EPSON STYLUS DX6000

For those on a very tight budget, the Epson Stylus cannot be bettered.

A nice small design, this printer will happily do anything that is required of it in a small to medium office. As well as scanning, copying and printing with ease this low-cost printer has memory card slots which can take most memory cards, allowing direct printing without having to turn on a computer. A good quality mini-LCD screen also allows you to view photos before printing them. The Epson connects via a USB connection to the computer and so cannot be accessed directly over a network but at its price point, this is to be expected.

The ink on this printer dries quite quickly and the resolution is sufficient to keep every pernickety boss happy. The big drawback for the DX6000 is the amount of ink it soaks up. You'll find you'll need refills quite quickly once you print a few dozen pages.

Epson assures us though that the standard cartridges last much longer than the testing unit ones we got.

HP OFFICEJET PRO L7580 ALL-IN-ONE (/310 from Dabs. ie)

Higher up the price range than the Epson, the HP Officejet Pro L7580 offers the same features as well as the ability to send and receive faxes. HP knows the printing business and is always top of its game and it is no different with this device. Fast printing and quick drying, this is a sturdy machine. As well as standalone printing and copying and the ability to print photos direct from numerous memory cards, this printer can also connect directly to a computer network, allowing anyone to print to it. In comparison to the Epson, the L7580 outguns it both on print quality and throughput and is a little more conservative when it comes to using ink.

CANON I-SENSYS MF4690PL (/480.13 from Elara. ie)

The Canon MF4690PL laser printer is a whole document centre in one device. It kicks out high quality documents at 20 pages per minute, it does copying and faxing with ease and the colour scanner is a treat to use.

Unlike the Epson or HP, this does black and white only, which will still suit most offices, but the laser printing means the documents are crisp and clear and fly out of the printer. A 35-page automatic document feeder for copying and scanning shows what this machine was built for and it does it was ease.

One really good feature which I've not seen in any of the other printers is the Canon SEND function which allows you scan colour documents and send them out as an email, scan on to a network share, send the documents as a fax or load them onto a USB memory key.

If you want a powerhorse document centre and only want black and white, then the Canon MF4690PL is worth investigating.

DELL 3115CN (/ 994 from Dell. ie)

Let's get this out of the way from the start. The Dell 3115CN is ugly . . . really ugly. It seems uncomfortable on the floor as it is a little too short to sit on its own and it is too tall and awkward when sitting on a desk, forcing users to strain to use the scanner.

With that out of the way we can get on to the fact that, while it's an ugly ducking with no chance of becoming a swan, the Dell 3115CN is a workhorse that can tear through any task.

This is a professional multi-function laser printer with the ability to print, copy and scan most documents and all in colour, and it does faxing without a complaint. This sits on your network, or you can connect via USB and quickly print off any document you send to it. Print quality is quite good though not amazing but only print purists might notice this. For a medium to large business, looking for a document centre with the ability to scan and print colour documents, the Dell 3115CN is seriously worth considering. Just don't expect it to be a work of art.