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

Epson has two current specialist photo printers and the model which takes care of the lower end is the $399 Stylus Photo 810.

Finishing second overall in our roundup the Epson EPL-6100 was edged out of first place by the HP 1300 and the OKI C5100, with its incredible range of features. However, this is not to say that the Epson EPL-6100 doesn’t have a wide range of functions. On the contrary, it boasts some innovative design and logical technological functions. Its large 250 page input tray makes it ideal for bulk printing, although it shares the same much smaller volume 100 page output tray capacities as both the Lexmark E321 and Minolta-QMS PagePro 1200W models.

Not as capable as we’d have expected. You can do better for this money

Surprising us with its below average results in all categories of testing, the Epson CX5300 lacked any form of removable media input.

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.

You're taken through each step by a series of onscreen animated diagrams that are a far sight more helpful than other guides the competition offers.

Colour Inkjet PRINTER

Appealing in many ways – and could be ideal as an ‘occasional-use’ coffee-table tool

On paper, the 760 boasts several improvements over its predecessors, the most noticeable being noise reduction.

In Epsons more than comprehensive range it sits near the top, offering high speed in addition to impressive print quality.

Finishing just below average overall, this unit scored highly in the performance department

A quick glance down at the scores below would immediately indicate to you that we’ve made some sort of error in selecting something that scored below average performance as a Recommended winner, however we’re extremely confident in this.

Building bridges between hardware and software.

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.

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

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

Many people fantasise about owning a plasma screen because of the massive image sizes and are getting excited because the prices are rapidly dropping, but in the projector world the prices have already dropped so far that for under a few grand you can now buy something that projects an image larger than four plasma screens. Compare that to the price of a plasma screen and see which way the scales tip.

While it produced well-defined and solid text all the way down to small font sizes, the E321 did feature a few minor print quality shortcomings; these included heavy toner saturation, making the images dark and murky while poor dithering on gradients made the images appear banded and blotchy.