Epson Stylus Photo PX820FWD Pro Reviews

While the PX820FWD is a fair bit faster than Epson's own PX660, it costs much more than twice the price and photo quality is no better. In fact, the PX820FWD's skin tones and red hues can look a little muddy by comparison.

As a top-of-the-range inkjet all-in-one, there aren't many other extras you could ask for. With duplex print, CD/DVD direct print, six colours, an ADF and wireless connection it can handle both photo enthusiast and home office work with aplomb. You do pay quite a bit for these extra facilities, though, and if you're after top quality plain paper print as well as photos, the Stylus Photo PX820FWD may not be the ideal choice.

The machine is impressive, it produces stunning photographs, which is obviously the main reason a photographer would purchase it, but it also has a high-class scanner with automatic document feed, fax and CD printing. The bundled software makes printing very easy, though in some cases the colour management can be a bit off, creating Sepia results from a pure mono file. Using the printer from an external imaging program such as Photoshop seemed to avoid such issues, but care was needed to make sure the printer was printing a photo rather than a draft. The photo scanning is relatively fast with excellent results, though I’d have liked to see negative/slide scanning as part to make it the complete package. Auto document feed is a great feature and works really well, but would I ever use it as a photographer?