The first thing you notice when you open the box is that the Epson Workforce 600 is a nice looking machine. The sleek looking printer will fit in with the decor of most offices or it might even improve the decor of your office space. The Epson Workforce 600 is a feature rich printer at a very affordable price ($199). It can Print / Copy / Scan / Photo / Fax plus it has WiFi . Consumers will find that the user interface on the Epson Workforce 600 is very user friendly thanks to the 2.5″ color LCD screen that tilts for easy viewing. I tested the printer on a Mac and on a Windows XP system and the workforce 600 came out shining like a star.
Print
The Printer is a pure speed demon without compromising any quality. Epson is trying to entice small business consumers that are looking into laser printers for the office and they will succeed based on speed, price and laser quality . Epson claims the Workforce 600 is twice as fast as their competition and I believe it. The print outs are not as fast as laser but pretty damn close. It can print out 27 ppm of text or 19 ppm of color. I asked my international panel of judges (aka. my family) to look at 2 documents, one printed on the Epson and another from HP LaserJet P3005 Printer and none of them could tell which document was the inkjet printer. Pictures came out perfect. It has built-in memory card slots for PC-free printing. You can even crop directly from the printer itself. Epson uses DuraBrite ink that is smudge, fade, water and highlighter resistant. The 4 printers cartridges are all individual and you have the option of using a standard ($12.35 for color, $17 for black) or high capacity ($17 for color, $20 for black ) for any of the colors and a extra high capacity cartridge for the black ($28.50). The paper is loaded from the back and no issues with any printer jams. Another plus for this printer, it uses up to 3x less power than a laser printer. One downside, the double sided printing feature is not available for the Mac (yet).
Scan
Scanning was the only minor hiccup I had with the testing of the printer. It gave me an error when a started the scanner, stating the scanner was not detected. I tried to scan again and it would work perfectly. It happened once on the Mac and twice in Windows XP. The OCR that comes with the unit (ABBYY Finereader5) is your average preloaded Optical Character Recognition software, it works but it doesn’t have any bells or whistles. If you plan on scanning and editing, I would recommend upgrading the software or searching for better software that will meet your specific needs.
With scanning you have 3 options : home, office or professional mode, each with a range of options to satisfy the user. I scanned images and documents with various outputs selected and they all looked great. I was really happy with image quality from scanned images. Having the power to scan directly to PDF is another nice feature.
Fax
Sending and receiving faxes is super easy thanks to the 2.5″ LCD screen. It can store 60 fax numbers on speed dial and it can receive up to 180 pages in memory.
Copy
You can copy in black and white or color and everything is straightforward due to the great user interface and the bright display. Just load the automatic document feeder, enter your settings, hit start and before you even turn around the copies are done.
WiFi
I remember years ago setting up my first printer to work wirelessly, it took a bit of skill and a lot of time to pull it off. Now with built in Wifi, it makes setting up the printer to work on your network wirelessly child’s play. Just follow the setup instructions on screen from the included setup disk and your wireless printer network will be up in running in minutes. You can also connect via Ethernet cable or USB.
For detailed specifications, click here
Pros
- Simple to use and setup
- Nice looking 2.5″ color display
- Fast printing and laser quality print outs
- Uses 3x less energy than a laser printer
- Built-in memory card slots for PC-free printing
Cons
- Scanning software is mediocre
- No double sided printing on the Mac
Summary
The Epson Workforce 600 is a perfect addition to any small or med-sized office. During this economic downturn where every dollar counts, you will be hard pressed to find a better printer for $200 that does everything this sleek looking printer can do.
For more information about the Epson WorkForce 600, please click here
For the latest info on the coolest gadgets, emerging technology and wired madness, subscribe to our full news feed or have it delivered to your inbox. Always free. Always unique. Thanks for visiting!
Tags: epson, printer, review
1 response
Dec 13, 2008 at 8:47 am
This printer does not allow scan to email from a network environment. Nothing in the literature tells you that. I am a PC tech and spent two hours on the phone with tech support before I found out the job event functions only if it is hooked directly to a PC through USB.
Many of the functions desirabel in an office environment are better met by HP AIO printers.
Leave a Comment