Epson PictureMate 240 review

Gallery

Verdict:

It may look dated, but the Epson produces prints that are hard to fault. This fast printer is affordable to buy and run, and produces great quality prints.

Review Date: 14 Mar 2007

Price when reviewed: inc. VAT

Reviewed By: Simon Handby

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

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Review
Specs

Though its new, Epson's PictureMate 240 looks dated already.

Like the PictureMate 100, the 240 is a four-colour inkjet that uses a single flat consumable. It's supplied with a 20-sheet ink and paper pack, but you can buy 150-sheet ink and paper bundles that give the 240 a competitive cost per page of 16.8p.

This printer has a useful lid that covers the paper input tray, screen and controls, helping to keep dust out when it's not in use. We were, however, a little perplexed by the lid's clear window though, which doesn't quite line up with the screen underneath. It seems pointless given that you can't access the menu controls to preview or edit photos with the lid down.

We found the PictureMate 240fs menu much easier to understand and use than the 100fs, and an improvement over most photo inkjets we've tested. A dedicated display mode button lets you toggle between a single-shot preview mode and thumbnail pages that displays six or 15 pictures. With a big, sharp screen, it's possible to choose the best pictures from the thumbnails alone before setting a batch printing.

By inkjet standards, the 240 is fast at printing photos, particularly from memory cards. We also noticed that it was was much quicker than the 100 to read each shot from a card and begin a print, helping it deliver each picture in just over 45 seconds.

It's hard to fault its photo quality. Whether printing from the PC or a memory card, the 240 delivered sharp and detailed photos, with colours that faithfully matched the original shot. We were particularly impressed with its ability to preserve and reproduce detail among dark shades that was lost by many other printers. We could make out fine banding and some grain in prints made from a memory card, though this was much less than in either HP printer.

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