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The overall dimensions of the Epson B1100 A3 printer, when the paper input and output trays are open, is 61x45x34cm when closed it is 61x20x32cm.

The top front edge has a round on/off button with internal LED and three rod buttons are the rest of the unit’s controls.

The back right is where the power lead enters and about 1/3 of the way along the back from the left is where the USB lead enters.

This is a five ink unit (two blacks) and the four language ‘Start Here’ document illustrates everything for you, remove packaging, open the sealed cartridges install them and place paper in the rear vertical tray then wait around four minutes while it does its check and initial page print to establish there are no visible problems.

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I installed the software from the supplied CD onto a recent Windows notebook as the size of the B1100 stopped it being reviewed in the normal place in my office. Installation took only a few minutes and once you selected to install everything you had just about enough time to make a cup of coffee while it was completed.

Paper should be placed face forward in the upright tray, I always use a mix of weights and styles of paper as this is the best way to establish if the unit is susceptible to paper jams. During my test period I had only one once easily cleared this does cause the unit to do a full four minute run through before it will continue with the print job.

The paper output tray (majority of the units front) needs to be opened prior to printing as unlike most recent units that open automatically this does not and even if the printing does push it open the output will be scrunched up. Output is delivered face up but I never had problems with the page being wet in any way on delivery.

Printing my normal A4 test pages (the majority of pages printed even with A3 machines is still A4) the nonsensical 200 word document printed clear sharp text at 20PPM even in the test draft mode but it was quite noisy.

The more normal 1500 word document (spread over four pages) was quite a bit slower and only came in at 15PPM.

The document with a colour graph a table and text came through at 5PPM. I also have a PDF document that is two pages; the first is the London tube map in full colour and the second the key to the grid on the first showing the location of all the stations, this took 160 seconds to print in the printers own ‘text and image mode&rsp>

The only things I printed in ‘best’ mode were images and while it is tempting to print lots of A3 and A3+ images remember ink is not cheap and a full borderless image will use a lot. This is also not by any means a fast job.

A full A4 image printed borderless took 8 minutes, while the same image on A3 took 13 minutes. The timing were the same for multiple images printed on pages using the excellent supplied Epson Photo Print software package. All photo output including the tube map PDF was good bordering on excellent but while I am not bothered by print speeds they were slow.

Doing my Internet searches found the Epson Stylus Office B1100 printer at a best price of £162.07 with free delivery.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/B002JPKUMW?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge0a-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634

http://www.epson.co.uk/Store/Printers-and-All-in-Ones/Epson-Stylus-Office-B1100 This link has video of the B110 in action.