Epson Stylus SX420W

This Stylus SX420W is part of a series for individual consumers looking for an all-round colour printer primarily for office work which can also handle photo prints. This one is a budget wi-fi 3-in-1 that can print and scan. Epson lauds its rapidity, simplicity and power.

Hardware

You navigate the 3.8 cm screen using buttons on either side. One button for copy/scan, one for printing photos by selecting them on screen - once you've inserted a card (XD, SD, MS Pro) into the printer - one installation button, one resize button and of course the usual start/stop. It's easy to use, though we would prefer to have the choice of a touch screen.
The hood is covered in a textured material (a sort of nail file effect) which remains glossy at the same time as limiting finger marks. Scratches do however show up.
Under the hood you'll find space for four separated cartridges: black, cyan, magenta and yellow.

Speeds: don't have too much faith in the tech spec

To our great regret, Epson still hasn't adopted the ISO standard for evaluating print speeds and the speeds they announce are as extravagant as ever: 35 pages per minute (ppm) for black & white according to Epson, while we score it at 8 ppm. The same goes for colour: 15 ppm announced by Epson, while our tests put it at 4 ppm! 
The claims in the spec don't reflect the real situation then! According to our figures, it's comparable to the Canon entry-level model (Canon Pixma MX360 £74). For a single black & white page you'll have to wait 22 seconds and 33 seconds for colour. Not a deal breaker for home use but if you're looking for a fast printer, you should look to something like the Canon Pixma MX885 (a high end model in the inkjet series), which gives around 11 ppm for colour prints and 15 ppm in black & white. You'll have to pay a good deal more for it however!





Quality

Print quality depends in part on resolution (1200 x 2400 dpi on this model). This tells you how many pixels you get in an inch (horizontally and vertically). The lowest resolution setting is 600 x 600 dpi (A3 printers designed for photos can go up to 5760 x 1440 dpi).

Contrary to what you might think, on the illustration below, the graph's shading is well reproduced. The colours are however dull and the size of droplets, which are omnipresent, affects the legibility of the document. The characters get lost in the shading.


Lets not beat about the bush: the prints you get with this Epson are only just okay. Both colour and black & white prints lack depth, contrast, accuracy and sharpness. The size of the droplets contributes to the impression of blurriness especially around the facial contours. Black & white prints are so tinged by red that you can hardly call them black & white.



Scanner and copier

The scanner resolution is 1200 x 2400 dpi. Scan time for a 300 dpi document is 17 seconds, which is a bit slow. Some printers take 7 seconds. The Genesis S815 with its FlashScan technology, scans any document in just 3 seconds.

Like most multifunction printers, scan quality lacks detail and sharpness. The colour difference (8.2%) is high, ie. colour accuracy is lacking.

Copies are also a bit slow to print: 33 seconds for your first colour and 22 seconds for black & white, or an average of 8 ppm. Once again quality is poor. For text, this copier will do very well, but don't try and get it to do drawings or graphs.

Energy consumption and noise levels

The printer consumes 3 Watts in standby and 9 Watts when printing. This is reasonable and represents annual consumption of 3.2 Watts. It is however quite noisy! Noise levels go up to 57.5 dB during printing.

Cost per page: 9.9 pence

Epson sells 2 cartridge formats: standard (M) and high capacity (L). Go for the Ls if you can. While there's a more costly initial outlay, the cost per page is lower. The cost per page with large format cartridges (T129 series) is 9.9 pence. Colour prints are still as expensive as ever so switch to black & white if you don't need it.

ISO lifespan for text