epson's Photo Restoration software. Take a faded print photograph or use the film-media attachment with an old slide or negative, scan it, then use the Color Restoration feature to restore the original colour to the photograph. The Dust Removal feature will also remove signs of dust and other imperfections from slides and negatives. The restored images can then be printed or saved to CD, DVD or memory-strip media for archiving. Our informal tests proved this software a big success, although with the naked eye, we were unable to tell whether the vivid photos the Photo Restoration produced were the original colours or a close approximation.

Performance
All-in-one printers tend to be better at some tasks than others, and the RX500 is no exception. When tested against similar six-ink multifunction printers, we found the RX500's print engine to be quite slow. On monochrome text, the RX500 printed at a sluggish 2.0 pages per minute (ppm), nowhere near the Epson Stylus CX6400's 4.8ppm. The RX500 fared much better, however, with 8in. by 10in. colour photos, printing at 0.23ppm which is only slightly slower than the CX6400's 0.33ppm. In our tests, the RX500 produced jagged edges on monochrome text, even when using Epson inkjet paper. Our mixed colour and monochrome graphics test document fared no better, showing visible dithering throughout -- in other words, you could see the discrete coloured dots that make up an image instead of seeing a smoothly blended shade. Photos, of course, looked better -- much crisper and less dithered. Although the photo quality was good, we still saw some horizontal banding in the backgrounds. The RX500's 7.5ppm scanning rate was good, and it captured fine details clearly in photos and reproduced tricky gradients smoothly in each scan. However, copy speeds were middle-of-the-road at 0.66ppm, although it was faster than the CX6400's 0.29ppm. In terms of consumables, the RX500 averages 13.1 pence per page when printing A4 colour pages with 5 per cent coverage per colour. If you output photos, particularly at larger sizes, the cost per page will be considerably higher. Epson uses separate ink tanks, so you replace only the colour that runs out instead of buying a new multi-colour cartridge.

Service & support
The RX500 comes with an industry-standard one-year warranty that includes access to Epson’s Express Service Centres (you can find your nearest one by typing in your postcode here), where a faulty product will be investigated and either repaired or replaced. The one-year standard warranty is optionally extendable to three years for £92.83 (inc. VAT). Telephone support is available (at BT national rate) from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Saturday and 10am to 5pm Sunday. You can also chat directly to a support technician online, get support via email or use Epson’s Web-based e-support tool. The Epson Web site has an adequate selection of drivers, documentation, and FAQs, along with an interactive help engine and access to email technical support.

Specifications