Epson WorkForce Pro WF-5620DWF review

Epson’s new WorkForce Pro WF-5620DWF inkjet is a serious alternative to a laser multifunction printer (MFP). For starters, it costs as an entry-level colour laser MFP, but it has much more advanced features. There’s support for wired and wireless networks, double-sided prints, scans, copies and faxes. Epson says that the updated WorkForce Pro range is the first to use PrecisionCore print heads from its industrial printers, which it says offers greater quality, durability and speed.

A clear highlight is the colour touchscreen. The screen is crisp and responsive and the menu system intuitive, but there are still physical buttons for entering numbers and starting photocopies.

This is a fast inkjet, reaching 19.2 pages per minute (ppm) over our 25-page text test, and 13.1ppm on our more demanding colour graphics document. Both are only a little below what we’d expect from an equivalent laser printer. Draft quality printing is no quicker, however, and duplex (double-sided) speeds weren’t as impressive; printing 10 colour sides onto five sheets took a minute and 39 seconds.

Photocopies were also swift, particularly for single sheets placed on the platen, which took just eight seconds to copy in black only, and 14 in colour. Over multi-page copies the printer seemed to lag behind its 35-page automatic document feeder (ADF), with a 10-page colour copy taking three minutes and 43 seconds. The scanner doesn’t hang about, completing an A4 preview in just six seconds, and scanning a page at 300 dots per inch (dpi) in 14 seconds. Even capturing a 6x4in photo at 1,200dpi took just 36 seconds.

Fortunately this impressive speed is matched with good quality. While not laser-sharp, black text was dark and crisp, with no obvious spidering or stepping. Colour graphics were strong and equally free of artefacts, although duplex prints were slightly fainter; a result of the printer reducing ink use to prevent smearing. Scans had good colour accuracy and were reasonably sharp, but some colour boundaries seemed slightly blocky, as though they had been gently enhanced.

The WF-5620DWF is a match for the speed and quality of an entry-level colour laser MFP, but when it comes to running costs it’s far ahead. Epson offers regular, XL and XXL refills, with the latter good for 4,000 pages. At the time of our review, however, these barely offered any savings over the XL-sized consumable, with costs working out at about 1p for the black component of a full-colour page, and 3.3p in colour. That’s 2-3 times cheaper than an equivalent laser. Combining great features, low costs and solid performance, this excellent office MFP is a Best Buy.