is an attractively priced combination
of printer, scanner,
and media card reader. It’s
not ideal for every user, but
you get the most important
functions in a compact and
easy-to-use unit.
You can preview images
and perform basic editing
tasks on the 2.5-inch color
LCD that flips up from the
center of the clearly laid-out
control panel.
The media slots hide behind
a small door and can read
most digital camera memory
card formats. The cassette
in the unit’s base holds 150
sheets of plain paper. We
appreciated that the built-in
duplexer, which saves paper
by enabling two-sided printing,
waits a few seconds for
the first side to dry before
printing on the reverse.
Each of the printer’s fi ve ink
cartridges incorporates a red
LED that fl ashes when the ink
runs low. In addition to the three
primary colors, you get two
black inks. In our lab tests, we
saw dark text with crisp edges.
Our line-art sample suffered
only a few ripples in blocks of
closely spaced vertical lines and
some odd diagonal interference
patterns. We also noted excellent
contrast and surprisingly
sharp details in photos printed
on plain paper. On photo paper
we saw beautifully sharp images
with bold colors.
Many of the MP500’s rivals
outstrip its print speed of 6.4
pages per minute for text, but
the unit holds its own at 2.4
ppm for graphics. It printed
our test photo on letter-size
photo paper in a commendable
57 seconds. Its 4.3-ppm
copy speed is also fast.
Finally, the MP500 also performed
solidly in our test scan
of a 4-by-5-inch photo at 100
dpi, completing the scan in
9 seconds.
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