High Technology Product Reviews | Trends and News

The Epson Stylus NX625 continues the tradition of Epson's NX line's tradition as a modestly priced multifunction printer geared mostly to home use. It has some big shoes to fill, as the model it's replacing—the Epson Stylus NX515—is an Editors' Choice. Although the NX625's text quality doesn't match the NX515's, the new model is even faster (and more well-rounded) than its notoriously speedy predecessor, making it the new Editors' Choice for a home MFP in its price range. The NX625 measures 6.7 by 22.2 by 17 inches (HWD) and weighs 13.7 pounds. A 2.5-inch color LCD anchors its tilt-up front panel. It has a 150-sheet internal paper tray and an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. Both should add to its home-office cred. (The NX515 only offered a 100-sheet paper tray, and lacked the auto-duplexer.) The new model does lose a port for printing from PictBridge-enabled cameras or USB thumb drives, though it has slots that suppor...

Scanner technology tends to improve over time, benefiting consumers mostly through lowering the cost for a given level of capability. The Epson Perfection V300 Photo scanner ($99.99 direct, which includes a one-year parts-and-labor warranty) is a case in point. Coming a year after the now discontinued V350 Photo scanner, it is $50 cheaper and can run rings around the V350 in performance, particularly for scanning transparencies—both slides and strips of film. It's also comparable with, yet cheaper than, the Canon CanoScan 5600F, which is enough to warrant having the V300 replace the 5600F as Editors' Choice. Specifications Maximum Optical Resolution 4800 pixels Mechanical Resolution 9600 pixels Maximum Scan Area Letter Scanning Options Reflective, Transparency Flatbed Yes You won't find many differences in basics between the V300 and 5600F, but the few that exist are in the V300's favor. Both offer 4,800-pixel-per-inch (ppi) optical resolution; both have tra...

You'd expect a photo scanner at this price to scan up to four 35mm slides or two strips of 35mm film at a time, as the V600 does. You probably wouldn't expect it to also offer a 6,400 pixel-per-inch (ppi) optical resolution as well as scan medium-format film, including 120/220 and the entire range of panoramic formats up to 6 by 22 centimeters. But the V600 does that too. The unexpected extras help make it a great choice if you have medium-format film to scan and are on a tight budget. Specifications Maximum Optical Resolution 6400 pixels Mechanical Resolution 9600 pixels Maximum Scan Area Letter Scanning Options Reflective, Transparency Flatbed Yes The V600 fits in Epson's line between the less expensive Editors' Choice Epson Perfection V500 Photo, scanner and the more expensive Epson Perfection V700 Photo. Despite the evenly spaced model numbers, it's much closer in price and capability to the V500, but it offers some important extras. In particular, i...