Features
Handling
Performance
Verdict
Specification
The Epson Stylus Photo PX660 All-In-One printer is an all in one printer, scanner, copier, with built in memory card reader, 6 inks for high photo quality printing, and CD-printing tray. Another useful feature is the 2.5" screen and on screen help that guides you through changing ink cartridges and other tasks such as head cleaning.
Epson Stylus Photo PX660 All-In-One Printer: Features
The Epson Stylus Photo PX660 is a clever all in one printer that uses a 2.5inch front screen and touch controls to make using the printer and scanning functions extremely easy to do. The printer will also print CD / DVDs with the included cd/dvd tray.
Offers better than photo lab quality - and the built in memory card reader allows you to print photos without having to use a computer, and will print borderless photos upto A4.
The printer uses Epson Claria photographic ink with 6 separate ink cartridges, made up of Yellow, Black, Magenta, Light Magenta, Cyan, and Light Cyan. The inks have a claimed stability of 200yrs - although I doubt I'll live long enough to actually verify the claims, and then if the prints don't last this long, will the receipt for the printer and ink still be worth anything?
Main features include:
- High definition - photos exceed lab quality
- Fast photos - 10x15cm prints in 12 seconds
- Easy to use built in 6.3cm / 2.5inch LCD screen
- Customise discs, print directly to CD and DVD
- Use without a PC - print from memory card and more
- 6-colour inkjet printer, Epson Claria photographic ink
- 1.5pl droplet size, with advanced variable-sized droplet
- Up to 5670 x 1440 optimised dpi printing using RPM (Resolution Performance Management)
- 1200x2400dpi scan resolution,
- 120 sheets A4 plain paper capacity, 1 paper tray
Epson Stylus Photo PX660 All-In-One Printer: Handling
Insert the cartridges, there are no removable print heads, instead these are built into the printer.
Setting up: The USB connection took me a while to find as it's not in the most obvious place, but a quick look at the quick setup instructions and I was able to locate the socket.
Loading paper is straightforward, simply put the paper in the back of the printer, with the print surface facing you, although the lack of a paper tray may disappoint anyone who prints a lot of plain paper documents. The prints come out of the printer and dry instantly. I didn't have any printing problems when using the printer, there were no head strikes, or signs of ink leaking, and once the initial head cleaning had taken place, the printer consistently delivered great results.
The software provided with the all in one printer makes using the scanner or printer very easy, as there is an easy scan wizard, as well as an easy print wizard. The easy scan wizard can be switched to advanced mode allowing the settings to be customised. The easy print wizard seemed particularly helpful in optimising images on screen so that they would look there best when printed. Printing is quiet, and scanning is also extremely quiet.
Epson Stylus Photo PX660 All-In-One Printer: Performance
We printed a series of images to show the printers ability to cope with a variety of printing, such as bright colours, skin tones, saturated colours, black and white, detail, and quality when printing text.
Print performance: scanned at various DPIs / Settings - Original image is on the left, printed image is in the middle, with a 100% view on the right.
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The Epson provided an excellent print with a good match to the original image, detail is very good, and it's very difficult to view the individual dots. The skin tones are slightly lighter than the original image however the subtle skin tones are rendered well. The printer provides really excellent colour and quality, and you're really hard pressed to actually see the difference between these and photo prints.
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This second print is lighter than the original image, the colour is generally a very good match, and detail is very good.
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Print scanned (2400dpi) |
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We scanned this test print at 2400dpi to see how the printer coped with very fine detail, and strong colours printed next to other dark colours, and were impressed with the results. The results are excellent, with solid black without any appearance of banding.
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While the printer doesn't have specific black and white inks, it is left having to build a black and white image using the colour inks as a substitute, and while the print may look as though it's not true black and white the slight sepia tone to the image is a pleasing second best to black and white. The print straight from the printer looks quite excessively coloured, but the image settles down after time.
Scanning quality
Scanning speed: full A4 colour photo scanning at 600dpi, 4min, 1200dpi, 8min, 2400dpi, 16min. Full A4 Black and White (Greyscale) scanning at 1200dpi takes 4 minutes, so it would appear that greyscale scanning is roughly twice as quick as full (24-bit) colour scanning.
Value for money
The PX660 has an RRP of £129, with a shop price of around £109, this prices it somewhere in the lower-mid range for all-in-one printers, cheaper models seem to have fewer ink cartridges, although spend just another £20 and the PX720WD is available with WiFi and bottom paper tray. Ink cartridges are reasonably priced, with an average cost of £10 per cartridge although with 6 cartridges, if you need to replace all 6, then you are looking at spending £60. The Epson inks are cleverly named after birds, for example the standard inks are called Hummingbird, and have an RRP of £10, and Owl inks have a larger capacity and have an RRP of £13.70 each. The Owl inks appear to offer much better value for money often giving 60% more pages. Full details on how many pages you can print can be found here.
Epson Stylus Photo PX660 All-In-One Printer: Verdict
The Epson Stylus Photo PX660 All in one printer provides a relatively compact solution, giving you some excellent photo prints and high quality scanning all in the one unit. The added bonus of this all in one printer is support for printing CD/DVDs, and the excellent and easy to use on screen menus. Whilst it may not give true black and white prints, I can see this printer / scanner suiting the home user or small office user very well. The silent operation of the scanner is especially impressive and could be of particular interest to home users.
Epson Stylus Photo PX660 Printer Review: With excellent photo printing, near silent operation, and great ease of use the Epson Stylus Photo PX660 is a great choice.