Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 Wireless Wide-format Color All-in-One Supertank Printer with Scanner, Copier, Ethernet and 4.3-inch Color Touchscreen

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 setThis 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.

The TLDR for this is the review title.It cost about $200 US more than I wanted to pay, and I tried mightily to find something else that was cheaper! But in the end, this was the only printer that I could actually say met my needs to support my serious "artsy" amateur photographer large print habit. I am pleased to say that it is worth every cent.I've had it about a week, and I've printed a LOT of photos (Maybe 30, or so), just to test it out. And the ink tanks aren't even down to the 25% used level. All printer Ink is expensive, but the way the Epson Ink is packaged and sold, it is projected to save the typical user about 80% in ink costs over the life of the printer. I believe this is a reasonable estimate based on my current usage, and I haven't even started my real printing yet.The print quality is excellent. Is it as good as one of those giant commercial grade printers? Probably not. But when I used good Epson and Canon printer paper, I thought it was as close as I could reasonably get for something that costs less than $1000 US. To be honest, I also printed on cheap Kodak paper, and while it wasn't quite as sharp and the color wasn't quite as accurate as the premium paper, it was still more than adequate, GOOD, even. Certainly good enough that Granny, Gramps, and Mom are not likely to notice. So cheap paper is not off the table for some print jobs.It's reasonably quiet and well built. My office area is right below my bedroom and I have no fear of it being heard up there. It's big and heavy and doesn't make the table it sits on wobble; it's rock solid. I like the large color LCD screen. I haven't had to clear any paper jams yet but access for clearing them is from the back and very easy to get to.The only negative I've encountered is that the auto select for which paper tray to use is unreliable. I've found that manually selecting the paper tray reduces the amount os swear words I use during the day! Go with the manual tray selection, or your kids will learn words you don't want them to know.I tried the scanner once, it works well, but is no better than any other all-in-one printer. I suspect all the printers of this type use the same type of scanner, possibly from the same manufacturer. You won't hate the scanner, but it's not going to stand out in your mind either.This is the perfect All-In-One printer for serious photographers on a budget who need to use paper that is 13 inches wide. If you can get by with standard letter size printer paper there is an almost identical printer that is a bit cheaper, but delivers all the other features of this one. (ET-8500)I am VERY happy with this printer, and I would buy it again, and I would recommend it to a friend.