A bargain printer that does what is says on the box (Epson Stylus SX105)

Member Name: laramax

Product:	Epson Stylus SX105
Date:	01/01/09 (541 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great price, easy to set up and use

Disadvantages: Few featues

Over the Christmas holidays I have been trying to sort out my office at home as I shall be taking early retirement at the end of January and won't have access to office equipment at work any more. That set me thinking about things like scanners and photocopiers and what sort of a 'home' solution I could get at a reasonable price. I would like to continue workng if I can find a part-time job but I need something I can use to print out job applications and the like.

When it comes to printers there are only a few brands I will give serious consideration to and there are some that I wouldn't have even if they were bargain basement prices but Epson is a brand that I know and trust so they were fairly high on my list when I started looking at options.

I decided that I wanted a machine that could be used as a scanner, copier and printer but that I didn't need the fax option. I think with the fax option the machines tend to be bigger and to be honest most companies now have email so anything I wanted to send anywhere can generally be scanned and emailed.

I thought about going for a wireless printer but to be honest I am not likely to be moving anything far so having a machine that plugs into the USB port of either my laptop or PC was fine by me. I couldn't justify the additional expense of going wireless, my laptop is quite capable of going to the printer as long as I carry it there!

So, having decided on all the features I did and didn't want I did a quick internet search over Christmas and discovered that there were some reasonably priced machines at PC World and their sale started at 7.00 am on Boxing Day. Not having anything especially planned for Boxing Day (and being an early riser) I set off early to see what they had to catch my eye.

To say the roads were quiet early on Boxing Day morning would be an understatement - well at least it would in rural Suffolk. During the nine mile drive to the store I saw just one other car on the road! At about 7.30 am I entered the store and found it quiet and relaxing browsing all the printers on offer.

I looked at all the different machines they had on display and also I compared the price of replacement ink cartridges as I didn't want to buy a cheap printer only to find that the cost of ink made it much less of a bargain.

Features

I narrowed my search down until I found a 'favourite' - the Epson Stylus SX105 - one of the SX100 series from Epson. It was very competitively priced at just £29.35 - allegedly reduced from £59.99. The replacement ink cartridge was £6.16 for the black and £17.60 for a pack of the three colour cartridges - not cheap but comparable to other similar machines on offer.

It has the following features:
Maximum print resolution - 5760 x 1440 dpi
Normal print speed - 26ppm b&w/14ppm colour
Standalone copying - Yes
Number of cartridges - 4 Individual
Connectivity - USB 2.0
Borderless printing - Up to A4
Direct printing - No
Monitor - No
Copier features - Autofit reduction/enlarge
Software included
The size of the machine is - Height 179 mm, Width 450 mm, Depth 340 mm

So it is compact enough to fit easily on my desk, will photocopy without being connected to the PC but it does't have a card reader for camera cards. I wasn't bothered about the latter feature as I rarely print photos direct from the card preferrring to edit them on the PC first.

Setting up

I drove home and soon had it out of the box and ready to set up. It was securely packed and had a few tapes holding everything in place which needed to be removed but the guide showed clearly where these were so I had no problems with that. The ink cartridges were very easy to place in position so once that was done I tried a quick copy. This was very simple to do, the page is just placed face down on the glass and then you can choose whether you want a colour or a black and white copy using the buttons on the top. The paper feed is via a slot at the back, when not in use the paper feed try folds forward covering the slot - a boon for me as more than once the cats have tried to store toy mice down the paper feed slot of previous printers!

The printer comes complete with a CD containing the necessary driver software. Again the instructions were simple to follow so in no time at all I had the printer installed on my laptop and ready to print.

Print Quality

In general I would say that the print quality is good but not exceptional. It is fine for the use I need for and it does print photographs pretty well although for quality prints I still prefer my Canon Pixma. The paper feed seems smooth and trouble free.


Would I recommend it?

Yes I would if you want a basic scanner, copier, printer at a bargain price. It doesn't come with fancy features however I wouldn't expect it at that price but for the home user it would appear to be a good solution.

This review is also on Ciao

Summary: An ideal printer/scanner for people on a budget