INK & TONER
Epson Artisan 710 Review
 
Editor's Review
Epson Artisan 710 by Andrew Hall 09/01/2010 OVERVIEW: The Epson Artisan 710 is a multifunction inkjet photo printer designed predominantly for consumer use and to produce high-resolution photographs at resolutions well beyond those offered by even current color laser printers. For the home user or for occasional high definition graphic use in an office environment, it includes a number of features almost never included on office equipment to make working with it from other consumer items increasingly convenient.
Editor's Pros & Cons
PROS:
The Artisan 710 measures 21.1" by 21.6" by 10.1" and weighs 27 lbs. It will fit conveniently on a desk alongside other equipment and should be easily moved by one person given how light it is.
The 710 prints at 9.5 pages per minute in black and 9 pages per minute in color. Its copier function is much faster, offering copies at maximum speeds of 38 copies per minute in both black and white and in color. The 710 has a maximum printing resolution of 5760 by 1440 dpi, almost six times that offered by most contemporary laser printers.
The 710 is designed to communicate with a number of devices. Its front USB port allows it to interface with and charge devices like MP3 players, cell phones, and digital cameras, and it goes above and beyond standard networking support by including both wired and wireless network connections and support for printing directly from an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. The 710 also has photo manipulation software built directly into its firmware, accessible without a PC, for easy corrections and printing. It can also function as a standalone copier, able to print to letter-sized paper and produce up to 99 copies from the embedded firmware.
The 710 supports 802.11b, g, and n, as well as 10/100 Ethernet, USB 2.0, and optionally, Bluetooth. It also includes ports for SD memory cards, xD-Picture Cards, Sony Memory Stick, Compact Flash, and MultiMedia Cards to eliminate the need for tedious, cumbersome adapters and to make connecting the camera's memory to a computer before printing.
The 710 can hold either 120 sheets of plain paper or 10 envelopes in its paper tray. Its photo tray can store 20 sheets of photo paper. The printer can print to almost any paper size or type from 3.5" by 5" to 8.5" by 11", as well as printable CDs/DVDs, photo paper from 4" by 6" to 16:9, and No. 10, Plain, Bond, and air mail envelopes.
Unlike many low-end printers, duplex printing is automatic, and the printer includes built-in automatic feeding trays for both photo and standard-sized paper. The built-in scanner functions from the color flatbed on the top of the printer and has a maximum scanning resolution of 2400 dpi, matching high-end multifunction units. It can also scan in 48-bit color and at a maximum resolution of 9600 by 9600 dpi, far better than most systems. CONS:
The relatively low input capacity of the main paper tray makes this printer likely unsuitable for primary use for anyone seeking to print large quantities of documents or large volume documents. However, this is clearly a printer designed for photo applications, for personal use, and for personal networking use.
The Bluetooth photo printing adapter is the only available add-on. If you purchase this printer, don't expect to be able to do anything more than it does at the time of purchase, as it is consumer-grade equipment and it is not expandable. Some users report that the printer refuses to perform even nonprinting functions when out of ink, requiring that cartridges be replaced even to scan documents.
INK/TONER NEEDS:
Unlike earlier inkjet printers that only required replacement of a black and of a color cartridge, the Artisan 710 requires six cartridges to produce its high-definition images. Furthermore, the 710 goes through a charging process whenever a new cartridge is installed, draining some of all the installed cartridges in the process. Both standard and high capacity variants for the color cartridges are available: the standard color cartridges yield approximately 500 pages each and the high capacity cartridges are rated at approximately 855 pages each. Black cartridges are only available in high capacity and rated at approximately 545 pages each. 
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