Epson Stylus Photo PX730WD £260 – Editor’s Choice
The
Epson Stylus Photo PX730WD is a compact all-in-one printer that
features automatic Wi-Fi set-up, which means the printer finds a
relevant connection and configures itself. There are also ethernet and
USB connections. The printer has a bright 6.3cm LCD screen, and although
this is not a touchscreen the navigation panel is very easy to use.
There are dual front-loading printing trays for 120 sheets of A4
standard paper, or 20 sheets of photo media (up to 255gsm), and a
smaller tray for 6x4in photo media. As the media has to go through a
U-bend before being printed, this may restrict the use of heavier weight
media and unfortunately there is no rear feed facility.
The
printer also has a CD/DVD printing tray for printing labels directly
onto inkjet printable discs. This is a motorised tray that pops out when
the CD label printing option is activated via the Epson Print CD
application. Also featured is built-in duplex printing, which is handy
for printing newsletters or large text documents, but of little use for
photographs. For photo printing, the printer has a built-in memory card
reader that supports all the popular card types, along with PictBridge
for use with PictBridge-compatible cameras. Photographs on memory cards
can be marked for printing via the LCD screen.
Other features
include Epson Connect, which provides the facility to print wirelessly
from smartphones and tablets from within the home, or print by emailing
documents directly to the printer’s unique email address. A remote
printer driver offers the flexibility to print from a PC to an Epson
Connect printer anywhere in the world, plus direct printing from
iDevices through Epson’s iPrint app.
The printer uses Epson’s six
Claria Photo inks, which come in standard (7.4ml) and large-capacity
cartridges (11ml). The Epson PX730WD is the only one in this test that
uses six inks in the form of cyan, magenta, black, yellow, light magenta
and light cyan.
The colour quality of our test print is
excellent, and is as we would expect from a six-colour printer. The
cotton reels display good detail in both the white and black reels,
while the dark blue reel is accurate to the original. The portrait has a
slight magenta tint, but otherwise detail is good. The colour gradients
are the smoothest in this test, mainly due to the 1.5pl droplet size
and light inks. The black & white image is cast-free, even under
artificial lighting. The text and line illustrations have clean lines
with no bleeding, even with white letters on black.
The Epson Stylus Photo PX730WD has the smallest colour gradient of the printers on test here
The
built-in flatbed scanner has a resolution of 2400 x 4800dpi which is
perhaps over the top for document and photo scanning. I would expect
this resolution on a film scanner, so it’s a pity there isn’t a
film-scanning facility on this unit. The scanner lid is hinged and flush
to the top surface, which can make it difficult to scan thicker books,
so I would have expected some way to raise the lid height.
This
unit uses the same scanning software that is found on Epson’s dedicated
flatbed scanners and the modes include full auto, home, office and
professional. These modes cater for every level of user, and the
professional mode gives the greatest control on scan settings for
photographs. The quality of our scanned test photo is first class, with
good tonal rendition throughout the scan and plenty of detail.
Facts & Figures
| RRP | £259.99 |
| Street price | From around £124 |
| Max print size | A4 |
| Resolution | 5760 x 1440dpi |
| Min droplet size | 1.5pl |
| Print head | Canon’s Fine print head with 12,288 nozzles |
| Ink system |
Epson Claria black, cyan, light cyan, yellow, |
| Ink price | £10.44 or £58.52 for a complete set |
| Interface | Ethernet, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi |
| Dimensions | 445 x 458 x 150mm |
| Weight | Approximately 9.8kg |
Score: ★
★
★
★
★
Editor’s Choice
COMING SOON FROM EPSON
Epson
has just launched the Expression Photo XP-750, a compact all-in-one
printer approximately 40% smaller than its predecessor, the Epson Stylus
Photo PX730WD on test here. The XP-750 features a bright 8.8cm LCD
touchscreen, motorised output tray that opens automatically when
printing, dual front-loading printing trays for 100 sheets of A4
standard paper or 20 sheets of photo media up to 255gsm, and a smaller
tray for 6x4in photo media. At the back of the printer is a single-sheet
rear feed for heavier photo paper.
The XP-750 also has a CD/DVD
printing tray for printing labels directly onto inkjet printable discs.
This is a removable tray that has to be manually inserted and aligned
with arrows, while on previous models this was a motorised tray. The new
printer also features built-in duplex printing, which is useful for
printing newsletters or large text documents. The flatbed scanner has a
resolution of 2400x4800dpi, which is probably over the top for document
and photo scanning, and sadly there isn’t a film-scanning facility on
this unit.
Other
features include Epson Connect, which provides the facility to print
wirelessly from smartphones and tablets from within the home or print by
emailing documents directly to the printer’s unique email address. A
remote printer driver offers the flexibility to print from a PC to an
Epson Connect printer anywhere in the world. The Scan-to-Cloud feature
enables scanned documents and photos to be stored directly in Cloud
services. The XP-750 has Apple AirPrint, and iPrint for home printing
via an Epson app, and email print and Google Cloud print for mobile use.
For photo printing, the printer has a built-in memory card reader that
supports all the popular card types, plus PictBridge for use with
PictBridge-compatible cameras.
The XP-750 was not available for
our review as it has only just been announced, but we visited Epson HQ
to do an on-site test with a pre-production model. We particularly like
the large 8.8cm touchscreen LCD and the clear interactive menus that can
be easily navigated with your fingers. The printer uses Epson’s six
colour Claria Photo HD inks, which are available in Standard and XL
capacities, the large-capacity cartridge containing about one-third more
ink. The inks and the Epson Micro Piezo print head are identical to
those found in the PX730WD. We will publish a full review on the XP-750
when the printer is available.
Although a market-ready XP-750 was
not available for this test, the pre-production version we saw had a
large 8.8cm touchscreen and easily navigable menus
