Calling the Dell 948 All-In-One Printer ($149 direct) "feature rich" is an understatement. This personal all-in-one (AIO) for home, home office, or both will give you just about any AIO feature you're likely to need. It works as a standalone copier and fax machine; it can fax from and scan to your computer (it scans to e-mail by launching your e-mail program and attaching the scan to a message); and it comes with an automatic document feeder (ADF) to handle multipage documents for faxing, scanning, and copying. For home use, the 948 can print directly from PictBridge cameras, memory cards, and USB keys. You can even add Dell's internal Wi-Fi option ($70 direct) and connect to it wirelessly.

Alas, there's a downside to Dell's packing so much into an AIO while still keeping the price low. The place where Dell cut corners is printing, with subpar text and slow speed for text and graphics. If text quality isn't critical (as when you have a monochrome laser as a primary printer, for example), the 948 can still be a good choice.

The 948 is reasonably compact at 11.3 by 18.0 by 16.1 inches (HWD), so you can easily find room for it. Physical setup is typical for an ink jet AIO: Remove the packing materials, load paper, connect the phone and power cords, turn it on, and then snap in the black and tricolor ink cartridges. While you're waiting for the automatic alignment page to print, you can start installing the software and then connect a USB cable when the program tells you to. The AIO comes with both Windows XP and Vista drivers. I tested it using Windows XP.

As I've already suggested, the 948 did not fare well on text and graphics speed. I timed it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software, www.qualitylogic.com) at an underwhelming total of 26 minutes 37 seconds. As a point of reference, one similarly priced AIO, the HP Photosmart C5280 All-In-One, took just 17:50, while another, the HP OfficeJet J5780 All-in-One, took 21:10.

The story is very different for photo speed. As with many ink jet printers and AIOs, the 948 lets you swap out the black cartridge for a photo cartridge to print photos using six colors instead of four. This tends to increase the printing time, but with most printers, including the 948, it improves the colors in photos. I timed the 948, using the photo cartridge, at an average 2:06 for each 4-by-6 and 4:31 for each 8-by-10. That's significantly faster than either the C5280, at 2:42 and 6:20, or the J5870, at 3:11 and 8:17.

As with speed, quality varies with the type of output. Graphics and photo quality are both within the typical range for an ink jet, but text quality is far below the norm.

On our standard text suite, only one font qualified as both well formed and easily readable at any size smaller than 20 points. This isn't to say that the text was unusable, or even all that hard to read, but it's not suitable for any business document that needs to look even vaguely professional.

In some lines of text, the top of a line was misaligned with the bottom—despite the automatic alignment routine having been run. Dell says that this problem is limited to early production units and has since been fixed in updated firmware. If you happen to wind up with one of the early units, the update is available on Dell's Web site.

Quite apart from the alignment issue, some characters showed nearly broken lines and visibly uneven edges, even at 12 points. I'd call the text good enough for school or for uses like business correspondence if you don't need to have the output look fully professional. But it's not suitable for anything more demanding. Don't even think of using it for something like legal contracts with small fonts.

Graphics quality was much better, although a half step down from that of most ink jets. I saw banding in some graphics and a tendency to lose thin lines, but the quality overall was good enough for schoolwork or most internal business needs, including, for example, PowerPoint handouts. For graphics that cover most of a page, however, you may need to use a more expensive, heavyweight paper. On my tests, full-page graphics on the multipurpose paper we use tended to make the paper curl.

Photos were a match for those of most ink jets, with all of the prints on my tests qualifying as true photo quality. Colors—particularly reds—were a little punchier than the real thing (apples aren't really that red). That's not necessarily a problem, since many people prefer punchy colors. The 948 even did a good job on black-and-white photos, with only a slight off-black tint. Even better, the photos are highly water resistant and reasonably scratch resistant, which means you can pass them around for people to look at without worrying that they'll come back ruined.

Given the 948's issues with text quality, it's obviously a poor choice as your only printer if you need high-quality text. The slow speed makes it a less-than-compelling choice if you print many pages of text or graphics. On the other hand, if your printing needs are strictly light duty, or you need to print mostly photos, or you have another printer for text, the 948 can be well worth getting for its other features. Think of it as a scanner, copier, and fax machine that can also print. In that context, it makes a good second printer to have along with, say, a companion monochrome laser.

Check out the Dell 948 All-In-One Printer's test scores.

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