Epson EcoTank ET-8550 A3+ Wi-Fi Ink Tank Photo Printer

I do photography and wanted an A3 photo printer, but also for it to be able to copy (A4), scan (A4), and print normal text paper (eg letters, office papers, etc).This printer does it all, with the advantage of cheap inks.I had a designated photo printer but it was not good for normal text paper, as it uses far too much ink. So I needed a second printer to print letters etc.When both printers died, I did a huge amount of research, then tested a friends ET-8550 and was hugely impressed. This printer really does it all.Photos are excellent, with good colour rendition especially if printed via Photoshop so that you can use the various colour profiles. Just turn off 'printer manages colour' to do this.A3 and A4 photo paper can be fed via the rear tray to save bending the paper. I haven't yet used the straight feed for Fine Art papers yet, but should be easy enough. Just remove the back panel and it will glide straight through.Text, letters, and what I call 'office' paperwork can be printed easily and at reasonable speed. Perhaps not so good if printing a lot of papers as the paper tray only holds up to 30 sheets, but is good for normal home use.As others have mentioned, the ink tanks are easy to fill (ink bottles each have a different shape surrounding the nozzle so can only be fitted to the correct hole). Just put the bottle in the the right hole and it will fill. No need to squeeze or anything. Once filled just remove and keep the lid on if any left in the bottle.I only use Epson genuine Claria inks. I have tried 'compatibles' in the past and they wrecked the printer head resulting in having to buy a new printer. Whilst the genuine Epson inks are more expensive, the photos last a long time with no fading or colour bleeding. Photos are excellent, and are good enough quality for competitions.The one thing I'm not impressed with is the 'advertising' from Epson regarding the number of photos being able to be printed on one set of inks. It states 2300 photos, although elsewhere it states 1800 photos. Well yes it does, but if you hunt and research you will find that number is for 15cm x 10cm prints. That is 1/4 sheet of A4. If you print a full A4 photo, you can print 450 - 575, depending on the colours of the photos. This is still 10x more than most photo printers, and makes for very economical printing, but saying 2300 could be a bit misleading for some people. Obviously A3 will use twice the amount of ink, so 225 - 288 A3 photos. My old photo printer could only manage 20-40!Scanning is easy using the Epson ScanSmart programme, which is downloaded when you set up the printer.Talking of which, I removed 24-30 blue tapes from inside and around the printer when setting it up. They hold everything in place for transport, but you must remove them all before use. Do look inside, around the back, everywhere! They could stop the printer from setting up correctly.I set up manually from my tower computer, but have also used the automatic and wi-fi from my laptop. Both are easy to do if you follow the instructions. I have connected to my computer via USB, and also set up wi-fi so I can print from my laptop, both of which work well. There is also an ethernet port if you wish to connect via that.One thing which took me a while to find was the receiving tray closure. It opens automatically when printing to receive the paper, but to close it you can gently push it back in, but it is very very stiff. Or... go to the touchscreen and touch the close button, and hey presto it closes! I wish Epson would tell us!All in all a really good printer, and yes I would recommend it.

This printer is amazing. It has no touch screen which takes a bit of getting used to. It’s big when you open it up for printing at 990mm deep. You need 160mm at the back for the paper feed.Filling the ink tanks is easy. Slot the bottle in the port and it self fills. There is no spillage at all.Priming the printer with ink isn’t explained very well. This is what you do.Turn on printer. Wait till you see the orange ink light come on. Then press the button for 5 seconds. The priming cycle should start. If nothing happens. Turn off printer and unplug power cable and usb lead. Then press the start button for 30 seconds. Connect everything again. Turn it on and do the priming cycle again. This is what Epson told me to do and it worked. It took about 5 minutes and then I had to turn printer off and then press start button and the right hand button at same time to print the nozzle check.It’s then you install the software and you will get a firmware update as well.The Epson printer connection checker has the printer utilities but I’ve not used them as yet.Software support isn’t as comprehensive as I would have liked. Nowhere near as good as my XP-960.There also a phone app which may give you more functions.I did 2 print test images on Epson A4 glossy photo paper 183gm using the Epson photo+ on standard quality setting. This is a brilliant piece of software. My phone camera doesn’t do the quality of the prints justice.Once you get your head around not having a touch screen this is for my usage the perfect printer.Replacement 70ml ink bottles are £9.99 direct from Epson so printing even at A3+ is very affordable.If you want high class prints on Glossy metallic. Lustre and Baryta papers this is for you.Update 2Been using this printer a lot. My print output has gone through the roof.I've printed a further 47 Astronomy images on A4 with 19 on A3 along with close to 60 A5 test prints. My ink levels have hardly moved, I'm now about 1/3 of the way into the 2nd mark. I'm wondering if my extra 2 sets of ink bottle purchases were a bit premature.If i was still running my Epson XP 960 i would have used 2 or 3 sets of XL Elephant cartridge sets by now which is approximately £192-£288 of ink and be into the 3rd or 4th set which is another £96. Which makes this printer a very cheap investment even though the initial cost felt high.The out tray is still a little stiff and so is the rear paper feed platen. The printer still makes clunking noises when printing but i have become used to the sound now and doesn't detract from using it.Using the High quality print setting isn't much use to me as all it does is lay down extra ink which can in some situations remove some of the finer details in my images.On big bold colour prints it's ideal, for my type of prints it detracts so i will stick to Standard quality and let the ICC profiles do their magic.As for print quality.. I can't tell the difference between Claria photo inks in the XP 960 and the 107 Eco tank ink sets in a side by side comparison.The Astro images are 800dpi scans of my printouts on Lustre 300gsm with ICC profile. I hope they give a good idea of the print quality of this printer.I've now expanded my range of paper types to 5 with Smooth pearl 310gsm and Velvet Fine Art 275gsm in A4 which give me a better look for LRGB images ( Luminance Red Green Blue ) bare in mind paper weight does not equate to paper thickness the 275gsm Velvet is slightly thicker than the 310gsm Pearl.The only downside.. if this is a thing, I had to buy a cabinet to hold the paper boxes and sit the printer on.

This is hands down the best printer I've ever seen. I can't imagine how the quality could be improved with another printer. It's as good as it gets. Forget ever needing to order photos or prints online, you can print your own photos at home with this. The paper you use is important however, as testing shows cheap low quality paper gives (surprise) low quality prints. But with a good photo paper, the colours are stunning. Stunning!It's easy to set up, although does take a bit of time initially. It requires a lot of space to have on your desk always ready to go, so make sure you have the space. The size of the printer itself isn't the only consideration (and it is large), the paper tray and rear feeder tray needs to be taken into account too.I love the ink tanks over cartridges. Love how you can fill them up individually and see the levels at all times physically. I'm not sure on the accuracy of the claimed amount of pages you can print on a full tank though, as it seems to be draining much faster than the stated 1000s of pages. Although I am printing a lot of full page coloured A3 art (I'm an artist).TL;DR: You will get professional level prints with this. And the ink does last a long time, but probably not as long as Epson says. At least if you plan on doing a lot of full colour A4/A3 pages.Tech Support gets 1 star cause the only time I contacted them they never replied. Luckily I was able to figure it out myself in the end. But yeah, strange and maybe an anomaly but has to be mentioned.