Epson Stylus SX115

We bought this Epson all in one printer last year. We had no choice after our old one broke, but we thought we’d upgrade to an all in one. We don’t really use the copy and scan features all that often, but they are so handy to have when we do need them. Overall we are pleased enough with the printer because it does everything we need it isn’t quite perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

I think we paid about £40 for the printer from Staples, but it was on offer at the time. The cheapest I have seen it is around £50 online at the moment. I think it is pretty good value for money because it does do a lot and it does it pretty well. The thing that annoys me about it is the cost of the cartridges. It is a colour printer as well and, unlike others, it has separate cartridges for the coloured ink, which technically means that you only have to change the colour that has run out. That is all well and good, but you have to buy them as a set, so it doesn’t really work out to be cost saving – we have three yellow cartridges on standby because the other colours run out quicker and we have to keep buying them by the set. I think you might be able to buy them separately if you look hard enough, but the convenient places don’t do it.

The cartridges are upwards of £20 for the official ones in black and almost £30 for the colour set. We have never tried compatible ones that are cheaper, but I have read other reviews where people have said they have had nothing but trouble with using cheaper non Epson versions.

The print quality is pretty good. We often use draft printing to economise a bit which is fine for our everyday personal needs but is probably too pale for use if you are printing documents or letters to be given to other people.

The printer was very easy to set up in the first place and there is a small manual that comes with it to help. The copy and scan functions are also very easy to use; once you have set up the printer initially, you just have to press the appropriate button on the top for which function you want.

The printer itself is quite slow and noisy, which we were surprised at. Our previous, and much cheaper version, was slow but not noisy and we just assumed that this one (at double the price) would be quicker. Not so. It claims to do thirty pages per minute in black ink and 15 in colour. It probably does manage this but it just seems so much slower because it is so painful to watch with its almighty racket!

Overall I am not sure whether or not I would recommend the Espon Stylus. It is certainly convenient in that it is an all in one printer and it is handy to have, but it is noisy and so expensive to replace the cartridges. I doubt very much that I would buy this model again if I had the choice so I guess that I wouldn’t recommend it.