Epson WorkForce 600

What's not funny are the ink costs. The standard-size inks that come with the printer are very expensive to replace: black costs $17 and lasts 230 pages, or a sky-high 7.4 cents per page. Cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges cost $12.34, and each lasts 310 pages--also pricey at 4 cents per color, per page. The high-yield inks aren't much better. With the extra-high-capacity tank, only for black, you finally get a reasonable 3.4 cents per page.

The control panel could be simpler. A button labeled 'Home' has icons for the four major functions crowded onto it. You have to press the button repeatedly to cycle through each function, but that's not obvious: the first thing I tried was to press the corner where each function's icon was located, thinking that would take me directly to it.

Also, the 2.5-inch color LCD has too many buttons associated with it: four-way arrows, a plus and a minus sign, and Back and OK buttons. Small on-screen cues guide you, but backing out is not always clear. The WorkForce 600's documentation lacks an overview of how the control panel works, which doesn't help.

If speed were everything, the WorkForce 600 would win hands-down. But that's just one part of the package, and the machine's drawbacks--such as high ink replacement costs--drag down its rating.

--Melissa Riofrio