I've just started gathering the things I need to establish a crafts shop, where I plan to sell merch at cons and online. First, I would like to note that I swapped out the ink in the printer for 3rd party ink. If you plan to do this, IT WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY. I've had great success with the precision colors ET8550 Archival Pigment ink, though. (The ET8550 comes with 1 bottle of black pigment and 5 bottles of dye ink, so it is pigment ink compatible, but unfortunately no sellers on amazon provide pigment ink for this printer since it needs six total colors). If you do plan to use 3rd party ink, fill your printer with that ink and never mix inks. This printer is getting 5 stars from me for its printing quality, and compatible sizes, because that's what I cared most about as an aspiring merch creator. However, do read the rest of this review because there were some parts of it that are frustrating. Pros: - prints on many different materials (sticker paper, cardstock, holographic paper) - prints come out pretty fast for the most part - don't smudge (would depend on your material though) - lines are crisp and accurate to original (won't beat the truecolor series of course, but this are sale-worthy prints) Cons: - 3rd party ink is hard to fill into the printer (see video): if using a syringe expect it to bubble a bit no matter how slowly you fill it up - cleaning out nozzles is ATROCIOUS with ink usage: on first fill, every printerhead was clean except for gray. Gray printer diagnostics had just a few missing bars, but was 90% fine; however it printed lines during a test print I did. So I ran nozzle cleaning, and let me tell you, by the time I got the printer working without issue, it used up 3/4ths of my brand new ink which was full prior to beginning. Not cheap. The worst part is that only my gray nozzle had any problems, but when cleaning the nozzles, the machine will clean and use ink from EVERY tank. If I had known in advance, I would've also gone straight for the power clean, because it suggests you run 3-4 normal cleans before the power clean but those didn't help at all. - can't print on 2.5x3.5 cards directly (3.5x3.5 being the smallest supported size) - borderless printing gets *very* close to the edges-but still leaves a border at least in my case, so you will have to trim prints a smidge. If getting it exactly to the edges is necessary, it might be better to just buy a bigger paper size. - printing duplex won't align the back side with the front side with 100% accuracy. Overall, my biggest complaint was with the ink costs during setup due to a single faulty nozzle. I'm still rating it 5 stars though, because for the week since setup i've done many prints with not a single problem. Highly recommended for people looking to make and sell merch! Read more

This review is for an Epson ET-8500 printer/scanner/copier. ET stands for Eco Tank as the printer uses tanks of ink filled by the user from bottles. The tanks last far longer than the ink cartridges we've all been using and the price per page is far less. The 8500 prints 8.5x11 and 8.5x14 as well as smaller sizes like 8x10, 5x7, 4x6 and printable CDs, DVDs and BDs. The scanner has a maximum resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi. I bought this printer to replace an Epson RX 580 we bought in late 2006 and for which we must have spent several printer's worth of money on ink. Our primary use has been and remains printing photographs. We feel we require a six-ink printer for this task which limited our printer choices. We have never had any brand other than Epson dating back to the dot matrix printers we used with our homemade PC XT so I will be unable to compare the performance of this printer to other brands. We were sorely tempted to buy the ET-8550 vice the 8500 for the occasional need to print 11x14s and larger as it was only an additional $50 but we simply didn't have the table space for it. The price of this printer has come down significantly from when it was first introduced, so if you're thinking you can't afford it, look again. The unpacking and setup on the 8500 were simpler and more trouble-free than other printers I've used in the recent past. The printer can be connected to your computer via a shared wireless or wired network or a primary tier USB link. You can also print from a thumb drive (USB memory stick), your camera's SD chip, wirelessly from a smart phone or tablet. Epson provides the printer with a unique email address and any images sent to that address (from anywhere on the planet) will automatically be printed by your printer. If you have a voice assistant on your home network, you can control your printer with voice commands. All in all, a very capable and well thought out device. We were nervous about filling our ink tanks the first time. The thought of a bottle of printer ink spilling seemed an absolute nightmare. But, as might have been expected, the process was utterly fool-proof (and you're reading a top notch fool here). The tops of the ink bottles and ink tanks are keyed so you cannot put ink in the wrong tank. Ink does not come out of the bottle till it is inverted on the proper tank and flow stops when the tank becomes full. The first filling will also have to fill all the tubing and what not between the tanks and the print nozzles and so will fill the tanks slightly less full than all further bottles. Loading paper is also painless. The printer has two cassettes: one for 8.5 x 11 and one for 5x7 or smaller. The printer can take thicker paper by two routes in the back: the rear paper feeder at the back on top, and the rear paper feed slot, in the rear. Here is my one unpleasantness concerning this printer but fortunately for you and Epson, the unpleasantness was almost entirely my fault. Either route may be used for thicker paper, such a heavyweight photo paper or thick cardstock. The Rear Paper Feeder at the top rear will still take your paper through almost 90 degrees of bend but not the hard 180 that it experiences coming from the cassettes. Paper loaded into the Rear Paper Feed Slot at the printer's rear, will traverse a completely flat path. Theoretically, you could put a sheet of thin glass through there... but please don't. I have used both with 80 lb (thick) photo paper with no problem whatsoever. The unpleasantness I mentioned was caused when I became confused as to which route was which, deciding that the feeder was the slot and the slot was the feeder. This led me to two lengthy calls to Epson tech support where two different techs spent an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to convince me I had made a mistake without insulting a sacred Epson customer by telling me I had made a mistake. When I finally came to my senses, I wrote a long and heartfelt apology to Epson Tech Support for what I had put them through. Very embarrassing. The printers output on plain paper, card stock and three different grades of photo paper has been absolutely perfect. There will always be some difference between your screen and your printer, particularly with the printer straight out of the box and no attempt having been made to match up the two, but the prints have been more than satisfactory to this point. And I have yet to see any of my ink levels - now visible directly through graduated translucent windows on the printer's front - so much as budge. A good portent. I have looked at refill ink bottles and the cost for a full set is slightly more than a set of cartridges for my RX 580 cost but provides several times the quantity of ink. Interestingly, the colors of inks used has changed. My RX 580 used to use Cyan, Light Cyan, Magenta, Light Magenta, Yellow and Black. The ET 8500 uses Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Photo Grey, Photo Black and Black. That last one is used for text and is not used for photographs. The Photo Grey and Photo Black are not used on text. I only have my eyes, but in my judgement, the prints from the ET 8500 are superior to those from the old RX 580 in accuracy, detail and color. Text documents are crisp and clear. Image quality on plain paper is more than acceptable though I understand there are other brands that do it slightly better. If I had to do it all over, I would again buy the ET 8500. Ease-of-use, economy and beautiful output make it the ideal choice. And I will never again buy a printer that uses cartridges. Never. 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Congratulations Epson I don't hate you anymore. I have had Epson inkjet printers for about 30 years. For my work as an artist I usually buy this size wide carriage 13x19. However I have never ever advised that anyone else I know buy a color inkjet printer unless they absolutely need one. I have two black and white laser printers that I adore because they just work, lightning fast, the toner is cheap, the print quality is excellent. My parents for instance have against my advice had a couple of color inkjets because they very occasionally want to print in color. Misery. The ink cartridges are always empty the heads are always clogged and the thing just refuses to print in black and white even though the black cartridge is full but one of the color cartridges is empty. My old Epson r2880 has eight tiny little cartridges and one or two of them are ALWAYS low or empty and they are crazy expensive. The cartridges are also chipped so that you can't use anyone else's aftermarket cartridges, and there's a whole industry dedicated to getting around these issues. In my opinion it's a terrible business model for a printer company because you make your customers hate you, go to great lengths to buy cheaper ink from other companies, and it all discourages them from using the printer and doing a lot of printing and buying your other supplies like paper. Well I read an awful lot about these new tank style printers and how they could potentially solve most of these issues. And I have to say I think they have nailed it. This printer is an absolute joy to use and you just look for excuses to print anything. The gloss prints on Epson ultra premium paper are simply the finest gloss prints I've ever seen. The ink tanks are huge and transparent so you can tell how much ink is in them and the ink lasts a way long time and it's really not that expensive. The ink bottles are actually kind of brilliant you can't put the wrong ink in the wrong tank cuz the nozzles are different shapes and they don't drip ink at all or anything. You can top them up at any time it's beautiful. Turns out you really don't need 8 or 10 colors to print gorgeous luminous prints. I am happy to buy Epson brand ink under these conditions. I mean I could still buy a different company's ink and put it in these tanks but why would you?I've always liked Epson photo paper and use it almost exclusively. I actually tell my kids to go and use the printer all they want. My neighbors too. If there's a print you think you might like print it for goodness sake! Print it larger! Now see Epson: THAT is a business model. I had trepidations as this is a die ink printer. Everyone says artists should "use pigment inks for archival longevity". I've decided I just don't care. Pigment inks tend to clog. They actually don't look that good on glossy paper did anyone ever tell you that? They need a special varnish coat in order for the gloss to pop. If one of these dye prints fades in 20 years you know what it's digital files, I'll just go print the darn thing again it's not that expensive on a printer like this. I even kind of like the Epson print layout software, even though it looks like it was designed in the Windows XP era, and the scanner and it's software work quite well. I've had Epson flatbed scanners also for years and this one being built directly into the printer is just very useful. The touch screen also works well and you can quickly run off a copy which I've never really been able to do before, because I've had a separate printer and scanner and it's just too much of a pain to fire them both up and get on the computer. Also the wireless print function is really great. I can print a 4x6 from my phone in a few clicks, or a PDF from my tablet, what have you. There's even a special paper slot just to hold 4x6s in addition to other paper, gloss full sheets in the rear feed, plain paper in the bottom tray. They really have kind of thought of everything with this printer. If I need to do some serious black and white printing of text I will still use the laser. On cheap copy paper the inkjet looks a little fuzzy and is actually not waterproof. But if I didn't have a laser I wouldn't go out and buy one because one printer is better than two. Just use inkjet plain paper and you'll be set This is a printer I can happily recommend to basically anyone, and I have never been able to say that about a color ink jet before. Read more

Perfect for printing art Read more

Funciona muy bien, imprime muy bien llegó en buenas condiciones y rápido, es facil de usar me gusto mucho Read more