Epson Stylus NX625 All-in-One Printer

The Epson Stylus NX625 is basically the same printer as the Epson Stylus NX515, with built-in duplexing and updated WiFi. That's not an insult; the NX515 was an excellent printer and a best bet, though the 625's advanced features will help it steal that slot. The NX625 is cheap as well--I've seen it online for just over $100. As always, you can count on photos having excellent color depth and being dry when they come out. A good buy and a great gift.

The Epson Stylus NX625 offers a lot of high-end options for not a lot of money. There's built-in 802.11n WiFi networking, automatic duplexing, and a host of on-board photo printing options. It's about as fast as other printers in this class, perhaps a bit faster. Epson calls it the "world's fastest all-in-one," which may be true--but for home users, I'm not sure that cutting a few seconds per page is enough of an accomplishment to recommend it.

Luckily, there are plenty of other reasons to recommend it. First is the price: I saw it online for not much over $100, so it will be a decent investment for home users or a gift for students. You'll also get fantastic photo prints with excellent colors and sharpness that can rival many dedicated photo printers. Like the slightly cheaper Epson Stylus NX515, it has a small footprint, with a folding 2.5" color LCD on a relatively uncluttered panel.

Wireless setup was easily accomplished via the Web interface during set up (you can also use the printer buttons to set up wireless); the process did take a long time, however. Network printing times were completely in line with expectations: A three-page Word document took about 37 seconds to print, with the first page out in about 15 seconds (at normal quality). Printing a four-page Word document with the automatic duplex feature took 55 seconds.

Duplex printing is a great feature; but one downside is that ink can saturate cheap paper so much that the paper gets limp and both sides are visible at once. Epson recommends reducing the ink density; for high-color pages, you'll need to reduce the density by at least 25 percent (this didn't have much negative effect on the quality of the printed pages). Photo prints were excellent. A 4x6 photo printed at normal quality took about 1:12 to print. The print was dry (you can even run it under water and the ink won't run) and the colors were clear and rich. The on-board Photo Restoration feature copied a washed-out old photo and printed it with restored colors easily and quickly. That's a great feature to have if you want to scan some old photos but not mess around with some serious and potentially time-consuming restoration software.

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.