Solid ink printing technology has had a tumultuous life.

Superb print quality at consistently high speeds, and it’s packed with useful features too.

The scanner is the only minor weakness in an otherwise near perfect home all-in-one

Quality, speed and a huge array of features go some way to justifying the price

Solid Ink Colour printer

The HP Officejet Pro 8500 is one of the best office inkjet alternatives for under $350. Being feature packed, small businesses may be tempted to try this over the latest expensive laser printer.

When evaluating multi-function devices there are four determining factors for ascertaining who has really got the goods. These are speed, quality, features and price.

Epson are marketing this scanner as a versatile unit, capable of meeting the demands of home, school, office and graphics users.

Not many people would have come across the IBM name on a scanner but it does have a range

The best Canon home all-in-one yet, with flawless quality and an impressive feature list.

There isn't much point, after all, in owning a network printer capable of printing thousands of pages per month at a ridiculously low price per page if the people that use it don't print out that much on a day-to-day basis.

Fast, great quality prints at a decent price – the only real competition for the other Canon

A dreadful scanner and an overall lack of features make the low price a moot point

The second most expensive printer to purchase, Epson’s C900 outlay cost is quite high given its fairly low quality results; as a consequence, this printer’s value rating suffers. Saving face, it managed to finish fourth overall for the speed portion of our testing. Surprisingly, for a printer of this cost, it is another unit to lack integrated network connectivity, although it is available as an expansion option.

Canon's S820 has persistently fought off numerous challengers and remains one of the best photo printers on the market.

Like the HP PSC750, the LexmarkX83 is designed with style in mind. While not as aesthetically pleasing, the X83 offers productivity and features, and top value for money.

The HP K80 takes our Quality Award this month, nudging ahead of the competition in all our speed, quality and features tests. Alongside the HP PSC750, the K80s highly specified 2,400 x 1,200 inkjet printer produced noticeably top-quality colour prints.

Underneath the behemoths rough exterior is a friendlier beast. Along the front of the machine is a series of large buttons and dials, with each function clearly labelled.

an Australian product that effectively cleans out the gunk, by following the page path through the printer.