Epson Expression Home XP-245 Review

The Epson Expression Home XP-245 is a budget home printer, the sort of thing you’re going to buy to print out the odd piece of homework or for the photos on the fridge. As is often the case with this type of printer, the quality is good enough and the initial prices is attractive, but the down side is that if can be more expensive to run in the long run, so it’s important to think about your own requirement and buy accordingly.

If you need something that will do the job when it’s called into action then the XP-245 could be the printer for you, we’re not snobs here at Print-It. The low cost route is the right choice for some. Sometimes simplicity is what you are looking for.

Functionality

The XP-245 has a small footprint so it’s going to fit in well in a tight for space home office. Obviously smaller printers are going to be slightly limited, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely incapable!

The printer does feature both scan and copy functionality, so useful for doing a quick one off copy when you can’t get access to an industrial photocopier. This model is compatible with Epson’s iPrint app which enables you to control your printer from your phone, you can scan to it and of course print pictures from it. Given the price of the printer it’s nice to see all this functionality wrapped up and included as standard.

Ink is supplied as individual ink cartridges which is useful. Typically you get through more black ones so you’ll be able to save some money and stockpile a few spares to keep you going.

It does not support Apple AirPrint.

Print Quality

This model is not the fastest on the block, that’s simply the reality of these cheaper printers. If you plan to spew out that 100 page essay you just wrote, make sure you allow enough time to run off a copy before the deadline! We’re looking at about 4 pages per minute with colour and a large full page A4 photo is going to take longer. That said, you can ramp up the speed to a max of 27 ppm depending on what you are doing.

Quality stands up well though, so its worth the wait. Glossy prints are bright and colourful and blacks come out well, even with finer printing. It doesn’t compete with a professional printer, but you didn’t expect that, it looks decent enough for home use though.