About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

It’s as big as a traditional multifunction printer though it lacks a fax and an automatic document feeder. On the other hand, it prints photos beautifully using Claria Hi-Definition Ink (which is smudge- and water-resistant) and has a good selection of on-board photo-editing options (and comes with software that does even more). It also can print directly on CDs and DVDs. So while it’s not quite an office cornerstone, if your printing needs don’t require a document feeder and you have a lot of photo editing to do, you’ll like this Epson printer.




Pros

• Great job restoring old photos
• Lots of editing options
• Large, tiltable LCD screen
• Fantastic printing of labels on CDs and DVDs

Cons

• No automatic document feeder
• No USB cable included
• Doesn't fax
• Instruction book doesn't cover everything

Description

• Six ink cartridges
• Prints black text up to 40 ppm, and color text up to 40 ppm (depending on print settings)
• Can print 8.5x11 photos without a PC; can also print on CDs and DVDs
• Color restoration built in
• Two paper input trays

Guide Review - Epson Stylus Photo RX680

This Epson multifunction printer fits a strange niche. It’s a full-size printer, copier, and scanner (it doesn’t fax) made especially for printing photos.

The printer has a large, tiltable LCD display that’s sharp and bright, useful when previewing and editing pictures. There are a lot of editing features built into the printer (so you don’t have to do all your photo doctoring on the PC). Stick in a memory card and you can view or print all the photos on the card, just photos taken on specific dates, or an index sheet.

The printer has a Specialty Print button that uses photo enhancement to improve the quality of old or damaged photos. In less than a minute, a 30-year-old photo that had lightened and discolored significantly printed out (expect to wait twice as long on Best Photo setting). The color improvement was phenomenal, far better than I expected; the picture looked brand new, and all the colors—even the ones that were barely discernible in the original—were fresh and clear.

Printing a label on a CD or DVD was easy to do, once I figured it out--the printer's Quick Guide doesn't cover this, however. Here's my Step-by-Step guide to printing directly to a CD/DVD.

Scanning a 5x7 photo took about 36 seconds, and the software has color restoration and dust removal features that worked adequately. Copying was also high quality and somewhat slow, with a monochrome copy taking about 19 seconds to come out.

If there’s bad news, it’s what the machine is lacking. An automatic document feeder is an important feature for an all-in-one printer. There is a built-in duplexer but no information in the manual that explains how it works (instructions come up while printing); information on printing a CD label is also missing. Perhaps most frustrating was the prominently absent USB cable. Why are these cheap cables missing from so many printers?