Epson Stylus Office BX320FW ink cartridges

The Epson BX 320FW printer has the option of using either ink cartridges from the large size Apple range or from the Stag range rated as XL.

In order to achieve the lowest cost per print, we advise you to purcahse the higher capacity Stag range of cartridges for use in this printer.

Epson Stylus Office BX320FW review

 Epson's high-end inkjet all-in-one printers are generally speedy, cost-effective as well as generate reasonable prints. The firm is attempting to replicate this further down the range with the middle-of-the-road Stylus Office BX320FW.

The waved top of the corporation's best office all-in-ones is duplicated here, although the cunning lift to the output tray of the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) is dispensed with as a cost saving. The ADF input tray still flips closed to better the design of the unit when you are not copying. A rather thin, three-stage telescopic paper support folds back and lifts from the rear to provide a 120-sheet feed slot. Another telescopic support, with a flip-up paper stop, draws out from the front, although it does not fold fully out of the way whenever the device is closed. The control panel runs the majority of the width of the front of the printer, but is in fact not really that deep. It carries a two-line by 16-character mono Liquid crystal display, wthout using backlight, but Epson has utilised the text effectively and scrolls messages by the lower row of the display, whilst saving the top row for titles. Before the display are three mode buttons and then to its right there is a navigation square, a numeric pad that has additional operation buttons for fax, five single-click buttons designed for quick dials as well as three buttons to begin and also stop copy and scan work.

Lift up the scanner section and you've got admission to the head carrier straight into which are attached the five ink cartridges. In a somewhat unusual set up, three of the slots are actually for the cyan, magenta and yellow inks that exist in two yields, but the black slots only take the standard yield consumable. These black cartridges are not text and photo, but two slots for identical black cartridges, which means you have got two times the text volume of a machine which has a solitary slot.

There aren't any memory card slots or even a PictBridge socket with the Epson Stylus Office 320FW, nevertheless you do get sockets in the side designed for telephone line as well as optionally available, third party handset, in addition to USB and Ethernet sockets at the rear.

Wireless networking is offered as standard and it is an uncomplicated machine to setup.

Drivers are provided with respect to Windows and also OS X plus application software is likewise included, comprising Presto! PageManager, a helpful document management application that includes OCR.

The 5-page text print took 27 seconds, a rate of 11.1ppm, and the longer, 20-page document lifted this a bit to 12.8ppm. These are really good rates of speed. The corporation quotes 15ppm for colour pages, yet our 5-page colour print ran through at just 2.8ppm, only a fifth of the claim. A single-page colour copy from the scanner glass took 30 seconds and then a five-page, black text copy coming from the ADF concluded in one minute, 10 seconds. A 15 x 10cm photograph print needed two minutes, one second on best print mode as well as 58 seconds with photo mode. There is not a great deal of disparity in value between the two photograph prints and for nearly all uses photo mode will be more than adequate.

Colour graphics upon plain paper are generally fair while using Epson Stylus Office printer ink cartridges, with a decent selection of colours appearing lustrous and with very little with respect to dither patterns. A colour copy was not really so great, with colours reproducing in a moderately blotchy manner along with with some run of black text across colour. Straight black text is rather usable, but is not as clear as from the majority of other inkjets, showing a bit of spread of ink into the paper nap.

The Epson BX320FW is definitely good value, but not nearly as fine as it may be.