Fashion-Forward Printers: High-Design Models That Look as Good as They Work

The shiny, silver-and-black HP Envy100 e-All-in-One stands out thanks to its sleek, decorative profile and short frame, which help it to blend in with modern home decor. This color inkjet multifunction printer can print, copy, and scan, and it uses ink cartridges made with recycled materials. Due to its slow print speeds and high ink costs, though, the $250 Envy100 e-All-in-One is best suited for light use.

The photo-savvy Epson PictureMate Show PM 300 ($300) prints snapshots like a dream. Just insert a memory card or USB thumb drive into the printer, or upload photos to the printer's 270MB of memory, and your photos will display on the PM 300’s stunning 7-inch LCD digital frame. It prints quickly (color photos come out at 1.4 pages per minute) and vibrantly, but unfortunately it can print only on 4-by-6-inch photo paper.

With its cool-looking, tiltable 3.5-inch color LCD touchscreen control panel built seamlessly into the top lid, the Canon Pixma MG8120 is quite the looker. This color inkjet multifunction printer prints plain text and grayscale images at 8.27 pages per minute, and it can also scan and copy documents. At $300, the Pixma MG8120 is a little pricey, but its lower-than-average ink-cartridge costs make up for that.

HP changed the color inkjet multifunction printer market with the release of the HP Photosmart eStation this past fall. Not only do you get a fast printer with a sleek design, but you also get the Zeen, a removable touchscreen control panel running the Android 2.1 operating system and offering limited, tablet-PC-like functionality, including Web browsing and e-reading. In this case, the hefty $400 price might very well be justified.