Buying advice Canon G series vs. Epson Ecotank 2650

[Ink stained Fingers]

alza and other companies are official German companies as subsidiaries of Czech or Poland or Danish companies doing EU reimports, I bought from them several times, that's new units, I had one return which was handled very quick as well. The only limitation is that you probably cannot register for some extra extended service period with Epson directly. I bought as well directly from Poland. Taxes are included on the German web sites.
And the funny thing is - the drivers of these units offer German language even for those models which are not offered officially by Epson for the German market.
Canon G1400 or Epson L3xx, 4xx type inks fade pretty fast, inks for the L800, L810 are much better.
You cannot expect that octopus-office inks perform better .
It is questionable whether lamination really does such a good job, @The Hat did some extended
testing here https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/3rd-party-dye-ink-fade-test.11694/page-2#post-100184 these results are disappointing, it may work out somewhat better in a different environment since you have to shield against UV radiation - sun - fluorescent lamps - and ozone which both are not easy to measure

 

[ChengXirie]

http://www.aldertech.com/blog/piezoelectric-print-heads-vs-thermal-print-heads/
Something to read.
Do you think the printhead from Epson is more durable than Canon?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I need to hold back nasty comments about that aldertech stuff - a million degrees would vaporize not just the ink but as well the metal resistor films in the nozzles away within the mentioned nanosecond. The temp of the sun surface is in the range of 6000 K - the daylight color temp - what a coincidence - but it is correct that higher temps can be measured in the corona or are assumed to exist inside the sun but those comparisons don't really help to understand how an inkjet printhead works.
There are several factors influencing the lifetime of a printhead - one relates to the principal construction of these thermal printheads. A metal film resistor in the ink path heated with current pulses creates the ink bubbles, this metal film is overcoated with some plastic thin film for protection to prevent corrosion and electrolytic abrasion. This surface is exposed to millions of temperature cycles between the room temperature of the ink and the vapor point which creates quite some thermal stress and a breakdown over time, such nozzles have a limited number of ejections they can do - plenty but not unlimited.
Piezo printheads do not have such thermal stress but there is another effect with the piezo elements - they are as well activated million and billion times , there are effects possible within the crystal elements from impurities and crystal deficiencies causing crystal fatigue. But this takes much longer than the breakdown of thermal nozzles. All this does not cover other problems related to ink properties affecting the smooth ejection, ink impurities leading to clogs , usage related problems - long idle times , ink mixing with incompatible inks, air bubbles and a lot more , lots of effects which can kill your printhead much earlier .
Epson can eject several droplet sizes through the same nozzles, Canon can't so they add some more nozzle rows which distributes the nozzle load over many more nozzles directly increasing the effective usage time, so there are tricky relations between all these variables. And yes, Canon or HP make most of the printheads user replaceable for these reasons, Epson does not see the need for that.

 

[ChengXirie]

Great thanks, that's all I need to know.

 

[CakeHole]

I can not comment on any of the EXACT models you mentioned but a relative at about this time last year went out and bought an Epson ET2500 (a couple of models lower down the chain than the ET2650 you mention). SO very similar. They got it (from memory) on some special offer for something like £120-150.

Here is some info about their ET2500 which may help your decision...

INK...
They print quite a lot (or what i call a lot) a few pages of text per day and maybe a 4-5 pictures per week. They are still using the original ink which came with the device (70ml bottles) the lowest last time i visited it was about 1/4-1/3 full. It will last you ages unless you are a hardcore printer user, its lasted them as good as a year. Or to put it into perspective each refill ink in the ETxxxx printer equates to about 4-5 carts worth from your MG6350 and IP7250.

SPEED...
In terms of speed and real life rather than specification from manufacturers their ET2500 is probably a hair slower than my old Canon MP610 (though i have not timed them both) and more than likely very similar to your MG6350 as that is only slightly slower than my MP610 in real life also. Unless you are really fussy or plan to sit their with a stopwatch i doubt you will notice any real difference in speed between new Epson ET2xxx and your old printers. Its going to be a few seconds faster or slower at most per page. Printers in the £150-300(ish) mark in my experience all print to similar real life speed none are going to be stupidly quicker or slower over another.

NOISE...
Their ET2500 is pretty darn quiet, makes an initial whirl (even this is not loud compared to some) on power on and is pretty silent after that, does not make a racket when taking a sheet of paper like my MP610 sometimes does and does not make noise like a food blender when the head goes back to the park position like my MP610 and your MG6350 does now and then.

SOFTWARE...
This is obviously subjective and personal taste but i prefer the software drivers etc (this is for windows) on Canon devices of your MG6350 and my MP610 ilk (which is basically the same interface). The Epsons ETxxxx series is fine, and not massively different, you will not have trouble using it, layout is similar... but in places (to me personally) it does not not feel as refined and ive found it can be fussy as to saving settings you make in the interface.
An example if you are using certain software and click file, print setup (or similar) and tell it to do photo for quality rather than draft it will do it fine for that print job but you have to set it again from draft to photo on the next print out/job. It can be solved by going to the config DIRECT via the Epson shortcuts/taskbar and then it will save what you choose. It does not happen on all programs, common ones like MS Word etc its fine its more obscure software which seems to have this issue, why i dunno. A tad annoying at first but you soon get used to it and its not a deal breaker IMO.

PRINT QUALITY
Tough to judge, my Canon MP610, your MG6350 and other canons of similar range/price/spec i would say (or my eyes think it) print with more saturation than their ET2500, colour looks like it has been applied heavier to the page to make things more vivid, (this can be a good or bad thing depending on what you are printing) particularly on draft and standard settings. Think of it as the difference between looking at a pastel shade of colour over a denser/heavier colour. If you print something with both printers set to photo options/mode and its very similar and much harder to tell which printer did what image.

When you look at side by sides in terms of detail and sharpness its basically a dead heat (sure there are tiny differences like any printer side by side but you have to look for it rather than it standing out). Neither is better, sometimes one printer does a slightly better job than the other on one print while the next the opposite printer may win.

WOULD I BUY A ET2xxx SERIES?
Oh the loaded gun at my head question.... For the right price yes, the ET2650 in the UK which you mention at Currys is currently £149.99 as a special "Black tag" offer here...
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/compu...one-wireless-inkjet-printer-10157854-pdt.html
(probably the same type of deal my relative got last year on their ET2500) For all purposes its not much difference spec wise to their ET2500 and for the price it is definitely worth the money. I personally think you get a great everyday printer for sensible money at that price.

Where my opinion would start to change is on the higher range and the price of them, EG an ET4500 costs £270 at currys here in the UK, at about that price is when i would seriously start to look around to see if that model and others in the range such as the ET2750 and ET3750 (which are £300 and £400 respectively at currys) were worth it or if something with better specs, functions i would like was available.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I must admit I lost track of the most important elements of the inquiry, I just would like to mention that models like the ET2700 and up offer borderless printing as well to get these models on par with the Canon G series models. When it comes to 'print quality' I rather would judge printers by the gamut they can generate on particular papers, there are quite a of lot parameters you can tune via the driver or a profile to get the most pleasing results.

 

[ChengXirie]

Is there any difference between The Ecotank ET 2750 and
ECOTANK ITS L6160? They look identical but this one has a Precisioncore Printhead.
If I buy the L805 from alzaa, it has no scanner.



Edit:

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The L6160 does duplex, the ET-2750 does not, both use a pigment black and CMY dyes which do not give you the best black on glossy papers mixed from CMY . If you need a scanner and better photo prints you may as well look for the 6 color dye L850 model. Epson does not make it easy for their potential customers to find the best model for their needs. The L6160 comes with more nozzles which could increase the overall printing speed. But the 'Precisioncore' printhead alone should not be a buying decision. Or there is as well a new ET7700 with 5 inks - both pigment and dye black and smaller droplets for good photo prints but pretty pricey.

 

[ChengXirie]

The L6160 does duplex, the ET-2750 does not, both use a pigment black and CMY dyes which do not give you the best black on glossy papers mixed from CMY . If you need a scanner and better photo prints you may as well look for the 6 color dye L850 model. Epson does not make it easy for their potential customers to find the best model for their needs. The L6160 comes with more nozzles which could increase the overall printing speed. But the 'Precisioncore' printhead alone should not be a buying decision. Or there is as well a new ET7700 with 5 inks - both pigment and dye black and smaller droplets for good photo prints but pretty pricey.

ET7700? Yes I've seen, I mean I was so impressed but shocked about the price. If it has A3 paper feature it is okay.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The ET-7750 is the A3+ version , o.k. - you get plenty of good ink with these units - 2 sets of bottles