Epson has a new line of printers designed to tackle one of the most irritating aspects of printing – the need to change ink cartridges, often at the most inconvenient times.
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Instead, four of the printers feature a set of reservoirs that hold ink poured in from a bottle, and Epson says each bottle contains a two-year supply* of ink.
The answer, he said, has to do with hardware: Epson’s advantage is its permanent mechanical print heads, as opposed to the disposable thermal ones used by its chief competitors.
However forward-thinking Epson may be, these fancy new printers still don’t come with a USB cable. Instead of shipping with a few small cartridges, the EcoTank comes with the equivalent of 20 cartridges worth of ink already onboard, in small tanks.
Thank god we’re moving closer and closer to a paperless society, because dealing with printers still sucks.
The Expression ET-2550 sells for $400, while the Workforce ET-4500 goes for $429. Well, make that the inclusion of the EcoTank system and, according to Epson, “up to two years'” supply of ink. “The appeal of low-cost, hassle-free color printing in business and in the home has potential to capture a significant share of the market”. On top of that, Epson throws in an additional “bonus” 6,000 monochrome pages, for an in-box yield of 11,000 monochrome and 8,500 color pages. That should be enough ink to last you two years based on a monthly print average of 150 pages. Besides the convenience, even with the higher upfront cost, printing costs less with these eco tank printers. As for the WorkForce business-oriented models, they are the $429 MSRP WorkForce ET-2500, the $499 WorkForce ET-4550 (our review unit), and the flagship $1,199 MSRP WorkForce Pro WF-R4640. The cheapest printer in the range, the Expression ET-2500 EcoTank, will set you back $379 plus tax, and the most expensive model, the WorkForce Pro WF-R4640, costs $1,200 – minus a buck.
The ET-2500 is the basic model and is probably fine for most consumer needs, but there are five printers in the EcoTank family, each with progressively more features and functions and a progressively higher price tag.
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