Epson Stylus NX515 Printer Review

The Epson Stylus NX515 printer claims to represent itself as an "all in one" printer, copier, fax machine and scanner with only a $150 price tag. Having access to all of these features with one printer sounds like a great thing, but the $150 price tag worries me. That seems awfully inexpensive for a tool so useful. Today, the real question is - "Can The Epson Stylus do all the things it claims to do well at only a $150 price tag?". Let's find out!

First of all, let's look at how user friendly the Epson Stylus NX515 is right out of the box. The user control panel has buttons taht are laid out on the left side of the machine, equipped with a fully functional LCD screen. Presently, LCD control panel screens seem to be all the rage in printing technology but some printer manufacturers fail to grasp the real benefit to having one - convenience. After tinkering with the Epson Stylus' LCD display, I can safely say that the learning curve for this LCD control panel is non-existent and there are no issues here. Controls are great and the Epson Stylus NX515 Control panel really distances itself from the befuddling, convoluted control panels of the past models.

Another great feature that I feel Epson "gifted" this $150 printer is the digital media bay. For those of you that take pictures with your digital camera or prefer to store documents on mobile storage like SD cards or portable USB devices, Epson makes it easy for you to print directly from those mediums. I feel this is a nice addition that $150 printer generally don't have. The digital media bay accepts xD Cards, SD Cards, MemoryStick Pro and Compact Flash cards. Direct printing from these mediums is implemented via the control panel mentioned above.

Epson once again scores in the category of utility and convenience. The Epson Stylus NX515 can be connected to you computer three ways. First of all you can direct connect using USB 2.0 if you know for certain you're going to keep the printer at that location for it's full life span. Secondly, you can connect the printer to any number of computers using Wi Fi technology. This is great for an office environment where you have a lot of employees needing to print documents at the same time. You can also connnect the printer via wired Ethernet to your office network. This boosts print speed and communication speed over Wi Fi, but is more of a hassle and more expensive to maintain. All in all, I'm glad Epson decided to give their customers a maximum number of connectivity options with the Epson Stylus NX515 Printer.

All in all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this printer. Print speeds are good, connectivity is superb, usability is excellent and the Stylus NX515 comes fully loaded with options and neat features that add to the overall convenience of the printer. Out of all the printers I've reviewed, this printer comes out shining as one of my top picks for both business and home applications.