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Epson’s Stylus SX215 is one of the cheapest MFPs around, but it has a 1?in colour LCD screen along with a scanner, copier and the ability to print from memory cards.
Photo quality is good for a printer at this price, although dark areas were a little washed out. Skin tones and landscapes looked natural and smooth. Prints emerged very slowly, though; it took almost an hour to print six 6x4in photos and half an hour for two 10x8in prints.
Mono documents printed faster. Draft-quality prints emerged at 13.4ppm but were so pale as to be useless for most purposes. Standard-quality text came out at a sluggish 4.5ppm. Characters were dark and legible but slightly fuzzy around the edges. Colour prints looked professional, with solid tones and fine detail, although small font sizes were a touch jagged. Colour printing is agonisingly slow, at less than one page per minute, even using Text quality rather than Text and Graphics mode.
The excellent scanner driver has accurate auto-cropping, software dust removal and a wide range of colour and image enhancement options. There’s also a Full Auto mode, which dispenses with all of that in favour of one-click scanning. Scan quality is also outstanding, with accurate colours, even shading and pin-sharp detail. Mono copy quality was also good, but colour copies looked a little murky.
This is an inexpensive MFP with a wide range of features, but its print speeds and quality aren’t good enough to justify the saving for most people. The final straw is that it’s expensive to run, with a mixed-colour cost of 10.1p per page. Unlike many current inkjets, it has a fixed print head, which could require extensive cleaning if it becomes clogged. This makes the SX215 a dubious prospect for infrequent users, as regular printing is the best way to prevent blockages.
It may have a useful screen and stand-alone printing capabilities but they don’t outweigh the SX215’s shortcomings. Although almost twice the price, HP’s Photosmart Plus is a better buy, as it has more features, faster print speeds and lower print costs.
