The newest home printers offer a bigger bang for your buck with cost-saving features, and the ability to print from more places, including wirelessly.

The Epson Stylus Photo R1400 (Windows or Mac) $499.99, may not be in your budget, but if you're a serious photographer wanting fast pro-quality, up to 13" x 19" enlargements from home, look no further.

It uses ink-jet technology but Epson has been able to shrink the individual ink droplets from the six colour cartridges so that they're virtually invisible to the naked eye. This means smooth looking photo-lab quality prints.

The R1400 is Epson's third-generation model and almost a third the price of the original with much faster print times and quality. A full 13" x 19" image took less than eight minutes; 4" x 6" photos print in less than one minute, while an 8" x 10'' prints in less than two minutes.

The prints are smudge, scratch, water and fade resistant. Although the paper ($4 per 13" x 19") sheet and $23.99 per cartridge seems steep, it's still a bargain for photo-hobbysists and has a variety of paper stock including textured.

The ink is dye-based but from personal experience with several years old models, makes long lasting prints. Epson also makes longer lasting pigment-based ink systems at more than twice the price.

And most importantly for penny pinchers, it's full duplex capable, meaning it can print on two sides of paper, automatically flipping the page around for sequential print jobs.

Setting up the printer in a wireless environment does, however, take patience and you must follow the included directions, especially if you have wireless network security set up with your wireless router.

To start, you have to physically connect the printer to a computer and choose between a wireless (for a single wireless laptop) or wired network connection, depending on whether you have more than one PC at home.

Once done, the printer worked great, being able to print from my laptop from anywhere at home. There is a small lag time but it's a lot faster than having to walk to a physically connected printer.

The only feature not available in a wireless connection is being able to send files from the printer's multi-disk memory reader, which also includes USB sticks and connected digital cameras.

Although you can print directly to the printer from these media with ample controls, along with editing functions and size choices, getting these files to your PC requires a direct connection.

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