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A film holder for slides and negatives is provided for scanning
The Epson Smart Panel

The software bundle provided is also thorough, installing nearly 400MB of software and putting a rather indulgent six shortcuts on the desktop. Epson has taken a total package approach to the RX600 and though this may frustrate advanced users who prefer a more barebones approach, none of the software is mandatory and nothing is proprietary.

So how was it in use? Well, Epson’s decision to take a six colour ink approach was a smart one. For one thing, it means that each colour can be replaced separately reducing the cost of individual cartridges and eliminating the waste that comes from multicolour cartridges. Also the six colour cartridges produce brilliant results. Using premium glossy photo paper, the prints from the RX600 are nothing short of outstanding. The colours are rich and thick and to my eye, indistinguishable from a photograph. My test prints of a satellite map only showed up the deficiencies of the source file under magnification, not the printer. Printing out a high-resolution publicity picture of Buffy, the RX600 even managed to pick out the red veins in her eyes when producing a full A4 size photo-image.

Truly borderless prints are also an option, and though many photo printers claim full bleed functionality, I have found that not many do it well without smears or special paper. The borderless prints from the RX600 also highlighted an improvement Epson has made from its previous printers: there were no marks from pulling the paper through.

But, like Brad Pitt, the RX600 does have an Achilles heal, and that is speed. It takes nearly five minutes to produce a full page print at best quality and you can add an extra minute onto that if you don’t have a machine that supports USB 2.0 . Of course, in the manner of good things coming to those who wait, this did not put me off too much, but this is not a printer for heavy duty cycles or even general office use.

Getting just two pages in the first minute when printing a standard web page with normal settings on plain paper is little more than a crawl. This does speed up to roughly 2.5 pages per minute (ppm) after the first page has staggered through but where Epson gets its claimed 17ppm from it beyond me, though it is not a new tactic. When we reviewed the Epson Stylus Color C64 back in October, it made the exact same 17ppm claims and yet also kicked out at pages at no more than 2.5ppm. With both the HP and Samsung multi function devices we have had on test running very close to their boasted speeds, this is something Epson needs to improve upon. Although to be fair, a laser printer is always going to produce much faster results than an inkjet one.

It’s also worth remembering that this is an enthusiasts’ printer and if quality is your main concern, it will delight even the most demanding photographers.

Scanning quality is of a similarly high standard, and happily much faster. Producing 2500 x 3400 resolution 7MB scan took less than 20 seconds and as a guide, when scanning its own printout of the Buffy image, those telltale red veins still remain. Photographers will also be happy to know that negatives come out extremely well and though I wasn’t able to test its ability to scan from slides, due to not owning any, its overall performance leads me to believe results will be extremely positive.

Now naturally, evaluating the RX600’s photocopier couldn’t be easier. It is just a matter of combining the scanner and the printer. And as you could guess, what you get are wonderful quality reproductions at rather slow rates, with the average photograph or page of text taking roughly as long as the scan plus the printing time. That means an average page of text will be superbly recreated in about a minute and a photo, depending on quality can take anything up to six minutes.

Again, if time is not a major concern to you, you will find this to be a wonderfully competent machine.

Other small quibbles? Well, Epson sticks with top loading paper with the RX600 as per its conventional inkjets and occasionally the first page will drag a couple of extra sheets behind it, and while the colour menu is clear and logical, there can be a slight delay in response times and when loading larger images.

Verdict

With the RX600, Epson has created the purists’ complete photo centre. Its grossly exaggerated ppm speeds have cost it a TR award but everything else about this product is top quality.

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