Tag: Epson EcoTank printers

Article 

Epson Launches First Double-Sided A3+ 4-In-1 Inkjet EcoTank Printer | PC World

From the horse’s mouth

Epson Australia

EcoTank WorkForce ET-16500 A3+ Multifunction Printer

Product Page

Press Release

My Comments

Epson have previously released a range of piezo inkjet printers that implement their own continuous-inking system. This feature, known as EcoTank, has large-capacity tanks installed on the side of the printer and you add more ink to the machine’s ink supply by topping up these tanks from bottles of ink that Epson makes available. Here, the idea is to do away with the need to frequently replace ink cartridges when they run out.

But now they have refreshed this product lineup with all but two of the low-end models being equipped with auto-duplex printing. They have now taken things further by releasing the ET-16500 EcoTank multifunction which prints both sides on A3, Ledger or Tabloid paper and scans both sides of an original that is of any of these paper sizes.

This printer, which sells in Australia for AUD$1599 also offers the expected multifunction abilities like copying or G3 PSTN colour fax functionality. It also supports Google Cloud Print and can work with the Epson Connect Web / mobile printing subsystem, with it connected to your home or small-business network using 802.11g/n Wi-Fi or Ethernet technology.

It can turn out print jobs at a rate of 18 pages per minute according to the ISO standard and has two 250-sheet trays to hold the paper.  As well, the inks and printing system that Epson use are intended to give a quality equivalent to most laser printers. Let’s not forget that the ink tanks in this model are ultra-high-capacity to allow for increased printing of A3 or similar paper sizes. Some of these features may tempt you to buy the printer and see it serve as your organisation’s small office-based printing press.

But there are certain questions regarding output-tray or ink-tank capacities along wiht the time to print both sides of a page which can call out the issue of having this machine serve as that small-run printing press. On the other hand, you could simply focus the Epson towards signage, short print runs and the like as part of your promotion strategy especially where it has the high-capacity ink tanks and the EcoTank continuous-inking system.

Article

Epson EcoTank ET-L355 printer

Epson: Cheap printers, expensive ink? Let’s turn that upside down | The Register

From the horse’s mouth

Epson UK

Product Page

Press Release

Epson USA

Product Page

My Comments

Epson is running a lineup of inkjet printers that break the rule of how inkjet printers are sold. Typically these printers are sold at a cheap price with the cost made up in how much you pay for the consumables.

But this lineup of piezo inkjet printers is sold at a premium and comes with 2 years worth of ink along with high-capacity ink tanks. The desktop printers use a box on the side for housing the ink tanks and use a similar pipe system to recent HP OfficeJet, Brother and other Epson printers. It is also driven by Epson’s experience in industrial inkjet printing presses and wide-format printers.

Epson EcoTank ET-L555 office printer

Models already available in the UK sell at £299.99 including VAT for the premium ET-L555 office model that has an automatic document feeder and £219.99 for the home model without the automatic document feeder. The ET-2500 will go for US$379 while the ET-4550 which has all the features will go for US$499 in the US.

Personally, I would like to see Epson offer the EcoTank or SuperTank high-capacity printing as a user-installable option for some regular office inkjet printers so that those of us who want to push these printers as short-run printing presses can do so.

Similarly, using the EcoTank system along with quality-optimised printing for promotional material could raise the concept of having that desktop printer earn its keep as an organisational short-run printing press. Oh yeah, you should know where to obtain replacement ink for these printers and refill their ink tanks promptly to avoid airlocks.