The Epson Stylus Photo series has been consistently impressive in recent years in producing high quality photo images, with a good range of both hardware and software extras to appeal to both casual photographers and intensive business users.

The R220 is directly marketed at the low end of the spectrum, with a highly competitive price and one particular gadget for those who want to preserve their photos in formats other than paper. The pros and cons, though, are fairly equally weighed.

For a start it takes up quite a bit of space on your desktop, but it has a stylish silver and grey casing and weighs a pretty lightweight 5.17kg. It's easy to set up and has the useful advantage of possessing six individual colour cartridges which can be separately replaced when they run out, rather than having to shell out for an all-in-one colour cartridge.

Photo print quality is admirable, being based on the company's MicroPiezo technology which delivers a maximum resolution of 5760 x 1440 dpi (dots per inch). Coupled with Epson's Variable Size Droplet system, this gives sharp and vivid colours. However, the quality of text reproduction is not so impressive, which will not brighten the lives of those who want to use this as a multi-format machine.

Paper sizes range from 3.5 x 5 inches to 10 x 8 inches and include Letter and Panoramic. Most common paper formats (such as Plain Paper, Glossy and Double Sided Matte) are supported, as well as Ink Jet transparencies and Photo Stickers.

The print rate, though, is quite slow, with well over a minute taken to print a 6 x 4 inch image. There's also no preview LCD display to give you an idea of what the final product will look like, and surprisingly no memory card slots either. You can connect to your computer through USB 2.0 ports at the front and rear but there's no PictBridge facility to print without a computer.

The 'gadget' in this case is the chance to print personalised CDs and DVDs, using the supplied Epson Print CD software. A separate CD/DVD tray is included which slots into the front of the printer and is certainly an attractive addition to the Stylus Photo R220's rather limited armoury.

Epson's Creativity Suite is also bundled with this printer, so you can manipulate and catalogue your images. Easy Photo Print, for example, will enable you to print to various formats, including A4, 10 x 15cm or two photos per sheet of A4. PIF Designer is the other bonus software, so that the creatively-minded can produce original frames, complete with captions and messages.

If you're on a limited budget and want to produce good quality photos on standard formats via your PC, then this is a reasonable bargain. The lack of memory card slots is a serious deficiency, though, and it would probably be wiser to spend more for greater choice.