Epson Expression Photo XP-750 review

Epson's A4 photo printers and MFPs usually do well in our photo quality tests, and the Expression XP-750 MFP very much lives up to our expectations. It uses Epson's Claria inks and has six dye-based cartridges: the usual cyan, magenta, yellow and black, plus light cyan and light magenta cartridges which increase the number of colours the printer can produce and so improve the subtlety of shading in photo prints.

The setup utility on the accompanying driver CD takes you through connecting the printer to your computer. You can do this either via a USB cable, by connecting the XP-750 to your local wireless network, or by using its Ethernet port for a wired network connection. We opted to make our test prints via USB to ensure that our speed test results were consistent with those of other photo printers we've reviewed. However, if you want to use Epson's mobile phone and tablet printing apps, you'll have to set the printer up on your local network before you're able to do so.

The printer has two paper inputs at the bottom of the device, underneath the output tray. Because the output tray is automated and can't be opened and closed by hand, this makes it inconvenient to access the input trays and refill them while the printer is in use. The bottom tray can take any paper size up to A4, while the tray above it is designed to take smaller paper sizes, such as 4x6in photo paper. This means that, conveniently, you can keep the printer loaded with two different sizes or types of paper at the same time. The small tray can take up to 20 sheets of photo paper, while the main one holds 100 pieces of A4.

As well as being a capable photo printer, the XP-750 is a fully-fledged photo MFP with a 2,400x1,200dpi flatbed CIS scanner which you can use to make photocopies and scan images to your PC or the MFP's built-in memory card reader. The card reader supports formats including the ubiquitous SDXC cards used by most digital cameras, as well as Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo, Compact Flash, MMCplus and MicroDrive. There's no support for xD cards, as used by older Olympus and Fujifilm cameras.

The MFP did well in our scan and copy tests, with an A4 scan speed of 32 seconds at 300dpi and 14 seconds at 150dpi. It also managed a 6x4in scan speed of 35 seconds at 600dpi and just over two minutes at 1,200dpi. A colour copy took 30 seconds and a mono one 13 seconds. Scan quality is better than we’ve come to expect from the CIS scanners built into most home MFPs, with accurate colours and good reproduction of fine detail.

A4 plain paper printing wasn't the main focus of our tests, but the XP-750 did a reasonable job. Rather than having a dedicated pigmented ink cartridge for plain paper printing, it uses the same dye inks to print on paper that it uses for photos. Letter-quality prints were dark, but the edges of letters looked at little fuzzy and some lines of text wavered a little. At draft quality, text was grey and jagged-looking. Illustrated business documents printed in the driver's text and graphics mode fared a little better: graphs and illustrations looked great, but text, particularly at small sizes, again looked a little fuzzy around the edges.

Where this MFP really excels is in photo printing. Image quality is outstanding, with great detail and particularly rich colour. This is most visible in dark areas, where black tones are deep with plenty of low-contrast detail. Some of our test images looked, if anything, a little too vivid, giving some pictures a slightly unnatural cast. Magenta tones dominate, with yellow sometimes looking a touch faded, but the overall quality of the photo prints is among the best we've seen from a standard desktop printer or MFP. It’s also worth noting that it’s easy to adjust the printer’s use of colour by tweaking the adjustment settings in the driver. The printer also supports ICC colour profiles, which you can use to ensure correct printing on third-party specialist media.

The printer is reasonably quick, printing six 6x4in photos in just over seven minutes and two 10x8in prints in around four and a half. However, it’s not particularly cheap to run, with a 6x4in photo costing 12.2p for just the ink or a total of 41.2p if you include the cost of Epson’s Premium Glossy paper. Similarly, an A4 print will cost you 48.6p in ink and £1.08 in total. Worse still, these prices are based on buying a multipack of six inks. If you buy them individually, you can expect your ink costs to be almost 14p at 6x4in and around 55p at A4. Cheaper photo papers are available both from Epson and from third-party stockists, but make sure you go for a good brand which has an appropriate ICC profile available for it.

If you make plain paper prints, you’ll pay 2.5p for a mono page and between 10p and 11p per colour page, depending on whether you use multipack ink or not. Bear in mind that, as not all inks are used at the same rate, you may have to buy individual cartridges from time to time in addition to multipack ones.

If you're after a photo MFP, then this is a good buy, but we think the cheaper single-function Canon Pixma iP7250 just takes the edge with its more natural photographic colours, better plain paper print quality and lower print costs, so is a better buy if you don't need a built-in scanner.

Basic Specifications

Rating

****

Maximum native print resolution

5,760x1,440dpi

Max optical resolution

2,400x1,200dpi

Output bit depth

24-bit

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A4

10ppm

Quoted speed, colour A4

9ppm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.0

4m 37s

Time for six 6x4in photos 1.0

7m 3s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfaces

USB, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11n wireless

Optional printer interfaces

none

Size

141x341x390mm

Weight

7.3kg

Noise (in normal use)

37dB(A)

Paper Handling

Maximum paper size

A4

Maximum paper weight

194gsm

Standard paper inputs

2

Standard paper input capacity

120

Maximum paper inputs

2

Maximum paper input capacity

120

Duplex (code, cost if option)

Yes

General

Printer technology

piezo inkjet

Supported operating systems

Windows XP/Vista/7/8, MacOS X 10.5.8+

Other inkjet features

8.8cm touchscreen, automatic print head alignment

Other inkjet options

none

Buying Information

Price

£125

Consumable parts and prices

£13 each

Price per colour A4 page

8.5p

Quoted life of supplied black cartridge

240 pages (ISO/IEC 24711)

Quoted life of supplied colour cartridge(s)

360 pages cyan, magenta, yellow (ISO/IEC 24711)

Warranty

one year RTB

Supplier

http://www.comwales.com

Details

www.epson.co.uk

Print Quality

Number of ink colours

6

Number of ink cartridges

6

Maximum number of ink colours

6

Maximum number of cartridges

6

Quoted photo durability

98 years

Quoted photo durability source

Wilhelm Imaging Research

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview

14s

A4 document at 150dpi

14s

A4 document at 300dpi

32s

6x4in photo at 600dpi

35s

6x4in photo at 1200dpi

2m 3s

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.0

13s

Time for single A4 colour copy 1.0

30s

Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.0

N/A

Photo Features

PictBridge support

Yes

Borderless printing

A4

Direct (PC-less) printing

Yes

Supported memory cards

SDXC, Memory Stick Pro-HD Duo, MagicGate, Compact Flash, MMCplus, MicroDrive

CD printing

Yes

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies

99

Fax Features

Max mono fax resolution

N/A

Fax memory (maximum mono pages)

N/A

Basic Specifications

Quoted Speeds

Tested Print Speeds

Physical and Environmental

Paper Handling

General

Buying Information

Print Quality

Tested Scan Speeds

Tested Copy Speeds

Photo Features

Copy Features

Fax Features

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