Epson EcoTank ET-2861 A4 Multifunction Wi-Fi Ink Tank Printer, With Up To 3 Years Of Ink Included , Black

The key point about this device is that it just works with everything on your network, that includes any Linux systems. Its actually easier to use with Linux than Windows. The CUPS and XSANE utilities I use on my Linux system know all about this printer without needing any special drivers! The Windows software includes a very useful photo printing utility that makes great prints but is not so great with the printer paper set up.There are issues with the set up process. The setup guide implies that the quick and easy route is to use the Epson app on your phone. This did not work with my phone, it just did not detect the printer. I followed the simple manual set-up instructions given in the printed setup guide. Once I had the ink loaded and the print system primed, the app on my phone connected with the printer and became useful. Filling the ink tanks is a clean and easy process. It is significantly simpler than working with the ink cartridges that I have used in the past. The filling system is designed to prevent you from overfilling the tanks. Another clever feature of this device.The screen on the front of the device is useful but rather small. I found it difficult to use but not impossible. It takes a little getting used to. Once you have discovered how it works it is easy to use but there is a learning period. Once you have understood how the menus work, it is actually very simple and quick to use. However, once the printer is setup the Epson Smart Panel app is easier to use.Printing and scanning performance is great. This printer is capable of creating borderless prints and this is why it will suspend the print operations if the paper implied by the pending print operation does not match the the paper size and type that the printer has been told is loaded in the paper feed. One of the things that you need to learn is to check that the printer paper settings match the paper in the feeder before starting any print job.The scanner built into the top of the device is of good quality and easy to use. BUT the Epson app restricts you to 600dpi whereas the scanner is capable of 1200dpi. No problem for XSANE but does restrict the quality of the images produced using the Epson app. The app appears to be tuned for creating PDFs rather than imaging photographs or other detailed originals.There's a lot to this device and it does have a learning curve. It prints well on a range of papers and sizes. It is a very capable scanner and copier, with the option of copying in colour or black and white. It is capable of two sided printing which can save a lot of paper. It has two print qualities, normal and high quality. It has a quiet mode to keep noise down but reduces printing speeds. Photo printing is very good for a non-specialist device and will be more than adequate for most people.

We decided to buy an ink tank printer as we'd already wasted far too much money on cartridges.This one was replacing a HP Envy 6032e.I didn't really consider going for a HP ink tank printer as I've had 4 HP WiFi printers over the years and all of them have suffered with WiFi issues (occasionally just refuse to print over WiFi and require driver re-installs and other time wasting fixes (which my HP accredited tech support Son has had to deal with).My Granddaughter has an Epson WF printer she uses for working from home and she told me it's been faultless and advised me to go with Epson.At the time of purchase the ET-2860 was £180 (annoyingly, 2 days after delivery there was a voucher for £10 off that price).Installation via USB is very easy, pretty much plug and play.Installation over WiFi on a Windows PC was a little bit of a faff but nothing majorly difficult.The PC was connected to the router via a physical network cable, while trying to install the printer the software kept saying it couldn't detect the printer.The suggestions to fix it were a bit sparse. As the PC also has WiFi, I decided to disconnect the network cable and try again with the PC connected via WiFi.Problem fixed, the software now detected the printer and installed it without any other issues.Once done, changing all the printer settings etc was no different to pretty much all other printers.Filling the ink tanks is quick and simple. The one thing to watch out for is the fact the attachments on all the bottles is the same so you can accidentally put the wrong colour inks in the tanks, just make sure you double check you're putting it in the right tank and you'll be fine.Print quality is pretty good, text and diagrams etc are sharp. Photo's are pretty good but it wouldn't match up to a printer aimed at high quality photo printing.I printed a photo on some 240gsm semi-glossy paper, the printer had no trouble with the papers weight (it's rated for up to 300gsm) and the printed image was rather good.Colours weren't quite a match for what was on the screen (not as vibrant) but that was more likely to do with my monitors colour settings. Even so, the photo still looked quite nice.I've no doubt some image editing would improve the colours of the printed photo.The only part of the photo that didn't look very good were scenes with blocks of dark gradients (like a large body of water on a dull day).It's didn't look bad and from from more than a foot away you probably wouldn't even notice.The scanner is OK, much like the scanner on any other printer these days. Easily good enough for copying documents and photo's with good accuracy.Like other scanners, set the dpi to the higher settings and it will take a quite while.After the printer was installed I was looking at the features etc, Epson have 2 different sections on their site for templates.I was surpised at how many they had and how varied they were. All sorts of craft projects, birthday/etc cards, photo frames, wrapping papers (obviously for small items with this printer seeing as it's A4).I'm going to have lots of fun with that as I do like making my own cards and things.If HP have anything like that they don't go out of their way to make it easy to find.Overall I'm very happy with the printer. The only things it lacks which you would expect on printers in this price range is a paper tray (which I prefer to rear tray feeding) and automatic duplex.I'm not taking away any stars for those as I knew that before buying.I did consider the ET-2850 as it does have auto-duplex but it was £70 more and I don't need it enough to warrant the the extra cost (the 2850 also still has rear loading paper, if it also had a proper tray I may have bought it - hope you're listening Epson, many people prefer a tray).My £70 HP 6032e that this replaced had both auto-duplex and a proper paper tray, the only other real different between the HP and this Epson is the ink takes so it is a large expense for a printer that effectively has less features.Over time the Epson will of course cost less as replacing the inks is massively cheaper (I did have a HP Instant Ink subsription but paying per page rather than how much ink you use only works out worthwhile if you're covering the pages in ink, which I don't often do - especially as we print a lot of A6 postage labels).Knowing the future ink cost savings I think this is a worthwhile investment.My Son wants to do sublimation printer and apparenty Epson EcoTank printers are the best value for that too.