Dell Colour Printer 725 review

David Bayon Read more October 7, 2009

£27

Price when reviewed

It should be pretty obvious that handing over £27 for an A4 photo printer won’t get you much, and the Dell 725 certainly has nothing in the way of extras. It’s made of lightweight plastic and takes just one tri-colour cartridge, but print quality isn’t quite as bad as we thought.

Don’t get us wrong, they don’t rival the Canon iP5300’s prints: all photos have visible grain and some of the details tend to merge where they should be distinct. But the colours themselves are relatively accurate – not too warm or too cool – and the mono print in particular had a nice neutral tone. It’s certainly a step up from the Lexmark Z845, so if you just want an ultra-cheap printer it may be the answer.

But don’t expect it to stay ultra-cheap for long, since the single Series 6 ink cartridge will need replacing after just 50 6 x 4in photos. Plus, it will set you back around £15 a time so, despite the decent value of Dell’s photo paper, you’re looking at a cost per print of 41p; it won’t be long at all before the savings from initially buying the printer evaporate.

And you’ll also have to wait for your prints. An A4 photo takes 4mins 38secs – not quite as yawn-inducing as the Lexmark’s 11mins 48secs, but it’s slower than most. The same applies for 6 x 4in prints, which take 2mins 26secs, while document speeds are hardly even worth mentioning. Rates of 7.6ppm for draft quality and 2.8ppm for normal would be doubly woeful if it weren’t for the decent Canon iP3300 being equally slow with text.

But the Pixma makes up for it with great photo quality, while the Dell’s prints fall into the distinctly mediocre category. True, it comes with a great on-site warranty, but the poor build quality makes it a pain to live with: the short output tray often let our prints fall straight onto the floor.

If your budget is so limited you have to buy a cheap printer, we can’t recommend the Dell 725. You’ll get better prints, faster speeds and lower running costs by spending an additional £12 on the superior Canon Pixma iP3300.