Epson says on its website that the Epson WorkForce WF-2530 multifunction printer (MFP) is meant for a small home office. That's a reasonable description as far as it goes, given the printer's emphasis on office-oriented, rather than home-oriented, features. However, it's better described as a personal MFP for any size office, largely thanks to it being both small enough to share a desk with and packed with features that any office user needs.

There aren't many MFPs in this price range that focus more on office needs than home use. One of the few exceptions is the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J430wSEE IT, which offers plenty of similarities to the WF-2530. In particular, just because both printers focus on office-related features doesn't mean you can't use them in the dual role of home and home office printer as well. It's just that you won't find many features that focus on home use. Neither printer, for example, offers PictBridge support for printing directly from cameras or the ability to print directly from memory cards.

Much like the MFC-J430w, the WF-2530 can print and fax from, as well as scan to, a PC and also work as a standalone copier and fax machine. One key office-oriented feature is its 30-page automatic document feeder (ADF), which complements its letter-size flatbed to let you scan multipage documents and legal-size paper.

As with the Brother printer, the WF-2530 offers Wi-Fi, but not wired, network support to let you share it easily. Sharing is best confined to the dual role of home and home office use, however, since the printer's paper handling is far too limited for sharing in most offices, with only a 100-sheet capacity and no duplexer (for two-sided printing).

One other feature worth mention is support for mobile printing, both for printing through the cloud and for using Apple AirPrint over a local Wi-Fi connection. Note, however, that mobile printing won't work over a USB connection to your computer.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality

For my tests, I connected the WF-2530 by USB cable to a system running Windows Vista. Setup was mostly standard fare. However, it helps a lot that the printer is unusually compact—with a footprint of just 15.4 by 14.8 inches (HWD) not including the front output tray—so it won't take up much room on your desk.

Both speed and output quality are best described as acceptable, but unimpressive. I timed the printer on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at 2.6 pages per minute (ppm). For comparison, that makes the Epson printer faster than the more expensive Canon Pixma MG4220 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-in-OneSEE IT, at 2.1 ppm, but significantly slower than the Brother MFC-J430w, at 4.3 ppm.

For photo speed, all three printers were relatively slow compared with inkjets in general. However, the WF-2530 was slowest of the three, averaging 2 minutes 17 seconds for a 4 by 6 in its best quality mode.

The printer's output quality is just a touch below par overall. Text quality falls within the fairly tight range that includes the vast majority of inkjets, but at the low end of the range. Most people should find it acceptable for basic business use like correspondence and reports. Graphics, unfortunately, are slightly below par. They're more than good enough for internal business use, but whether you consider them suitable for, say, PowerPoint handouts will depend on how critical an eye you have.

Photos are par for an inkjet MFP, but just barely, The printer handled most photos well in our tests, but the colors in one were a little dark in terms of a hue-saturation-brightness color model, putting it at the low end of what I expect from drugstore prints. The quality is certainly acceptable for business materials that might include photos. For home use, I'd call the output roughly snapshot quality overall, which translates to usable, but not a good choice if you want photos to always look their best.

In many ways, the Epson WorkForce WF-2530 is fully competitive with the Brother MFC-J430w, with a similar constellation of MFP features and similar paper handling. For most people, however, the Brother MFC-J430w's faster speed and somewhat better text quality gives it the edge. That leaves the Epson WF-2530 as a perfectly reasonable choice, but with no compelling argument for choosing it over the competition.

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