As with most Epson printers these days the Stylus SX400 uses an individual printer ink cartridges system which offers four separate cartridges, one for each colour (black, cyan, magenta and yellow). The Epson ink cartridges feature Epson DURABrite Ultra which prevents the signs of aging in photo prints as well as helping protect against smudging and water damage. This comes at a price however as Epson SX218 ink cartridges can be a bit pricey, luckily there are cheaper alternatives available from third party manufactures if you can do without DURABrite Ultra technology. The SX218 features a built-in memory card reader which means you can print photo directly from a memory card or from a digital camera via the PictBridge connection without the need for the device to be connected to a computer. The photo copying facility is also operational in this way. The printer can print on most common media types such as stand office paper, card, photo paper and envelope of various sizes from A6 up to A4. The print quality produced by the SX218 is surprisingly good for such a cheap printer, it has a class leading 5760 x 1440 dpi resolution which leads to photo prints with pin sharp clarity. Printing speed is quoted as 34ppm on the official spec sheet but this refers to draft quality mode which is not great and increasing the quality reduces speed to a snails pace. Overall however the SX218 is generally good and represents good value.