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• The Good: Documents and photocopies are output speedily and of a high quality; even photos are output well. Reasonably priced, fully featured and easy to use
• The Bad: The colour screen isn't that high quality, and suffers for it. Requires a CD install, and where's the USB cable?
• The Verdict: A good choice for the user who wants a multipurpose and reasonably priced printer that (specifically) photocopies photos well; the screen-free CX5000 is a better choice on a budget, however
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While digital cameras are now ubiquitous, high-quality prints are not. Most digital camera users store their images on their memory card or on their computer — but when it comes time to producing a print for the upstairs hallway or to send to grandma, you'll want something well suited to the task of photo printing.

Currently, the major printer manufacturers are in a pitched battle to provide that perfect machine to you, with many manufacturers releasing dedicated photo printers and others developing multipurpose printers that include features specifically for photo printing.

While Epson are offering a line of dedicated photo printers, the CX6000 is the top of their line of "More-in-One" products priced under $200 (at $179), optimized for multipurpose uses that includes photo printing. Using Epson's DURABrite Ultra ink, the printer offers border free printing of photographs on popular paper sizes, boasting a 4x6 photo print speed of less than half a minute. The Photo RX580 also includes a scanner, with which you can print direct from scanned photos or documents, plus a PictBridge connection and memory card slots, to allow printing without a computer.

All-in-one — except for the cable

It's lucky indeed that the CX6000 has a wide range of uses without being attached to a computer, because it was only mid-way through the (largely effortless) installation process that I realized I didn't have the critical USB cable required to connect the printer to a PC. The printer, in fact, doesn't come with anything at all to attach it to a PC, so a USB cable must be purchased separately (or taken, I suppose Epson imagines, from your old printer.)

(An aside: the old printer-cable conundrum is one of the most frustrating things about companies that make printers; most out-of-the-box products don't include the cord. Can you image buying a vacuum, getting it home, all excited to do the upstairs hall, and then realize you have to go back to the store and spend more money?)

While I waited for a USB cable to be delivered, I took the time to test the machine as a photocopier, printing several documents of various qualities (from scribbled notes to brand new photographs) on a variety of papers with a variety of options.

I was instantly pleased to find that the photocopies were of excellent quality; close, if not indistinguishable from the originals. This includes photocopies of photographs, which while they suffer some fading compared to the originals, remain perfectly useable. One downside is that the 2 inch color display is not of a particularly high quality. While acceptable for showing the color and format of an image before printing, it doesn't particularly allow inspection of fine detail.

Our PhotoImpression is of a printer that outputs excellent prints

When the USB cable finally arrived at my door, I was able to connect the printer to my PC. Unfortunately the CX6000 is not a simple plug-and-play, and requires a CD install and its own unique (and ugly) print manager. Enclosed on the CD is ArcSoft's PhotoImpression 5, a simple photo-manipulation tool.

Printing digital photographs, one of the many uses of the printer, is a strength compared to a normal off-the-shelf inkjet, with images far more attractive than could be expected. The ease in which the printer accepts different sizes of paper is also a bonus, allowing the user to not only print 4x6 prints but even larger. Though the images are high quality, they're not the match of a dedicated photo printer, and there are no guarantees they'll last forever. They at least dry instantly and are water and smudge resistant (within reason.)

But is Her Little Sister More Attractive?

Despite being an all-in-one printer, the CX6000 is as attractive as you might hope, if not particularly eye-catching; it's neither unexpectedly heavy nor large and could quite comfortably fit into any home office environment.

The CX6000 would be without comparison for the user who wants a multipurpose printer for a home office that's also perfectly usable as a photo printer, were it not for its sister machine, the CX5000, which offers all the capabilities of the CX6000 without the colour display for a bargain price of $129. While the capabilities away from a PC are less useful (printing from a digital camera or memory card requires an index sheet) the CX6000 is most likely to spend all of its life attached to a computer anyway. Despite that, for a user intending to photocopy a lot of photographs, the screen is of some use. Either of the CX series of printers from Epson are excellent value.