Epson Stylus Scan 2000

Not all of us are lucky enough to work in spacious office premises, so imagine how much room you'd save if you had a device like the Epson Stylus Scan 2000. It works as an inkjet printer, scanner and photocopier.

Actually, it's a scanner and printer, the photocopier bit being a natural use of both processes. Still it's a nice touch, and we were pleased to find that you don't have to fire up the PC to use the copying function. As long as the printer is switched on, you can copy to your heart's content.

The scanner part works by sucking in the document or photo to be scanned and pulling it over the scanning head. This means you can't scan or copy something like a page in a book.

If the office you're working in is particularly small, then you may find the noise this device makes, whether scanning or printing, a bit much. That said, it's no noisier than other inkjet printers. It didn't produce the best scans we've seen, but they were more than acceptable.

We were impressed with the quality of the printed images. Our tests required it to print full colour images onto plain copier paper: colours were good, and the printed image showed no colour flaws.

Installation caused us a few problems when the setup program went looking for files in the wrong places. This was a shame, as we were otherwise impressed with how easy it was.

The software driver included is the Epson Smart Panel. With this on screen you click an icon representing the function you want to perform, such as Photo Print or Scan to Email. This launches software which will either take you through the process step by step, or has the features pared down to the basics for the benefit of first-time users.