Epson EcoTank ET-2850 A4 Multifunction Air Print and Wi-Fi Ink Tank Printer with double sided printing, Up To 3 Years Of Ink Included

So far so good! Brought the ET-2861 as an upgrade for my small business as my old printer was starting to lack in quality when printing and I wanted to try adding stickers to my shop. Still yet to try it out through my cricut but will update once done. Didn’t take too long to set up, did seem to have a few connection issues but nothing that wasn’t a quick fix. I like how compact it is and the quality is amazing compared to my old printer! It may not support AirPrint but I can export all my keynote documents for a quick and easy print. The printing itself does take a little bit of time but that’s to be expected with how good the quality is. Loving the ink refills, yet to get through my first load of inks so not sure on the cost effectiveness as of yet.

This printer replaces an earlier Epson Eco Tank printer and I was first disappointed that the inks were not the same so had to buy a complete new set of inks and throw away the old inks. My last Epsom printer was a pain as it frequently jammed and picked up 2 pages at a time which this new printer has never done - so far.My old Epsom also had horizontal lines on pictures and only worked well on photo paper for pics. With this new printer I use BLUE SWAN A4 Matte Inkjet Photo Paper,100 Sheets,140 g/m², Double-Sided, and the results are phenomenal. The only problem I have with this printer is that it wont print 2 sided automatically, you have to load the sheets in one by one and after all these years of development you would think Epson, and all the rest, would have sorted that one out. If you look at the test results on Which, not one printer is great, just the more expensive are better. Overall, given its fault, the quality, if you find the right paper, and price on inks is great, but underneath that it really is a basic printer after all. All printers are the same. However, I do expect a bit more for my £250.

This printer is more expensive than similar models, though I got it on offer that for this model was a good price. The advantage being that ink refills cost way less than for non tank printers and in this case the running costs make this printer overall cheaper than others quickly.I was worried about making a mess filling the ink tanks, but the design of the refill bottles and the tanks on the printer actually make it mess free and easy. You could only make a mess by doing it on purpose.Print quality is good and the speed is faster than I expected not that speed was a consideration for me, more that the quality on prints were clear and accurate which they are.Now setup it is easy to use with plenty of options making the printing and scanning possibilities substantial, way more than I need from a office printer that can print do colour and occasional pictures.My only reason for knocking a star off was setup (with the exception of filling the inks) was not easy. It took multiple attempts to connect to the WiFi and once connected it insisted on firmware upgrades that initially failed and took several attempts before working allowing the printer to be used. At this point working as a stand a lone copier worked fine and I was able to use AirPrint without issue. However it then took multiple attempts and an online chat with Epson to install the drivers to use all the features with my computer. Having got it setup, it is easy to use and as I say works well, but setup issues did drive me mad. From a compatibility view it is impressive, printing direct from iDevices and androids is straight forward and once setup, I have no issues printing from my Windows machine or my Mac and my son even had it print from his Linux laptop.

I liked the idea of cheaper inks using a tank refill system and replacing my old Canon printer which now doesn’t work quite so well.I had been used to the instant set up with the Cannon using AirPrint on my iPhone and assumed that all the new printers nowadays would have the same system. How wrong I was!This printer has minimal buttons on the front and basically uses your phone to control it. There is a QR code in the instructions to walk you through the set up. You have to fill the ink up first before setting the network connection/ WiFi. When I had finally set the connection up and tried to print from my phone - I got the ‘ printer is not found ‘ notice. The only way I could get it to print some things -ie photos -was to download the Epson Smart App and go though this to find a photo to print. When trying to print a document-ie bank statement there was no way of getting it to print. The Epson app just froze on me and wouldn’t open.I did try the Epson help desk ( closed all weekend) and Monday morning was sent the cut and paste manual instructions I already had!I checked printer on the AirPrint site and going through the thousands of compatible printers (even Epson printers !) the 2860 series was not listed.Additionally I found there was no way of choosing to print just one page of a document- it had to be the whole thing.Also I had been used to double sided printing with my old cheaper Canon. Whilst on the description it mentioned this as an option - I could find no way to do this - not even to print alternate sides and turn put back in manually. There was mention of making multi page posters- but maybe not on this modal as there was no option to do this using the Epson ‘Smart app that I found.Overall the printing ( when I did manage to print a photo!) was very loud but quite quick. The colours on the photo ( using photo paper) was disappointing and not like the photos you send away for.The scanner worked quite well - but the buttons on the front of the printer are not very clear distinguishing between black and white or colour- and there is no way of putting a number into the machine for several copies - you just have to keep pressing the button but the printer doesn’t display the number.Overall really disappointed and had to return. It turned out to be quite a basic printer despite the £179 cost and I think I can get much better for way cheaper with more connectivity!