Epson WorkForce WF-7520

Aimed squarely at micro, small, and home offices that need wide-format printing at up to 13 by 19-inch supertabloid size?and even larger?the Epson WorkForce WF-7520 ($299.99 direct) offers almost any feature you might want in a multi-function printer (MFP). Among the most important is that it includes two trays, so you can load one with letter-size paper and one with a larger size, to let you easily use one printer for all your printing. Factor in the fast speed and reasonably high-quality output, and it easily earns a place on your short list if you need to print at larger than letter and legal size.

The WF-7520 is directly competitive with both the Brother MFC-J6910DW ($350 street, 4 stars) and the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J6710DW ($300 street, 4 stars). However, there are two key differences between both Brother models on the one hand and the WF-7520 on the other. Both Brother printers are limited to printing on a maximum 11 by 17 inch paper (tabloid size). The WF-7520 can handle standard sizes up to 13 by 19 inches and custom sizes up to 13 by 44 inches. The other difference is a higher cost per page for the WF-7520, a point I'll come back to later. For the moment, just note that whatever advantages the WF-7520 offers, it costs more to print with.

The Basics, Setup, and Speed
The WF-7520's MFP features include printing, scanning, and faxing, including over a network, and being able to work as a standalone fax machine and copier. Its strong points start with paper handling for both printing and scanning. The two 250-sheet paper trays can each hold paper as large as 13 by 19 inches, and they make it easy to load two paper sizes at once so you can switch between them. Also worth mention is the built-in duplexer for printing on both sides of the page.

For scanning, both the flatbed and the 30-page ADF can handle up to tabloid-size paper, and the ADF can duplex by turning the page over during scanning. A particularly nice touch is that the combination of a duplexing ADF and duplexing printer lets you copy both single- and double-sided originals to your choice of single- or double-sided copies. Even better, unlike many MFPs with duplexing ADFs, the WF-7520 can scan in duplex for faxing and scanning as well as for copying.

Setup is standard, with the printer offering both Ethernet and WiFi network support. For my tests I connected it to a wired network and printed from a Windows Vista system.

On our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software), I clocked the WF-7520 at an effective 3.9 pages per minute (ppm), making it a close match to the MFC-J6910DW and MFC-J6710DW, which both came in at 4.1 ppm. Photo speed was also closely matched, with the Epson printer averaging 2 minutes 34 seconds for a 4 by 6 and both Brother printers coming in only slightly faster, at 2:23.

Output Quality and Other Issues
When it comes to output quality, the WF-7520 is par for an inkjet for text and graphics, and above par for photos. Text in my tests was easily good enough for any business application, with many fonts highly readable at sizes as small as 5 points. With graphics, I saw some minor banding in some full-page output in default mode. However, depending on your level of perfectionism, you may well consider even the default output good enough for handing out to customers or clients who you need to impress with a sense of your professionalism. The graphics quality overall is certainly suitable for almost any business use.

Photos in my tests were better than what I expect to see from drugstore prints. Black and white photos in particular scored well by not showing any tints at any shade of gray. The WF-7520 isn't quite in the same class for photos as the best inkjets aimed at serious amateur photographers and professionals, but the quality is easily good enough by most people's standards to let you print a photo at large size for framing.

Not so incidentally, photos are also the one category of output where the WF-7520 has an advantage over both Brother printers. For some offices, or for dual use in a home and home office, that alone might make it your preferred choice. Similarly, its ability to print on larger paper than the Brother printers can handle makes it the obvious choice if you need to print at the larger size. However, many offices can do without either feature. And, as I've already mentioned, the Brother printers have a clear advantage in running costs.

Based on cartridge prices and claimed yield, the running cost for the WF-7520 is 3.2 cents for a standard letter-size mono page and 11.3 cents for color. That works out to 1.5 cents more per page than the Brother printers' claimed cost for mono and 3.4 cents more for color. Depending on how many pages you print, this can add up to a large difference over the lifetime of the printer, and it's a strong argument in favor of either Brother printer.

That said, if you must have high-quality photos or the ability to print on paper larger than tabloid size, the Epson WorkForce WF-7520 may well be your printer of choice. And if running cost isn't a critical issue, the Epson WF-7520 offers enough capability to make it a more than reasonable choice in any case.

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