Epson’s slender TX550W all-in-one inkjet manages to pack considerable functionality into its sleek black chassis. Along with USB and Ethernet connectivity, the TX550W is also able to be used wirelessly — ideal for remote locations in the home/office that do not have access to cabled USB or Ethernet connections.

Epson’s entry-level CMYK Durabrite inks are used; these pigment-based inks have a fairly wide colour gamut, but for photo printing I’d have liked a dedicated photo black on board as well. The only printer in this roundup to use a piezoelectric print head (the other two are bubble jets), Epson’s variable dot technology offers droplet sizes as miniscule as two picolitres. That suggested no visible dot structure, and so it was — I was unable to detect any form of dot using my keen eyesight, while viewing under a glass produced almost the same result. A decent scanner and good paper handling make up the feature set.

During my time with the TX550W I was unable to get the printer up and running wirelessly; luckily, my trusty old USB cable came to the rescue and I was soon cluttering up my office with print after print. Once I’d installed the bundled software onto my Mac (Easy Photo Print/Event Manager/Photo Enhance and so on) it was time to get stuck in.

Draft black text and colour printing was rapid at my timed 28ppm (limited by my poor old G4 Mac, I think — Epson quotes 36ppm), fed by the 120-sheet feeder (120 sheets of plain 60gsm).
Photo printing times were pretty good all round. A bordered A4 print (using Epson Premium Photo Paper Glossy) on the highest quality setting took around three minutes from the moment the TX550W whirred into action. Print quality was good here, although I felt the lack of a dedicated photo black made dark scenes a touch lacking in depth. However, it isn’t a dedicated photographic printer, but a home office device with photo printing ability. Otherwise the Epson produced a good blend of highly resolved and natural colours with excellent detail.

The scanner is also worth mentioning, providing good resolution at the maximum claimed 2400 x 2400dpi. I used it to scan some old silver-halide photos (remember those?), and the printed result was certainly close to the original, with only a subtle generational loss and slightly muted colour reproduction to separate the original and copy in terms of quality. So while the TX550W may not be the printer of choice for diehard photographic enthusiasts, it is certainly capable of some pretty good results for the majority of us snap-happy chappies.

www.epson.co.nz