Epson WorkForce WF-3520

Very much in the same class as the Editors' Choice HP Officejet 6700 Premium e-All-in-One, the Epson WorkForce WF-3520 offers a similar set of features. Either of these inkjet multi-function printers (MFPs) can be a good fit for a micro office, a busy home office, or heavy-duty personal use, with the WF-3520 not quite matching the 6700 for graphics quality but delivering somewhat better speed and paper handling for a slightly lower price. The combination makes it Editors' Choice, but along with, rather than replacing, the 6700.

Like the 6700, the WF-3520's connection options include Ethernet and Wi-Fi, so you can share it easily on a network. It also delivers a similar list of MFP features. It can print and fax from, as well as scan to a computer, including over a network, and it can work as a standalone copier and fax machine. It can also print from or scan to a USB memory key and print directly from a PictBridge camera.

Also worth mention is support for mobile printing, including printing through the cloud and printing with Apple AirPrint. Note that both require a wired or wireless connection between the printer and your network, however, and AirPrint requires a Wi-Fi access point on your network.

Paper Handling and Size
Paper handling is one of the printer's stronger features, with a 250-sheet tray, a duplexer (for printing on both sides of a page), and a single-sheet manual feed tray that lets you print on a different paper stock without having to swap out the paper in the tray.

For scanning, the WF-3520 offers both a letter-size flatbed and a 30-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) that can handle legal-size pages. Even better, the ADF duplexes, by scanning one side and then turning the page over to scan the second side. For copying, menu settings let you combine the duplexing ADF with duplex printing to copy both single- and double-sided originals to your choice of single- or double-sided copies.

Given the printer's level of paper handling, which often goes hand-in-hand with a large size, Epson has managed to keep the WF-3520 surprisingly compact, at 9.6 by 17.7 by 22 inches (HWD) even with the paper tray fully open. The printer body is only 16.4 inches deep, however, making the printer small enough to share a desk with comfortably if you need a heavy-duty personal MFP.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
Setting up on a wired network and installing the drivers and software on a Windows Vista system for my tests was absolutely typical for the breed. Print speed, however, is anything but typical for the price. And I mean that in a good way.

On our business applications suite, I timed the WF-3520 (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at an effective 4.4 pages per minute (ppm), which makes it one of the faster printers in its price range. In comparison, the Officejet 6700 Premium managed only 3.4 ppm on our tests, and the still more expensive Canon Pixma MG6220 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-in-One, was even slower, at 2.9 ppm. The speed for photos was reasonably fast as well, with the average time for a 4-by-6 coming in at 1 minute 12 seconds in our tests.

The WF-3520's output quality isn't a strong point like the speed, but it doesn't quite reach the point of being a weakness either. The printer's overall score is just a touch below par, making it well short of impressive, but still acceptable for most business needs. Text, for example, is at the low end of the range that includes the vast majority of inkjets, which is good enough for typical business documents, but a poor choice if you have an unusual need for small fonts or a critical eye that demands desktop-publishing quality.

Graphics output, similarly, is easily good enough for most internal business needs. Whether you consider it good enough for, say, PowerPoint handouts or graphics in a report will depend largely on how much of a perfectionist you are and how important it is for the output to convey a subtext of professionalism.

Photos are also easily good enough for almost any business purpose, with most qualifying as true photo quality in my tests. However, the colors in one photo were a little off, and thin lines in the numbers of a clock face were partly filled in, putting the output at roughly the low end of the quality you can expect from drugstore prints.

Although the level of output quality takes a little of the shine off this printer, there are enough strong points to make up for it. If you absolutely must have somewhat better graphics quality, the HP Officejet 6700 may be your preferred choice. But the Epson WorkForce WF-3520's output quality is good enough for most purposes, and its combination of fast speed, excellent paper handling, and long list of MFP features is enough to make it Editors' Choice.

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