EpsonEcoTank ET-8550 A3+ Wi-Fi Ink Tank Photo Printer

Bought to replace an aging Epson Inkjet printer for home use. We home educate so our printers get fairly heavy use for both colour A4 and photo printing.First - the obvious downside. It’s expensive whichever way you look at it. You could get several standard cartridge inkjet printers for the price of this. Any savings you will make from having an ink tank will be realised over the course of several years after the initial outlay.Secondly, it’s not entirely straightforward to set up. The app you have to download for it walks you through the process but it still takes at least an hour to fully put the thing together, and then you need to get it talking to your computers. We live in a Mac/PC/iPhone household and it did take a while to set it up on each system. I’m fairly confident with technology but it still felt like a bit of a chore.Now, the positives.The print quality blows any home printer I’ve had before out of the water. Photo printing is indistinguishable (to my eye) from what you’d get commercially. Standard printing on paper is quick and clear. Using the manual feed paper tray at the rear of the printer we have managed to print directly onto thick card stock which has come out perfectly.Once set up, the connection is stable and consistent. Not a single “unable to locate printer” error and due to its AirPrint capabilities iOS devices on the same network recognise it without needing to download the app.Having spent years with the choice of either paying through the nose for genuine printer cartridges or getting cheap generic ones that only work half the time, having the ink tank system seems to be the way forwards. Despite fairly heavy use we’ve barely got through any of the ink that it comes with, and replacements ink, both genuine and generic, is reasonably priced. As there is no security system like the chips you get in cartridges you won’t be penalised for using generic ink.The printer’s other features all seem to work well. The LED touchscreen is brightly lit and functional. There’s a button on it which can give you tutorials on pretty much all of the printer’s functions. You can load several types of media at once (we have A4 paper, glossy photos and use the rear feed for card stock or A4 photos). The scanner works well with various devices.All in all, I’m very happy with it despite the initial outlay

This printer is excellent. Set up is very easy. The on machine led window is an illuminated touch screen which hinges out to almost horizontal for easier use and has all controls I need. Colour reproduction is accurate and the images are really sharp. The tank ink lasts for a very long time I have printed a large number of A3 and A4 prints and the lowest tank ink level is only half full. I have used Affinity and Epson software and both are really good and Epson's is free. Tank filling is easy with the refill bottles keyed so that you can't fill the wrong tank. The scanner is just like any other on-board printer scanner. If you want to print A3+ prints there is a rear of the printer slot for paper infeed which means you have to have a lot of space behind the printer. Up to A3 size paper is fed in at the rear of the top paper feeder which is pulled out. It has A4 paper tray and a CD printing tray in the front. When starting printing the outfeed tray is automatically driven out to the correct distance for the print size. When the printer is switched off this tray automatically retracts in.I highly recommend this printer as it's the best I have ever owned and I've been buying printers for many years from the dot matrix times. I'll never go back to cartridge printers as they're too expensive to run.

I run a small business that relies heavily on printing—cards, keepsakes, custom art prints, and more—using a wide variety of paper types, textures, and weights. I purchased the Epson ET-8550 in the hope that I was investing in a professional-grade, versatile photo printer that could support my growing creative work. After two months of daily use, I can say this with full confidence:This is one of the worst printers I’ve used in my 35 years on this planet.Let me give credit where it’s due: out of the box, the Epson 8550 prints beautifully. The first 20 or so sheets come out looking crisp and professional, especially on plain paper. Colours appear rich (though not entirely accurate), and the detail is sharp enough to feel like I’d made the right decision. That brief honeymoon period is where the positives end.One of the main reasons I bought this printer was the rear paper feed, which Epson claims can handle a variety of cardstocks and paper weights. This is flat-out misleading. After a short while, the rear feed becomes completely unusable, throwing up constant paper jam errors—even when there's no jam. The only workaround? You physically have to press the card or paper down with your hand while it attempts to feed through. That's not just impractical—it’s absurd on a £629 machine.Anything over 230gsm causes problems. 300gsm? Forget it. You’ll be manually feeding one sheet at a time, praying the printer doesn't reject it, misfeed, or jam mid-print. And even if it miraculously accepts the paper, chances are you’ll be greeted with smudges, smears, roller marks, or grainy, inaccurate colours.After just a few weeks, the print quality deteriorated rapidly. I started getting:Smears at the end of every pageBanding and lines across coloured areasInconsistent ink coverageDull, lifeless colours, no matter how much I tweaked the settingsWant to print a solid block of colour? It will come out grainy and uneven. Need accurate colour matching? Good luck. What you see on your screen is not what this printer delivers—no matter how many settings you fiddle with. And for a printer sold on its photo-printing capabilities, that’s not just disappointing, it’s laughable.Every single day I use this printer, I have to perform:* Nozzle checks* Head cleanings* Alignment correctionsIt's like owning a vintage car that needs tuning every morning just to get to the end of the driveway. The maintenance required to get one decent print is exhausting, and sometimes even that’s not guaranteed.Not only is the rear feeder a nightmare, but even the paper guides don’t hold firm. They shift on their own, meaning every single time I print, I have to readjust and triple-check alignment—or risk a wonky or failed print. This shouldn’t be happening at this price point.This printer cost me over £629, and I honestly feel conned. I wanted a reliable, professional printer that could support my business, but what I got was a machine that makes my working day harder, not easier. It's unreliable, high-maintenance, and not fit for the purpose it's marketed for.The only silver lining? The ink lasts a long time—possibly because you’ll be wasting half your prints and constantly reprinting due to quality issues. You might not run out of ink quickly, but you’ll run out of patience, time, and trust in Epson faster than you can say "EcoTank."If you are a small business owner, artist, crafter, or creative professional looking for a versatile, reliable printer to handle varied paper stocks and deliver consistent quality—this is not it. The Epson ET-8550 is a masterclass in disappointment, and each passing day deepens my regret.Epson, if you're listening: this printer is not fit for purpose. Please stop marketing it as such. I didn’t spend this much money to become a part-time printer technician. I spent it to run my business—and this machine has actively made that harder.