EPSON Expression Photo XP-55 review
Although it’s charged as a photo printer, photos aren’t where this printer excels. Its real standout feature is its ability to turn out great, speedy colour graphics prints.
What is it?
It’s a standard inkjet printer – it prints, but it can’t copy or scan.
What’s it great for?
It’s perfect for churning out good-quality colour graphics prints.
What are the ink costs like?
Some printers clean their print heads if you only print occasionally. This uses ink that never reaches the paper.
This printer used only 86% more ink when printing occasionally, turning the printer off between uses, compared with printing the same number of pages in one go.
This is about average in terms of additional ink use compared with most other inkjet printers we’ve tested, and ink costs for black text and colour prints are average as a result.
How well does it print?
Printed black text pages look a little soft, but are easy enough to read and they come through at the respectable rate of 6.8 pages a minute.
Colour office documents like charts and spreadsheets and photo prints are similarly soft, but this printer really comes into its own when printing colour graphics prints of images and text, such as web pages. These prints look very good and print fairly quickly compared with other printers.
Is there anything I should watch out for?
This printer does use some colour ink even if you’re only printing black text pages, but we take this into account when calculating printing costs.
Is there anything else I should know?
It has wi-fi and ethernet connectivity, so you can easily print from other devices wirelessly or over your home network using a cable connection. It’s compatible with Apple AirPrint and Google CloudPrint for printing from Apple devices and via Google’s cloud.
It has a paper feed at the back of the printer so you can print on thicker paper and thin card.
It can be set up to automatically print on both sides of a page and is also capable of printing labels on CDs and DVDs.
Should I buy it?
For great-quality graphics prints it’s well worth considering.
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Pros: Good-quality and quick colour graphics prints, wi-fi, automatic double-sided printing, rear paper feed for thicker paper
Cons: A little pricey for a standard printer, photo print quality could be better given Epson’s photo-printing claims
