Is the Epson S21 printer a little treasure?

On the face of it the Epson Stylus S21 seems to be a great find, it a high resolution colour inkjet printer that prints all types of documents including photos and it cheap. All this is true but when you consider other things like running costs it starts to go downhill from there. A full set of Epson S21 ink cartridges costs just as much as the printer itself and if your printing photos they won’t last very long so buying replacement printer ink cartridges will be frequent. Compatible printer cartridges are available for the S21, they cost 60% less than the originals and yield the same number of pages with quality difficult to tell apart from the originals. The Stylus S21 performs well in terms of print quality, it can print all types of documents including photos but it is fault in one area – speed. Despite claims of 25 pages per minute, in the real world the S21 is only capable of 3 pages per minutes in the minimum quality settings where the text is readable. Photo prints take even longer, with each 6x4 taking five minutes when the printer is in photo quality settings, this is extremely slow even for a budget inkjet printer. The quality of the prints however is good provided you’re not in a hurry the Epson S21 will suit you fine.