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Advent AWP10 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £50
inc VAT

The AWP10 doesn't do anything exceptionally well, but it's a competent all-rounder – and great value if you don’t print high volumes.

Specifications

6ipm print speed, USB Hi-Speed, 802.11b/g/n wireless, 175x420x320mm

http://www.pcworld.co.uk

It’s not every day that a new printer manufacturer comes along, so we were excited to get our hands on the first in-house offering from PC World’s Advent brand. The AWP10 multifunction peripheral (MFP) isn’t a new design from the ground up – it’s based on Kodak’s inkjet technology – but there’s no direct equivalent in Kodak’s range.

The AWP10’s specifications are remarkable for the price. There’s nothing too exciting about its four-colour inkjet printer or the 1,200dpi scanner, but throw in a card reader, 6.1cm colour screen and wireless networking and the regular £70 price looks like a steal. At the time of writing this was discounted to £50 at both PC World and Currys, making it comfortably the least expensive wireless MFP we’ve reviewed.

As you might expect for this price, the AWP10 doesn’t look particularly slick; its hard black plastics are lifted only by a red go-faster stripe that belongs in a 1986 car interior. It feels well-made enough, though, apart from a cheap-feeling strut for holding up the scanner bed when you need to access the printer internals. You’ll need to do this to fit the print heads and ink tanks, but then it’s ready to go.

Advent AWP10 Wireless Multifunction Inkjet Printer

While loading the input tray with plain paper we noticed that the top sheet tended to ride up slightly; not settling down to the base of the input like the others. While this itself didn’t cause any mis-feed problems, blank pages were occasionally pulled through during our tests. With only a minimal lip, the output tray let a couple of pages escape during our 25-page draft text test.

On plain paper the AWP10 is acceptably quick, delivering 5.8 pages of normal-quality mono text in a minute, but only 2.7 colour pages. Photo printing was surprisingly rapid: six postcard-sized images took just under four and a half minutes. The quality of the results wasn’t too bad either. Black text was fairly sharp, although we noticed the occasional letter glitch, but colours were a little drab on plain paper. Photos printed onto Kodak’s Ultima paper were impressive for a general-purpose printer. Mono copies were also good, although colour reproduction in colour copies left a bit to be desired.

Images from the scanner weren’t particularly sharp and there was some loss of detail among the lightest and darkest shades, but the overall results were acceptable for office work and the odd creative job. Unfortunately, the scanner lid hinges don’t extend upwards to help you scan thick originals, and we didn’t like the harsh sound the head made when moving. We received memory warnings when trying to scan at 1,200dpi. Even though our test laptop had more than 2GB of free RAM we couldn’t complete this test.

Overall this is a surprisingly competent MFP. Canon’s PIXMA MG5150 (below) produces better-quality scans, copies and prints, and is significantly cheaper to run, but has no network interface. If you want a good entry-level MFP for light duties on a home network, this is it.

Basic Specifications

Rating ****
Maximum native print resolution 9,600×2,400dpi
Max optical resolution 1,200×1,200dpi

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A4 6ipm
Quoted speed, colour A4 4ipm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.0 3m 17s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.0 4m 27s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfaces USB Hi-Speed, 802.11b/g/n wireless
Optional printer interfaces none
Size 175x420x320mm

Paper Handling

Maximum paper size A4/legal
Standard paper inputs 1
Standard paper input capacity 100
Maximum paper inputs 1
Maximum paper input capacity 100
Duplex (code, cost if option) No

General

Printer technology thermal inkjet
Supported operating systems Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X
Other inkjet features 6.1cm colour screen, automatic head alignment
Other inkjet options none

Buying Information

Price £50
Consumable parts and prices £20
Price per colour A4 page 8.0p
Quoted life of supplied black cartridge 225 pages (ISO/IEC 24712)
Quoted life of supplied colour cartridge(s) 250 pages (ISO/IEC 24712)
Quoted life of supplied photo cartridge(s) N/A
Warranty one year RTB
Supplier http://www.pcworld.co.uk
Details www.pcworld.co.uk

Print Quality

Number of ink colours 4
Number of ink cartridges 2
Maximum number of ink colours 4
Maximum number of cartridges 2
Quoted photo durability source N/A

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview 10s
A4 document at 150dpi 11s
A4 document at 300dpi 20s
6x4in photo at 600dpi 44s
6x4in photo at 1200dpi Fail

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.0 22s
Time for single A4 colour copy 1.0 28s
Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.0 N/A

Photo Features

PictBridge support No
Borderless printing A4
Direct (PC-less) printing Yes
Supported memory cards SD, SDHC, Memory Stick
CD printing No

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies 99
Max mono copy resolution 1,200dpi
Max colour copy resolution 600dpi

Fax Features

Max mono fax resolution N/A
Fax memory (maximum mono pages) N/A