EcoTank ET-2861 Ink Tank Printer | Busy Home Use | Wireless | A4 | Print, Copy, Scan | Includes up to 3 Years of Ink

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.

I’ve lost count of the number of ink cartridges we’ve bought over the years. The multi packs where you always end up with 5 spare Cyans but never enough Black, that you eventually throw away when the printer gives up the ghost. The increasing (and annoying) “you’re not using [insert brand name] ink!” warnings (yes, I know, because I’m fed up of paying 3x the price thank you). This printer - does away with that. Refilling the ink is easy, no mess, and really clear ‘windows’ where you can see how much ink is actually left (rather than some kind of calculated amount designed to panic you in to swapping cartridges). And the print quality is great. Wish we’d done this sooner

UPDATE: Product is still awful. If you want a terrible printer that does not work, take your chances with this one, but it's just too expensive to gamble with. I am reluctantly donating my £200 printer to a local charity shop after only four months and buying a Brother. UPDATE II: I bought a Brother DCP-T780DW and thought it would be worthwhile contrasting the two products. My new printer is also a Tank printer with a scanner, but this one also has Apple AirPrint and can print in duplex (two sided) automatically. Firstly the Brother has a much more solid feel where the Epson felt flimsy and plasticky. The scanner bed is much better designed and it has a small but functional screen on the front. Setup was easy. While I did get some ink on my fingers while filling the tanks (which was admittedly easier on the Epson), that is likely due to user error. Their app stepped me through connecting to WiFi, which was straightforward once you figure it out (you have to connect your phone to a temporary network set up by the printer to enter your home Wi-Fi settings). From there, a quick calibration process and everything is up and running. With the Epson, you needed their app to print anything from a mobile device, and their app is terrible. From a mac, you have to know how to find and connect to their printer using an IP address, which not everyone will know how to do. With the Brother, using AirPrint, the printer just shows up on any Apple device on the same network. Magic. Finally prints are fast and clear. I didn't time the Epson, but it seems the Brother has less whirring and buzzing before each printout, which makes it seem faster. The black level is a touch grey (rather than deep black), but not unpleasantly so, but other than that, the print quality is everything I need. The TL/DR is with the Epson EcoTank, you are taking a potentially expensive risk. For me, it was a £150 lesson and I'll never buy one of their products again. ORIGINAL REVIEW I needed a color printer, so I reluctantly moved on from my black-and-white HP laser printer. That printer worked when you needed it. It was accessible from every device in my home through Apple's Air Print, and did exactly what you needed it to do when you needed it. It just worked. I chose the Epson because the ecoTanks received good reviews, and to be fair, they are the best feature of the printer. The tanks are large, easy to fill, and appear to deliver decent color printouts, exactly what I would need. If the printer ever worked. Which it does not. The problem isn't mechanical; it is software-related, so 100% addressable by Epson if they cared to build a usable product. I have no idea why they would choose not to use Apple AirPrint, or a network print protocol that is recognizeable by the devices on my network. They've chosen instead to force me to print through their app, which would be okay if it worked. But it does not. The app is one of the worst I've ever used, considering it's a product costing over £10. It is clunky, slow, written in poorly translated English, and incredibly hard to use. It takes about 20-30 minutes, at the absolute fastest, to get your printer configured and connected to Wi-Fi. This would be kinda okay if the wifi worked. But it does not. The printer loses connection to the Wi-Fi, despite being NEXT TO THE ROUTER. When it does connect, simple printouts (750k images) take 20 minutes to print, and they often fail before completion. Reconnecting to the wifi using their app takes another 10-20 minutes, and is a ludicrously long and convoluted process. For those who manage to get their printer to connect reliably, I'm sure it is a decent printer. However, if you're like me, it is an expensive paperweight.

Fairly easy to setup. Easy and clean (no ink spills) when filling ink tanks. No problems photocopying. Printing is quite noisy and slow. Photo quality on glossy paper is good but borderless printing on 6x4 paper leaves 2-3mm white band on trailing edge of print, this was non Epson glossy paper. Borderless photo on 6x4 plain white card works without fault! As does putting photo paper in tray, selecting plain paper and high quality in settings. Only downside is the DPI of the print is not quite as good as in photo setting.