Epson Stylus TX400

Full Review

This was one of the more closely fought contests between big brands for positions in our Top 5 charts. Across models, many specifications were common and print quality has been improving from one generation to another, to a point where an untrained eye will identify all prints as being ‘good’. The Epson TX400 managed to climb to the top of our Top 5 list, greatly helped by a low purchase cost and an even lower running cost when compared to the competing models. Text printing in normal mode is above average, the edges are sharp to the naked eye and there weren’t visible gaps in print. We used Epson branded photo paper for printing photographs and the result was good except for faint gaps in areas where the image had a solid color fill (but this was common to other MFDs as well). Color reproduction however was faithful and there weren’t any color tints. Details in darker areas of the print were easily visible as well. The driver includes controls to adjust CMYK levels as well as brightness and saturation to suit individual preferences. Epson’s driver have the maximum number of quality options including Photo and Best Photo mode – there weren’t any discernible difference between them, though. When it comes to copying duties, the TX400 was the quickest of the lot – 37 seconds for an A4 color copy and 34 for black and white and the quality left us with no particular gripes. It includes PictBridge and memory card readers for direct photo printing.

The Epson TX400 managed to climb to the top of our Top 5 list, greatly helped by a low purchase cost and an even lower running cost.

Bottom Line

The black ink cartridge costs Rs. 485 and is rated for 245 A4 sheets, giving it an economy of Rs. 2 per page, that’s about half of what other MFDs manage. Note that these numbers are under ‘test conditions’ – real world figures are sure to be lower, but expect a similar percentage drop across all vendors.