by Steve Wilson, Philadelphia, PA

Review of the CopyPro

I am quite pleased with this machine, and I think it offers tremendous value. One of the things I particularly liked about the CopyPro is that it prints at a normal speed with decent quality, which is unusual for printers in this price category.

It has five levels of quality, although the draft mode is not recommended—pages are very light and dotty.

CopyPro claims its ink is both water resistant and smudgeproof. I tested these claims by putting some color pages under running water; the ink did not run, and when the pages dried, the ink did not come off, even with rough handling, which supports CopyPro’s claims. This is important for business users who make mailing labels and are concerned about exposure to the weather, and for home users worried about the durability of the photos they print.

The CopyPro comes with four separate ink cartridges, meaning users can replace the colors as they run out. This is convenient, and it is cheaper in the long run than using a single cartridge for all colors that has to be replaced more often.

The CopyPro has two memory card slots that can accommodate most types of camera memory cards. I find this to be very convenient — I can plug in my camera’s card and print, without connecting my computer. However, the CopyPro Instant Photo Expert software was disappointing. It has minimal features and is not a replacement for full-featured photo editing software—the software that came with my digital camera is much better. Still, CopyPro Instant Photo Expert does let you resize your photos, rotate them, do basic color correcting, and some other things. In short, I think this is a good machine, and the low price makes it a good value.