Epson WorkForce 645 All-in-One

The Epson WorkForce 645 provides a solid feature set and good standard paper capacity as a small- or home-office inkjet multifunction printer (MFP). Its 30-sheet duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF), which lets you copy, scan, and fax two-sided documents, is unusual at its price point. It has decent speed, and its output quality?though overall a bit below par?is fine for most standard business uses.

The WorkForce 645 is a handsome unit, clad in matte and glossy black. It is reasonably compact for an MFP, measuring 8.9 by 17.6 by 14.2 inches (HWD) and weighing 15.6 pounds. Its tilt-up front panel contains a 2.5-inch non-touch color LCD, an alphanumeric keypad, and various buttons to control the four basic functions of Photo, Copy, Fax, and Scan. The 645 has a 250-sheet paper tray and an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. The scanner?s platen fits paper up to A4 size; you can scan at up to legal size using the ADF.

The 645 is compatible with Epson Connect Email Print; Epson assigns the printer its own email address, and you can email documents to it for automatic printout, even if you?re halfway around the world.

The WorkForce 645 provides WiFi and Ethernet as well as USB connectivity. I tested it over an Ethernet connection using a PC running Windows Vista.

Print Speed

I timed the Epson WorkForce 645 on our business applications suite (using?QualityLogic's hardware and software) at an effective 4.0 pages per minute (ppm). This edges the Editors? Choice HP Officejet 6700 Premium ?($169.99 direct, 4 stars), which we timed at 3.4 ppm on the same tests, while matching the Editors? Choice Brother MFC-J825DW ?($150 street, 4 stars), which we also clocked at 4.0 ppm. The HP Officejet Pro 8600 ($199.99 direct, 4 stars) zipped through the same tests at 5.7 ppm.

The 645 averaged 1 minute 15 seconds to print out a 4-by-6 photo.

Output Quality

The WorkForce 645?s output quality was a bit below par overall, with slightly sub-par text, sub-par graphics, and photo quality on the low side of average. ?Text quality was fine for school and general business use, though I wouldn?t use it for documents like resumes in which you?re counting on its appearance to make a good impression.

Graphics quality was sub-par for an inkjet MFP. Banding, a regular pattern of thin lines of discoloration, was visible in many of the printouts, at times rising to the level of distraction. ?Most graphics showed dithering: graininess and, at times, visible dot patterns. Quality was okay for general business use, though I?d be hesitant to use the output for PowerPoint handouts.

The photo print quality was generally about what you?d expect from drugstore prints. Photos did well in showing detail in darker areas, but lighter areas looked a bit washed out in some cases. A monochrome print showed a modest tint.

Other Issues

Epson doesn?t quote cost per page figures for its printers, but based on their prices and yields for the most economical cartridges, it works out to 3.2 cents per monochrome page and 11.3 cents per color page. The cost per monochrome page is the same as for the HP Officejet 6700 Premium, while the HP?s color costs are 2.3 cents per page lower. You?d make up for the HP?s $20 higher price after printing less than 1,000 color pages with it, and everything beyond that would be savings. ?The HP Officejet Pro 8600 e-All-in-One, with running costs of 1.6 cents per black-and-white page and $7.2 cents per color page, is priced $50 higher than the Epson but offers more dramatic cost savings over time.

The Epson WorkForce 645 has a solid feature set for a small-office MFP: good standard paper capacity plus an automatic duplexer; a duplexing ADF for copying, scanning, and faxing two-sided documents and a memory card reader (the HP Officejet 6700 Premium?s ADF is simplex only, and it lacks a card reader). Epson Connect Email Print, which lets you email documents to your printer for printout, is a nice touch. HP offers a similar service as part of its ePrint functionality, while the Editors? Choice HP 6700 Premium as well as the Officejet Pro 8600 add touch screens and can run HP?s Web apps. The WorkForce?s running costs are slightly higher than the 6700?s, and significantly higher than those of the Officejet Pro 8600. But it offers a good package and decent speed for its price, and better paper capacity than the Editors?Choice Brother MFC-J825DW. It?s well worth consideration by a micro or home office looking for a color inkjet MFP.

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