Copy shop in a box: new multifunction printers also scan, copy, and fax--all for the price of an ordinary model. But which ones do the job right? (Multifunction Printers).

Your next printer may have multiple personalities. For years multifunction printers have saved scarce office space, but the latest all-in-ones print as well as general-purpose printers do, at comparable prices. MFPs can't match the output and functionality of a photo printer or stand-alone scanner, but for standard office tasks they fit the bill.

THE MFPs TESTED BY the PC World Test Center for this roundup range in price from $100 for Lexmark's PrinTrio X75 to $699 for the HP LaserJet 3330mfp. We also tested Brother's MFC-4420c, Canon's MultiPass MP730, Dell's A940, HP's PSC 2210, and Lexmark's X5150. All seven products have remarkable versatility: They can print, scan, copy, and send and receive faxes. Besides testing the speed and quality of the unit's printing, scanning, and copying, we examined their fax capabilities, add-on software, and other features designed to improve office productivity.

Test Center

Our Best Buy, the Lexmark X5150, offers top all-around speed and functionality at an affordable price. The X5150 scanned the fastest and did fairly well in each area (though its scanning quality was judged merely Fair). Fittingly, our MFP of choice is noteworthy for its overall functionality rather than for its performance on any specific task.

The HP PSC 2210 combines solid performance with good-quality output and an outstanding software bundle, but it costs three times as much as our lowest-cost MFP. Still, its versatility makes it a worthwhile investment for a small or home office. We were also pleased with the quality of the Canon MultiPass MP730's prints and scans in our tests, particularly its stellar text prints and color output.

AN EXPLODING MARKET?

THE INCREASING POPULARITY of MFPs may be part of a larger trend toward combo devices, as reflected in the rise of cell phones with added camera and PDA features. Amber Shore, a printer-industry analyst at market research firm ARS, says manufacturers are vying to fulfill tech consumers' desire for several functions in one machine. Shore adds that higher-end photo or laser printers will always have a niche simply because general-purpose MFPs don't produce the high-quality prints and razor-sharp documents that users have come to expect for their photos and for professional publications.

Except for the HP LaserJet 3330mfp and possibly the Canon, these MFPs lack the paper handling and other advanced printer features that workgroups of more than two or three people require. For a home office or a single user, however, they're fine alternatives to individual devices.

The print engines in all-in-ones tend to lag about a generation behind the engines in stand-alone alternatives. For example, our Best Buy color ink jet printer, the $50 Canon i320, prints text at 4.7 pages per minute and graphics at 0.7 ppm, which is faster than both the $300 HP PSC 2210 (3.6 and 0.6 ppm, respectively) and the $249 Brother MFC4420c (2.8 and 0.5 ppm, respectively). Though the prints from the color ink jet MFPs we tested won't end up in a photography gallery, they'd look good in a family photo album or in small-business newsletter. (The HP LaserJet 3330mfp is the only monochrome laser--based product in this group.)

Multifunction printers are getting cheaper, too. Whereas the average price of the trio of color ink jet MFPs tested in our February 2002 roundup was about $366, the average price of the six MFPs with color ink jet printers in this review comes in at less than $225.

The trend toward more-advanced features at lower prices that we've observed in printers for the past several years applies to MFPs as well. Low-cost MFPs such as Lexmark's PrinTrio X75 are pressuring Canon, HP, and other vendors to lower the prices of their existing models and to introduce low-end units. We rated the X75's print quality for text as Good and for graphics as Fair; it also scored Fair for copy quality. The X75's low price encouraged us to accept the quality of its output, which is lower than we would normally expect to obtain from a device equipped with a dedicated black-ink cartridge. Nevertheless, going for the rock-bottom price represents a false economy; for just $40 or $50…