Epson Stylus Photo 700 review

Over the past two years, inkjet printing has undergone a radical transformation.

We've gone from printing mediocre text, a few colour charts and maybe a picture or two, to being able to produce full-colour photographic prints and almost laser-quality text. Epson, the first company to produce a printer capable of printing detailed, lifelike photographs, has now launched a successor to the Stylus Photo, one of the printers that spawned a new generation of inkjet printers.

The Stylus Photo 700 shows progress in inkjet technology is beginning to slow. It's more of a refinement than a drastic upgrade to its predecessor, a fact that becomes apparent as soon as you take the printer from its box. It looks identical to its predecessor with its stark, angular lines and tinted transparent 'visor'. As before, the input tray protrudes at an angle from the rear of the printer and the output tray extends telescopically at the front. The printer's monochrome resolution is also the same 1440x720dpi (dots per inch).

The principal upgrades involve colour resolution and dot size. The Stylus Photo 700 prints in colour at 1,440x720dpi - its predecessor could muster only 720x720dpi. The dots that the printer fires at the page are smaller too, although it relies on the same six-colour process to achieve realistic photographic tones.

In a side-by-side comparison between the Stylus Photo 700 and the Stylus Photo, it's clear that the improvements have worked. This printer's output is significantly less grainy to the point where you can hardly see the dots at all. In fact, using Epson's photographic paper, the photographs I managed to reproduce were almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

Most impressive, however, is the Photo 700's ability to produce quality results on much less expensive paper. As with other inkjets, best results are achieved by using the manufacturer's own paper types, or at least expensive 'coated' paper. But the Stylus 700 also prints on plain copier paper without the horrendous ink bleed and feathering that plagued its predecessor. As with HP's newer inkjet printers, the smaller dot size seems to be the key.

Its text output can't quite match the laser-like quality of Lexmark printers, but is good enough that, on top of being the best photographic inkjet printer around, the Stylus Photo 700 is also a decent all-round office printer. It's quicker than its forebear, producing a 4x6in photo in just over four minutes.

Possibly more important than this, however, is how much you can expect this sort of print quality to cost you. Based on Epson's calculations, if you were to print just 6x4in holiday snap-sized photos at full resolution on glossy photo paper, you'd get 128 prints per print cartridge. That's roughly 46p per print, including paper, although the test print used to achieve this figure is quite pale. You can expect to pay more per print if your images are darker. For plain text, the Stylus Photo produces a page of A4 for around 2.8p at 360dpi.

This latest addition to Epson's line up, it has to be said, is a success. It may look identical to the original Stylus Photo, but there the similarity ends. The new Stylus Photo 700 prints better photos, produces better output on plain paper and is significantly quicker to boot. The only downside is a price tag of £271 that puts it firmly at the high end of the inkjet price scale.