It was less than a year ago that Epson released the DX3800 and DX4800 All-in-One machines, designed to appeal to the customer with a limited budget who wanted to be able to combine printing, copying and scanning in a relatively small space. Now Epson has launched three series updates - the DX4000, DX5000 and DX6000 - with a user-friendly price range of £70-£100.

The DX6000 is the top of the range and there are significant improvements over the DX4800. For a start, the new model is in stylish black and silver tones rather than cream, it's slightly smaller in height and width (463 x 354 x 181mm) and a touch lighter at just 6.5kg.

Like the DX4500, the new version has got front-loading digital camera memory card slots (supporting CF Type II, Memory Stick, SD/MMC and xD-Picture card) with PictBridge support and a USB 2.0 slot above for direct printing.

Both units make use of Epson's recently developed DURABrite Ultra inks which dry instantly, are smudge- and water-resistant and claim to be durable for 100 years (we'll have to wait and see on that one!). Again, there are four separate colour cartridges which cost around £7 each to replace and the theory is this will prove more economical than having to provide one colour cartridge every time the cyan, for example, runs out.

All good so far, but what's it like in real use? Well the good news is that Epson has now added a 2-inch colour LCD viewer so you can preview your photos before you print them. The same monitor is used to set up copying sizes and functions and any repair facilities such as checking ink levels or cleaning print heads.

The print resolution remains unchanged at 5,760 x 1,440 optimised dpi (dots per inch) but the print and copy speeds have significantly improved: 27ppm for black text (as opposed to 20ppm) and 28 seconds for 10 x 15cm (6 x 4-inch) photos instead of 81 seconds. The quality of the finished print has always been the strongest feature of this machine, as the colours are vibrant, sharp and authentic, whether printing from a PC, scanner or from a memory card.

On the other hand, the greatest flaw from the earlier models is still there and that's the heavy ink usage. Even though the cartridges are split into four in the interest of economy, after copying just four A4 colour photos at best resolution, three-quarters of the coloured inks had vanished in our test. As one of the prime selling points is the memory card utility and the durability of the coloured inks, this is going to be a serious drawback if you're frequently replacing cartridges at £7 a go.

It's a major disappointment, especially when the software bundle (which includes Epson's Creativity Suite and ABBYY FineReader Optical Character Recognition) is uniformly excellent.

What could have been a well-nigh perfect All-in-One for the customer on a limited budget is still seriously let down by ruinous ink usage. Print quality is of a high standard, though, and the new LCD viewer is very welcome.