Epson Expression Home XP-452 review: Surprisingly good and affordable to boot

Judge Epson’s Expression Home XP-452 by its looks and you would be forgiven for thinking it belongs a class or two above its true level. Squeaking in under £50, it’s one of the cheapest MFPs you can buy, and yet its smart plastics are decorated with a colour screen. Get closer and you’ll spot that its menu is controlled by buttons, rather than touch, but considering that there’s also an SD card slot and wireless interface, it’s good value.

Epson Expression Home XP-452 review: Printing speeds

Start printing and the XP-452 is less likely to confound your expectations. It’s slow, producing just 2.4 pages of colour graphics in a minute, and delivering letter-quality text at 10.1ppm. Switch to draft and this rises to 16ppm, but the extra speed accentuates a fragile-sounding print mechanism; although quiet, this could become irritating on longer jobs.

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Epson Expression Home XP-452 review: Performance

We also noticed that the printer tended to kick up the top page in the rear tray, which on one occasion led to a double-feed of two partially overlapped pages, although the printer recovered to complete the job. The XP-452 has quite a slow scanner, completing a preview in ten seconds but needing 39 seconds to capture an A4 document at 300dpi.

Higher-resolution scans were similarly uncompetitive, with a 1,200dpi 10 x 15cm photo taking more than two minutes. Unusually, Epson’s scan interface stayed active for around ten seconds after each scan had been transferred to the imaging app – in our experience, it usually closes immediately. Happily, there was nothing wrong with our test results.

Scans had faithful colours and retained plenty of shade detail, while photocopies were just a touch darker than ideal. The text was also sharp, and solid fills and gradations in graphics were commendably consistent. We’ve seen punchier photos from other machines, but for everyday users, prints from the Expression Home XP-452 were more than acceptable.

Epson Expression Home XP-452 review: Verdict

So, it’s surprisingly good for its price, but over time its 11.2p per page running costs will mean it adds up to less of a bargain. It’s a smart-looking MFP for occasional use, but if you print frequently then the EcoTank ET-2710 will prove much better value.