Review: Epson Workforce 600

Design:

Forget buying and finding space for a scanner, a fax machine, a copy machine, and a laser printer. Although these are all necessary elements for every small business, they take up too much space, cost a lot of money, and create waste.

Epson has created a very compact all-in-one machine that takes care of all these things minus the wires thanks to the Wi-Fi capability of the Workforce 600. This printer takes up just as much space on my desk as my older (and less capable) 3-in-1. For all that it can accomplish, it’s an amazingly compact size.

Weight: 18.3 lbs. Dimensions: 18.2” x 13.6” x 9.3” (W x D x H)

Key design features:

• 2.5” tilt LCD to view, edit and print images with our without a computer

• Built in multipurpose memory card slots to easily transfer files and quick PC-free photo printing

Setup:
This part is probably a minor annoyance, but fortunately something you will have to do only once. It took me close to two hours of troubleshooting to get my Apple computer hooked up to the printer via WiFi. Our Dell seemed to sync much faster and only took about 45 minutes to go through the whole process, troubleshooting included.

Now that I’ve put that out there, I will say it was well worth the results. Wireless is truly the way to go. With two laptops and one printer for the home office, it was a constant battle of unhooking all the external stuff to carry the laptop over to the printer only to wait a few minutes for a simple word document to be printed.

Interface and Compatibility:

• Windows: Vista, XP, XP Professional x64, 2000

• Macintosh: OS X 10.3.9, 10.4.9, 10.5.x

• Hi-speed USB 2.0

• Wireless 802.11 b/g, compatible with 802.11n

• Ethernet 10/100

Printer:

Lives up to the laser quality claims! I’m used to pressing the print button, grabbing a cup of coffee, and then picking up my printed document. Not anymore, the Workforce
600 prints most documents faster than it takes to get up and walk to the printer.

Picture: photo layout feature

The quality of photo printing rivals many professional outlets, including photo kiosks at drug stores and chain retailers. Printing photos is super easy. You insert your memory card and choose the photos you want to print right from the screen. You can choose how many, allow the printer to optimize the image for you, and even take care of red eye reduction.

Picture-
Top: red eyes on left
Bottom: red eye reduction and optimized.

Other photo features: print all the photos on your memory card, print your own photo greeting card (printer provides the template), photo layout sheet, index sheet, proof sheet, slideshow (view all of your photos on the printer screen), view your photos and select which ones and how many to print. Using this printer feels a lot like using a photo kiosk in a store. It’s very easy and the Workforce 600 will walk you through all the steps.

Having the Workforce 600 around has already saved me several trips to the copy center. I’ve printed flyers as well as business cards and nobody would ever know that I didn’t have them professionally printed.

To save both ink and time, always make sure you go into the printer settings and check the speed versus the quality. If you want higher quality, the printing speed is much slower. But, for day-to-day documents all you’ll need is speed.

Picture: Notebook paper feature

Other cool printer features include: the ability to print your own stationary, print lined paper (wide ruled, college ruled), or graph paper.

Picture: Stationary printed using Workforce 600 feature.

• Prints laser-quality documents about twice as fast as competitive models

• Prints up to 38 ppm black and color

• Industry leading laser-quality black text up to 27 ppm and laser quality color text up to 19 ppm

Key features of scanner:

• 1200×2400 dpi scanning for high-quality results

• Convert documents into editable text with ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus OCR Software

• Offers standalone (one-touch) color and black and white copying

• Copies up to 99 pages-no computer required

• Reduces and enlarges copies (25-400%) -Includes auto background removal for text
  
• Features fit-to-page to adjust a varity of document and photo sizes to letter sizes Key features of fax:

• High-speed color and black and white faxing using a 33.6 kbps modem

• Stores up to 60 speed dials

• Receives up to 180 pages in memory

• Automatic redial, auto answer

Copier:

My favorite feature in this section is the built-in 30-page automatic document feeder. Before the Epson Workforce 600 came along, I had a very basic 3-in-1. Whenever I needed to photocopy more than one document, it would take forever. Not anymore, Epson has created a real timesaver. The feeder is built into the top and easily tucks away when not in use. You can make colored copies or stick with black and white. The quality is the same as you would get with most larger copy machines found in printing shops. For massive amounts of printing (hundreds or thousands), I’d still recommend a trip to a place like Kinkos.

Conclusion:
The Epson Workforce 600 is an excellent choice for small business owners that will meet your everyday small business needs. It is everything a laser printer is and more, but without the fancy price tag attached. As a bonus, you’ll love all the bells and whistles.

For more information about the Epson Workforce 600, please click here.

Estimated Street Price:
$199.99