Epson Workforce 633

The Workforce 633 is a four-colour (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) all-in-one inkjet printer. That means it scans, copies and prints, and like all of the printers we’ve looked at this month, can be controlled from your computer over your wireless network. Left your laptop at the office? You can also print straight from a USB flash drive or SD card.

The print quality of photos from the Workforce was exemplary – images printed in the highest possible quality on Epson’s photo paper were exceptionally detailed and some of the nicest we’ve seen. The six-colour Epson printer we tested, the Artisan 725, produced significantly better photo quality, but only because of the increased depth of colour from the two extra inks.

The Workforce 633 was actually better at black and white printing than the Artisan, however. The black text was, well, black, which made it easily readable.

Photo prints on plain paper were average or slightly above. Copies were nicely detailed, but bloomed out to over-saturation over several generations.

Impressively for the price, the Workforce includes both a flatbed and sheet-fed scanner, so you can scan 30-page documents just as easily as single 4 x 6-inch photographs.

If you’re looking for something small for your cramped home office, this printer is not going to fit. It’s big, clunky, and certainly not stylish enough for the tech fashionistas out there. If you have a little bit of space, don’t need intense colour and don’t care how your printer looks – who’s going to notice, anyway? – then the Workforce will serve you well. At $299, the price ain’t too bad, either.