Epson Expression Photo XP-970
£235/$300 Go large without piling on the pounds, thanks to Epson’s ‘small-in-one’ printer
If twice as big is twice as good, this Epson A3/11-inch photo printer beats smaller A4/8.5-inch models. It delivers double the maximum print area, but remains reasonably compact, light and easily manageable. All of the multifunction attractions of most smaller printers are retained.
Like the Epson Ecotank ET-8550 on test, this more conventional cartridge-based printer packs a built-in scanner, an SD card slot and a Pictbridge port, all brought together by a 4.3-inch touchscreen. That said, the scanner is A4/8.5-inch rather than A3/11-inch, so you can’t scan or photocopy large-format prints.
The printer runs on six Claria Photo HD dye-based inks, with a conventional ‘photo’ line-up of CMYK plus light cyan and light magenta. As such, it can’t match the colour space of the more specialist large-format photo printers on test, which employ between eight and 10 ink cartridges, as well as having multiple grey inks for improved black-and-white photo printing. Even the optional XL cartridges have a relatively small capacity, averaging out to around 9ml.
Performance
When you see A3 and A4 photo prints side by side, bigger really is better. Photo print quality is excellent for colour images. The smoothness of graduations in blue skies and the quality of skin tones are very good. The ‘photo enhance’ option is best avoided if you’re after good colour accuracy, though. As with any dye-based printer, the XP-970 is best suited to glossy, semi-gloss or lustre output but it still works pretty well with matte media. Black-and-white photo output tends to lack a degree of richness and drama.