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by Steve Becker
Company: Epson America Providing a good first impression is important when marketing a product, and Epson does an excellent job with this on the RX500. At 17.7" L x 23.3" W x 11.9" H the RX500 can't be called compact, but its size is reasonable for a combined printer, scanner, and copier, and the body of the unit is both an attractive two-tone grey and very nicely finished. When evaluating all-in-one printers, first I evaluate each major component of the unit and then I examine the benefits (if any) that have resulted from integrating these components into a single unit. The Printer According to Epson, the print engine used by the RX500 is virtually identical to the engine that is used by Epson's R200 and R300 series of photo printers. However, I've found the color fidelity in prints produced by the RX500 to be better than that of the R200 which I evaluated last year -- I expect this probably is due to differences in the drivers that are used by the two printers. Having said this, the color fidelity on a variety of test photos printed by the RX500 are very good but not as good as prints from my old Epson Stylus Photo 820. While image detail in prints produced with the RX500 are very good, they also are not as good as those produced by the Stylus Photo 820. However, on the plus side, the RX500 is considerably faster than the Stylus Photo 820. The following table shows print times for some popular paper sizes. To virtually eliminate the computer's processor from effecting the results, I always start timing the printer when it begins feeding the paper. By the way, the print times are identical when printing with either a USB 1.1 or a USB 2.0 port. This indicates print speed is limited by the printer's engine and not by the type of connection being used between the computer and the printer.
Interestingly, in my test photos, there was almost no perceptible difference between the pictures printed at the Photo and Best Photo settings (in both cases, the High Speed setting was turned off). Considering the diference in print speed (presumably, the Photo setting also uses less ink than the Best Photo setting), I suggest you try both settings to see whether the Photo setting will meet your needs. When compared to other Epson photo printers I've tested over the past several years, the RX500's automatic settings produce slightly less saturated colors and blacks that aren't as deep. Perhaps this contributes to the slightly brighter overall appearance of the RX500's photo output. Text output from the RX500 is slow at high quality settings, but the black text is dark and looks quite decent for a photo printer. Using lower quality settings when printing text speeds up output but it's at the cost of less crisp text, though I think most people will find it quite acceptable for home use. The RX500 includes slots for most popular types of memory cards, and the printer supports computerless printing directly from an inserted memory card/stick. Epson calls the printer a six-color printer (it uses one black and five color ink cartridges). While the cartridges can be replaced individually, replacing an entire set of cartridges is rather expensive (this is true for most six-color ink jet printers, not just the RX500). As is the case with most of Epson's photo printers, Epson's software for the RX500 lets you print to a wide range of media types and sizes. Epson's software also provides a nice range of features for customizing and controlling the output of the RX500's printer. My main gripe with the print engine used in the RX500 is that it doesn't represent a step up from the previous generation of Epson photo printers; indeed, I find it to be slightly inferior in most respects. However, when compared to photo ink jet printers in general, the RX500 produces very attractive photos that are probably as good as those produced by most photo labs. The Scanner My old UMAX scanner isn't compatible with OS X, so I've been looking around for a good and reasonably priced replacement scanner. Epson has a good reputation for providing high quality and reasonably priced consumer scanners, so I was especially interested in trying out the scanner that's included in the RX500. According to Epson, the scanner used in the RX500 is not a transplanted scanner taken from Epson's line of consumer scanners. However, the scanner in the RX500 appears to share many of the qualities of Epson's regular line of scanners: excellent image detail, very good (overall) color fidelity, very fast scan previews, reasonably fast scans, and very good software. You should note that Epson's drivers (for both the printer and the scanner) don't work in the Classic environment of OS X. When booting into OS X or when booting into OS 9.2.2, they work fine. But if your Mac can't boot into OS 9, you'll need to print and scan in OS X. The RX500's scanner includes some very useful features, such as a built-in negative and transparency adapter, a lid that can rise to accommodate thick material that's being scanned, and software that can enhance the appearance of old and damaged photos. The Copier Using the RX500's scanner, you can print scanned material without having to use your computer. The RX500 includes several options that emulate the features you would expect to see in a standalone copier. These include settings for enlarging/reducing material that's to be printed, programming the number of copies to be printed, setting paper size and type, and adjusting print quality. The Synergy of Integration Epson has done a very nice job in the RX500 of making the sum greater than the total of the parts. By combining its versatile Smart Panel software with a nicely integrated printer/copier/scanner, the RX500 is a very versatile piece of office equipment; the flexibility that's built into the RX500 is impressive. From a cost perspective, the RX500 makes sense, too. Epson's least expensive photo printer sells for around $100. A standalone scanner that can match the overall quality of the scanner included in the RX500 would probably cost at least $130. If you add to this the cost of a Card Reader and a copier, well, the RX500 certainly appears to be reasonably priced. Of course, printers, scanners, and other equipment normally are available at a discounted price, but so is the RX500. Currently, there are several rebates available for the RX500 that range from $50-$100. Pros: Excellent scanner; excellent integration of its components; easy to use and versatile; uses quick drying, water-resistant and fade-resistant ink; includes good software, a USB 2.0 cable, and a printed manual. Cons: Printer not quite as good as Epson's last generation photo printer; on automatic settings, blacks tend to be too light; occasional light banding visible in photos; goes through ink rather quickly.*  *Using PrintMagic and MacMagic can more than double the life of your ink cartridges. © 2005 by Steve Becker. All rights reserved. |
