Pros & Cons
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- Fast for the price.
- Ethernet connector.
- Prints, scans, faxes, even over a network.
- Standalone copier and fax.
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- Low paper capacity.
- Although acceptable for most business use, text is relatively low quality, even for an ink jet.
Epson WorkForce 310 All-in-One Specs
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Adobe Acrobat 8 - 4 pages, text and photos (landscape): | 1:53 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Excel 2003 - 1 page, graph: | 0:29 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Excel 2003 - 1 page, table A (with grid): | 0:08 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Excel 2003 - 3 pages, charts and graphs: | 1:14 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 - 4 full-page slides: | 1:55 (min:sec) |
| Business Applications - DEFAULT SETTINGS - Microsoft Word 2003 - 2 pages, text: | 0:16 (min:sec) |
| Claimed lifetime for photos - dark storage: | 300 years |
| Claimed lifetime for photos - exposed: | 46 years |
| Claimed lifetime for photos - framed behind glass: | 83 years |
| Color or Monochrome: | 1-pass color |
| Connection Type: | Ethernet |
| Connection Type: | USB |
| Cost Per Page (Color): | 12.3 cents |
| Cost Per Page (Mono): | 2.5 cents |
| Direct Printing from Cameras: | No |
| Ink Jet Type: | Standard All-Purpose |
| Input Capacity (printer input only): | 100 sheets |
| LCD Preview Screen: | No |
| Maximum Scan Area: | 8.5" x 14" |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size: | Legal |
| Network-Ready: | Yes |
| Number of Cartridges: | 5 |
| Number of Ink Colors: | 4 |
| Photos - HIGH -QUALITY SETTINGS - Adobe Photoshop 7 - Average output time per print: 4" x 6" prints : | 2:10 (min:sec) |
| Print Duplexing: | No |
| Printer Category: | Ink Jet |
| Scanner Optical Resolution: | 1200 pixels per inch |
| Scanner Type: | Flatbed with ADF (Standard or Optional) |
| Standalone Copier and Fax: | Copier |
| Standalone Copier and Fax: | Fax |
| Tech Support: | www.support.epson.com; (800) 463-7766 (automated); (562) 276-4382 (live; 9 a.m. to 9 M-F) |
| Type: | All-In-One |
| Water/smudge proof or resistant: | Yes |
Inexpensive all-in-ones (AIOs) in the Epson WorkForce 310 All-In-One's price class ($129.99 direct, which includes a standard 1-year warranty) have traditionally been aimed primarily at home use. The reason for this is simple, it's hard to build an AIO for that price with both speed and output quality suitable for business use on the one hand, and with all the office-centric features it needs—from fax capability to an automatic document feeder (ADF)—on the other. As its name implies, however, the WorkForce 310 is meant primarily for office use, or, more precisely, for a home office or micro office.
The WorkForce 310 includes a built-in fax modem, an Ethernet connector so you can share it on a network, and a 30-page ADF to scan multi-page documents as well as legal size documents, which won't fit on the flatbed. It can print, scan, and fax, even over a network, work as a standalone copier and fax machine, and send an email from its front panel, with the AIO automatically launching an email message on your PC and adding the scanned document as an attachment.
What's missing from the WorkForce 310—which presumably helps to keep the price down—are the photocentric features that would make it an obvious choice for home use as well. There are no slots for camera memory cards, for example, and no PictBridge connector.
Setup and Performance
Setup is straightforward. Set the 9.3 by 18.1 by 16.2-inch (HWD) printer in place, remove the packing materials, load the ink cartridges and paper, attach the cables, and run the automated setup routine from disc. One interesting touch is that although the ink system uses four ink colors—cyan, yellow, magenta, and black—it takes two identical black cartridges rather than one. Epson says using two cartridges is fully equivalent to using a single large cartridge, with no advantage to either design choice over the other. Both approaches let you print additional monochrome pages without running out of ink.
The WorkForce 310 is a veritable speed demon for the price, with a 14 minute 17 second total time on our business applications suite (timed using QualityLogic's hardware and software, www.qualitylogic.com). In comparison, the more expensive
Not so incidentally, Epson quotes two sets of speeds for the 310. Using the traditional approach to ink jet speed, it claims 36 pages per minute (ppm) for monochrome and 20 ppm for color. But it also claims a slower speed, at 16 ppm for monochrome and 5.5 ppm for color, using the new ISO/IEC 24734 standard.
The traditional approach to ink jet speed tends to be wildly optimistic, with little to no relationship to the performance you'll actually see, which is why I almost never mention the claimed speeds in ink jet reviews. (Claims for lasers are more realistic.) The new ISO/IEC standard is meant to address that problem. Comparing the results on our tests to Epson's claim, however, suggests the new standard still overestimates the speed, though nowhere near as badly. The results on our tests are comparable to what I'd expect to see from a laser rated at about 13 ppm for monochrome (rather than the claimed 16 ppm) and about 3.5 or 4 ppm for color (rather than the claimed 5.5 ppm).—
Output Quality
The WorkForce 310's output quality is best described as good enough for the job it's meant for. Text quality is subpar even for an ink jet, but suitable for most micro or home office needs. Most of the fonts in our text test couldn't qualify as well-formed or highly readable at sizes below 10 points, but more than half passed both thresholds at 10 points, and all the fonts were readable, if flawed, at smaller sizes.
I wouldn't use the printer for a resume or a report for an important client if I wanted to convey a sense of high quality professionalism, but the text is certainly acceptable for typical letters, invoices, and other day-to-day business documents.
Graphics quality in my tests was absolutely typical for an ink jet, making it more than good enough for any internal business use, including color handouts for presentations. I didn't see any flaws worth mention, and it's worth pointing out that the printer did a remarkably good job with thin lines—an issue that many printers have a problem with.
Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you may consider the graphics good enough for output going to an important client. If your graphics cover the entire page, however, you may need to spend a little extra for a heavier weight paper. Full page graphics tended to make the plain paper we use in our tests curl.
Photo quality is a touch below par for an ink jet. It qualifies as true photo quality, but barely makes the cut. Rounded objects, like an apple in fruit bowl, had a slightly flattened look, which comes from a loss of subtle color variations that would make it look more three dimensional.
The photos also lost details based on shading in both light and dark areas. And photos on glossy photo paper suffered from differential gloss, with different parts of the image reflecting light differently at some angles, so part of the image turned into a solid shiny area at those angles. The quality is certainly more than good enough for photos destined for an office bulletin board or a refrigerator door, however, and photos on plain paper are easily good enough for any internal business need, like printing Web pages with photos.
Despite the less than stellar output quality, the WorkForce 310 is an impressive printer for the price. It's fast; it offers all the AIO features any small or home office is likely to need; the output is good enough for most business use; and the printer makes up for whatever corners it cuts with an aggressively affordable price. The balance of features and price is enough to make the WorkForce 310 the Editors' Choice for budget light duty printing in a small or home office.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
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