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Reviewed by: Daniel Grotta and Sally Wiener Grotta
Review Date: August 2009
ComputerShopper-The Epson Stylus NX515 is like a beloved family car that gets great gas mileage, is fun to drive, has all the popular options, and generally takes you everywhere you want to go in style and comfort—but also has some annoying quirks.
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The large LCD tilts almost 80 degrees. The control panel is located underneath the LCD.
The NX515 is both stylish and eminently accessible, and its small footprint and low profile make it easy on both the eyes and the desktop. The top is made of shiny black plastic, while the rest of the body is a complementary dull black plastic. At the rear of the top left is a large LCD screen that tilts almost 80 degrees. It's bright, and characters look quite legible on it, but the interface design leaves something to be desired. Information is displayed in single words and short phrases rather than more explanatory sentences. Also, navigating within it can be a problem; at times, we would get caught in a loop and be unable to exit the command options, no matter which button we pushed. At those times, we had to turn off the printer and start over.
Conversely, beneath the LCD screen is one of the best-designed and easiest-to-use printer control panels we've seen. Every button is positioned logically and labeled clearly. Underneath the panel, on the front of the printer, are various memory slots, but unlike the $129.99 HP Photosmart C4780 that we recently reviewed, the NX515 features both a CompactFlash (CF) card slot and a PictBridge port, for directly attaching a digital camera.
Like the Photosmart C4780, the NX515 lacks both an automatic duplexer (for double-sided printing) and an automatic document feeder. The lid is hinged, for photocopying thick originals such as books, but it raises less than an inch and, unlike the C4780, is not removable, severely limiting its usefulness.
The NX515 uses a conventional adjustable paper tray at the top of the back that accommodates up to 100 sheets of plain paper and ejects into a conventional pull-out receiver tray in front of the printer, an arrangement that's far superior to the C4780's dual-purpose feeder/receiver tray. In all our tests, we did not experience any jams or misfeeds. The lift-up cover provides easy access to the NX515's four color cartridges. However, the NX515's built-in, nonremovable printhead doesn't automatically move into place when you raise the lid. You must first press the Settings button and then hit OK when asked to check the ink levels or replace the ink cartridges, an unnecessary inconvenience.
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A lift-up cover provides easy access to the NX515's four color cartridges.
The NX515's USB and Ethernet ports are conveniently recessed in the left rear, but the (brickless) power cord sticks out of the middle of the back, preventing you from positioning the printer directly against a wall. Oddly, there's a small user-accessible trapdoor on the back, though Epson's documentation fails to explain what it's for.
Except for inserting the ink cartridges and top paper-feeder tray, the NX515 is ready to go right out of the box, with nothing to add or attach. Establishing a Wi-Fi connection doesn't require a USB or Ethernet cable, though you do have to go through the printer's LCD-bound setup wizard before installing the drivers and programs from the enclosed CD. Epson's illustrated, well-written 36-page Network Installation Guide will help even beginners easily configure and connect the printer wirelessly. Oddly, the Wi-Fi signal light underneath the LCD panel glows yellow, not blue, when it detects a wireless network, contrary to convention. Software installation was simple and trouble-free.
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The lid on the NX515 is hinged, for photocopying thick originals such as books.
Printing, scanning, and copying is mostly straightforward, though not without a few quirks. The printer is generally quiet, except when working in its Text & Image mode, in which it sounds and shakes like a miniature washing machine. Epson's Event Manager interface displays a progress bar that guesstimates print times, including the number of pages printed and pages still remaining. However, in our tests, the projections were quite inaccurate, since they reflect what's been dumped to the printer buffer, rather than a true estimate of the remaining time/pages. Incidentally, you can choose whether or not to display ink levels. Should one of the inks run low, Event Manager asks if you wish to order replacement inks from Epson's Web site. If you order and pay for at least three cartridges, Epson pays the overnight shipping.
The NX515's print interface is simple, allowing you to select among five levels of quality: Draft, Text, Text & Image, Photo, and Best Photo. In Photo and Best Photo modes (we didn't see any significant quality difference between the two), you can select the Fix Redeye and Fix Photo option, opt to print in gray scale, and choose between two color profiles: Epson Vivid Color and Adobe RGB color. Other options include spooling, printing as bitmap, printing according to ICM color profile, and changing print resolution. Those are features not generally available on most printers in this class, and as useful as they might be for savvy experts, they're more likely to confound the average user. Printing directly from a memory card or PictBridge-enabled digital camera, however, limits some of those options.
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Underneath the panel, on the front of the printer, are two memory-card slots, including a less-common CompactFlash (CF) card slot, plus a PictBridge USB port.
Making copies with the NX515 is quick and easy, once you learn how to navigate successfully through the various options and parameters. One small caveat: In making a color copy, there's only one level of quality available. On the other hand, Epson's scanner utility provides four levels of sophistication: Full Auto, Home, Office, and Professional, with each offering different levels of complexity and tools. For convenience, there's a hardware Scan button on the device, and the software automatically installs a scan icon on the desktop; you can use either to initiate a scan.
We were impressed with this model's print, copy, and scan speeds, which are among the fastest in its class. Our 20-page text document took only 1 minute and 27 seconds to print in Normal mode, with the first page flying out in a blazing 9.8 seconds. By comparison, the HP Photosmart C4780 required almost 2 minutes longer to accomplish the same task, while the $199 Canon Pixma MX860 took about 1.5 minutes longer. Our 10-page text-and-graphics test file (printed in Fine mode) finished in 4 minutes and 11 seconds, with the first page coming off in 27 seconds. The HP Photosmart needed about 2.5 minutes longer to print the same file, with the first page taking a much longer 52 seconds. (The Canon needed a whopping 11 minutes longer to print the entire file, with the first page completed in 50 seconds.)
Photo output was slower. Our 4x6-inch test print came out in 1 minute and 21 seconds in Normal mode (the printer doesn't allow for 4x6-inch prints in Fine mode), and an 8.5x11-inch photo in Fine mode took 5 minutes and 55 seconds. The HP printed our 4x6 test photo about 3 seconds faster, and the Canon about 30 seconds slower. (Incidentally, Epson claims in its promotional literature that the NX515 can output a 4x6-inch photo in as little as 22 seconds. Unfortunately, reading the fine print reveals that that speed is obtained only by printing in Draft mode onto plain paper, something no user would do with a photo print in real life.)
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The NX515 uses a conventional adjustable paper tray at the top of the back that accommodates up to 100 sheets of plain paper and ejects into a conventional pull-out receiver tray in front of the printer
Scanning and copying were very fast. A page of text on the NX515 took 11 seconds to scan, and our 8.5x11-inch test photo required 28 seconds. This compares favorably, respectively, to the HP's 16 and 36 seconds, and the Canon's 19 and 34 seconds. Also, all the NX515's photocopy times, at all quality levels, were faster than those achieved by the HP and the Canon.
Text and image quality were all over the spectrum, however. In Fine mode, text looked very good to excellent, with well-formed, dark, and dense characters. Jaggies were minimal, noticeable only under magnification. In Normal mode, both monochrome and color text were clean and highly readable. On the other hand, monochrome text in Fast Economy mode was very light, and color text in Economy mode was virtually unreadable. Given Epson's reputation for photographic excellence, we were disappointed in the NX515's color output. Photos looked somewhat muted, with reduced contrast and saturation. Color copies, even on premium photo paper, were dull, dark, and mushy.
Color cartridges for the NX515 are available in regular ($12.34) and high-capacity ($16.99) sizes, while black cartridges sell at $16.99 for regular, $19.99 for high-capacity, and $28.99 for extra-high-capacity. This works out to as low as 3.1 cents per page for monochrome printing and 12.9 cents per page for color. That makes the NX515's cost per page about average among all-in-ones in this class for monochrome printing and slightly less than average for color. (By the way, Epson's inks dry instantly and are waterproof, smudge-proof, and fade-resistant.)
For general use, the Epson Stylus NX515 offers great performance, superior monochrome text output, inexpensive costs per page, and both simple setup and good ease of use. But if printing photos is a big part of your agenda or you frequently rely on Draft mode for documents, this isn't the model for you.
Price (at time of review): $149.99 (mfr. est.)
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