Epson's Stylus Photo 830 is a capable entry-level inkjet printer that produces brilliant photo quality images and tidy text print-outs at a reasonable price.

Epson's Stylus Photo 830 is an attractively priced inkjet printer that delivers great quality photo prints without breaking the bank. The AU$399 Photo Styls 830 churns these images and sharp texts consistently, especially when used with high-quality paper but its middling print speeds will suit leisure home owners more than demanding office users. At this price, the extras are also limited and the 830 lacks features like integrated card readers and automatic paper cutters found on newer printers.

Sporting a tough plastic housing with a transparent cover, the Stylus Photo 830 tips the scales at 3kg and comes with both parallel and USB 2.0 for direct connection to a computer.

The unit comes with a user manual that also includes a simple quick-start user guide that provides step-by-step instructions for new users to get their printer up-and-running within minutes. Other necessities include a power cord, and parallel and USB cables.

A bundled software package comes in a single CD-ROM that also includes drivers and Epson's Photo Quicker 3.2, an unsophisticated digital imaging package that allows users to edit and alter images easily. In addition, the application even allows you to select printing in various sizes like, A4 or A5, or in different layouts like landscape or portrait.

In order to obtain good picture quality during printing, the Stylus 830 uses a six colour ink cartridge setup. This is achieved via the use of two separate cartridges: The T027 colour cartridge contains five colours (cyan, bright cyan, Magenta, bright Magenta, Yellow) while the separate T026 monochrome cartridge supplies black ink. According to Epson, the 830's large 5760dpi resolution support combined with the six ink colours and a high quality photo paper delivers photo-realistic images comparable to some of its more expensive siblings.

The photo quality is particularly convincing especially when printed on the appropriate photo paper. Even on standard paper the quality was good. Text and font print-outs were equally good but upon closer inspection betrayed a hint of degradation when printed on low quality paper.

With standard text, the 830 took 37 seconds to complete a full page print. Our Photoshop test took about 4 minutes and 14 seconds to print a full page of colour on the 830 and the printer clocked around eight minutes to complete a rimless A4-Seite print-out at top quality. Based on these scores, we concluded the 830's printing speed to be fast for monochrome text but slower than competing brands in the colour print department.

Gripes? While not the slowest inkjet on the market, the Epson 830 is also not one of the fastest, with its middling colour print speeds. So don't expect blazing performance when printing large volumes or high resolution images. In addition, the cost for consumables like ink cartridges is also high for this particular model and without an automatic paper recognition function (like those used in HP models), users will need to manually specify the paper size each time they print.

For users who frequently print photos and require fast print speeds, a higher performance printer like the Stylus Photo 895 would be more suited to handle these demanding tasks. But if all you need is an affordable printing solution that doesn't sacrifice on image quality, the Epson Stylus Photo 830 is worthy candidate.

Company: Epson Australia
Price: AU$399
Distributor: Selected Resellers
Phone: 1300 361 054

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