Expression ET2550

[mrelmo]

Has anyone bought an Expression ET2550, looking for an honest review not a review from Epson, or a magazine

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Epson has a range of printers and combis in the market since at least 5 years - L100, L200, L300, L355, L800,L1800 and more, with a built-in CISS, but the distribution is restricted only to some market areas like South America, Pacific states, Eastern Europe. About a year ago Epson released a 2nd generation of such ET-Ecotank- models with some more handling convience of the tank system. All these models are based on standard models in their product range, slightly modified with the CISS system, the ET2550 is probably based on the Expression home XP-305 and should work like these without any cartridge change hassles. They use bottled Epson ink, but the ET ink differs from the ink of the base model, the XP home models run a Claria ink, whereas the L... and ET... models run a different dye ink which has less light fastness, and none of the L.. and ET.. models except the 6-ink photo printers offer borderless printing which is a restriction vs. the base models.
I'm running a L300 and a L800 since quite a while, the 1st unit L300 reached 55 000 pages, this one is at
40 000 pages, you may find various postings about the L300 and L800 here by searching for them in this forum with the search function at the top. My L300 just prints, I'm using a range of dye inks, I did quite some testing of inks with this printer, the ink/CISS handling is easy, you are not interrupted by any cartridge changes when running a longer print job. You buy the printer, and for the rest of the unit life you print easy and very convenient with a range of low priced inks - by Epson and lots of 3rd party ink suppliers, but it all depends what you expect from such the model overall beyond the ink questions - like size, handling, noise, scanning performance what else ?

 

[mrelmo]

it looks like it seems to cover all of my needs except for not printing to dvds, that is not a deal breaker as for photos just a standard print is fine for me the ease of refill and the low cost of epson ink is a big factor, but I believe I saw that the print head is not replaceable and did not find info on the warranty

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Epson printheads are typically not user replaceable and last very long, if other factors don't play against them like wrong inks etc. Genuine Epson inks for the L and ET series of models are very affordable, compared to inks in Epson cartridges. These ET.. models are overall slower compared to other printers if you would relate that to the price. It all depends what your plans and expectations are. No, the base XP models don't print DVD's either, an L800 would do that, but I don't think there is an equivalent ET model yet.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

there is a new L805 as the successor to the L800 available, now with WLAN connectivity , since a fews months in some markets , and in more countries via gray imports, e.g. from Poland or Czechia to Germany, or via an English distributor shipping from there.

 

[Neldajun]

I just purchased one, got it at Sam's Club for about $269 if I remember right. I had been considering it for some time, aware of the fact that it is not a top-of-the-line printer (you are paying for the ability to refill from a tank). Amazon lists them at $300 so I bit the billet and bought it.

Previously I had used a Canon MP610 (which I love, very economical on ink, I also refilled some, used third party carts some), but dead print head...so time to move on. But most of my comparisons will be with this older but very useful printer.

So far I am happy with it. It was easy to set up and connect. I am currently connected by USB and wireless, but I needed usb to get the scanner to work correctly (at least for me, the manual was not too helpful). Not great at photos but it is not a photo printer. I love the fact that I don't need to worry about the ink.

I use it as a home printer, I print a lot of graphic material, a fair amount of photos, and lots of web pages, or info.

CONS: No duplex, I loved that and used that with the Canon. No borderless printing, something I will definitely miss. Photos are not great (Canon was very, very good). The price, of course. You have to have the paper positioned perfectly in the intake slot in order to get straight prints (harder that it sounds, it is very fiddlly with this).
Printing is noticeably slower that the MP610.

PROS: the ink is inexpensive, $52 for a full refill, and there are third party inks that are even more economical ($15 on Amazon with great reviews). Not sure if I want to go that route, I think I may actually stay with Epson inks. It was easy to fill (of course I was comfortable refilling carts, so this was really easy), and has produced good results so fa. The only thinks that I really miss is the photo quality and borderless printing. It seems to work well wirelessly, I have printed from iPad without problems.

Photos are ok, just not great. It will print to within 0.12" of the edge according to Epson. I get to 3mm on one side (about 0.125") on one side but 4 mm on the other.

I don't have any fancy equipment to test it, so this is just personal review. Id be happy to answer any questions.

I know most reviews say pop the extra $50 for the 4550, but it was not available at Sam's and is list for almost double on Amazon of the 2550.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

you are right describing the limited functionality of this ET..model , it is not as much a multi purpose model as your Canon was, Epson tries not to compete too much with their regular models . The main point is the ease and cost of refilling.

 

[Neldajun]

I needed to do some scanning and need to add that this AIO Is e trembly slow. It takes over 60 seconds per page. If you have more than 3-4 pages, I makes scanning a very tedious process. I don't usually scan much, but recently scanned some larger documents 20+ pages). If the scanning on the ET-4550 is any faster, that alone would be worth the upgrade if you do very much scanning.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

did you check the scanning speed with a lower resolution ? Can you live with a lower resolution ? The scanning speed is probably adjusted to the printing speed in copy mode ?

 

[The Hat]

The scanning speed when set for mutable copying is very fast on the Canon Maxify, and this give perfectly acceptable results, in fact almost as good as the original...

Off topic, but...