Verdict
Epson ’s EcoTank ET-18100 is an A3 + capable , six - ink photo printer with the low run cost of refillable tank and bottled ink . It ’s not an all - rounder , being more or less grudging when it total to homely paper printing , and it ’s not high-pitched timbre photo printer I ’ve tested , but it ’s a swell pick if you want photo printing with the lowest potential running game price .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Most inkjet pressman will turn out decent vacation snap on coated papers , but if you ’re a keen or professional lensman , you ’ll want something more . The Epson EcoTank ET-18100 is a specialised photo printer , combining backing for newspaper size up to A3 + ( 329x483 mm ) with a six - ink print engine capable of reproducing colours with more subtlety and less metric grain .
The EcoTank ET-18100 is magnanimous than a distinctive inkjet printing machine , but it ’s really astonishingly compact given that it ’s built to handle A3 and A3 + paper , and it contains a six - ink printhead along with six large tanks to hold the necessary ink . It has a rather squared - off design , but it ’s smart enough , even once you full extend the printer ’s huge input and output trays .
Importantly , it ’s issue with ink by bottles rather than pickup , which could be a huge advantage give that photo printing is athirst work . Here ’s my full review .
With trays extended, this printer is deeper than it is wide – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Design and features
The Epson EcoTank ET-18100 does n’t have much in the room of control or other feature . It ’s strictly a single - function printing machine – there ’s no scanner or copying here . There ’s also no display , just a unproblematic circle of buttons and indicant lights at the front leave . While it ’s happy to impress plain paper , this printer is heavily focussed on picture . It ’s worth pointing out that it does n’t have an automatic duplex apartment ( double - sided ) feature article , which would be a must on an office - focused printer at this price .
Epson ’s been making its EcoTank printing machine for nearly a decade , and it ’s long iron out any mannerism . It ’s gentle to open a bottle , invert it over the tank and expect while the ink glugs into it . I ’ve never spilt a drop from the revise design , in which the bottles have unique key to see to it you ca n’t make an expensive ‘ wrong gloss ’ misapprehension .
Everyday inkjets combine opprobrious ink with cyan , Battle of Magenta and jaundiced , allowing them to reproduce the immense majority of color . The six - ink setup here adds light cyan and Battle of Magenta ink . While this does n’t necessarily increase the range of colours ( gamut ) usable , it should give the ET-18100 greater control over the lighter field of a print . By using more droplets of a wanton colour , rather than a few droplets of a grim refinement , there ’s less chance you ’ll notice any ‘ grain ’ upshot in cutis tincture , lite skies and other pale realm .
With trays extended, this printer is deeper than it is wide – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
This printer come with a full set of bottled ink , rated for roughly 7,200 apparent A4 Page of assorted textual matter and graphics . Some of this is used up in a one - off fusee unconscious process , but Epson say you ’ll still get about 1,500 10x15 atomic number 96 ( 6×4 ” ) postcard - sized print from the ink in the boxful – that ’s several time what you ’d get from any cartridge - based eq . transposition ink cost around £ 12 per color and should last for around 2,100 print , giving this printer very low running costs of about 3.3p per postcard photographic print . You ’ll pass roughly the same again keeping it in coated photo newspaper , or about 6p if you ’re using A4 mainsheet .
All of which leaves the elephant in the way . At well over £ 600 , this is an exceedingly expensive pressman to buy in the first place : it costs around twice as much as you might expect to pay for a similarly fix magazine - based inkjet . The premium ’s there because – unlike with cartridges – printer manufacturers make small profit on bottled ink .
bring home the bacon you ’ll impress a circle of photos , the Epson EcoTank ET-18100 will solve out cheaper overall . To make the power point , it ’s helpful to equate it with a cartridge equivalent such as Epson ’s Expression Photo HD XP-15000 , which cost £ 300 . Buy the Epson EcoTank ET-18100 , use only the ink in its corner and you might get around 1,500 postcard photograph . Do the same with the XP-15000 and you ’d involve around six extra set of cartridges , which would bring the full monetary value to more than £ 1,000 .
With trays extended, this printer is deeper than it is wide – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
In fact , you ’d only involve to print around 750 postcard - sized picture before the ET-18100 became better note value , equivalent to or so 190 A4 prints or 70 on A3 + newspaper . If that sounds like a mess , this probably is n’t the printing machine for you .
Print speed and quality
It ’s crucial to note that , bewilderingly , there ’s also anEcoTank ET-1810 , which is a much more canonical A4 printing machine . I bring up this because the Epson EcoTank ET-18100 does n’t come with a number one wood disc , and at the time of my critical review the first Google result for “ ET-18100 driver ” actually bring you to those for the ET-1810 .
This potential booby trap aside , this is a elementary pressman to set up and use . Although it ’ll happily take on plain report duties , you should n’t expect bully results . It uses dyestuff - establish inks that are utterly suitable to coated exposure composition , but they do n’t stamp their authority on plain paper like the paint ink you get on an office equipment . The upshot is that text is n’t K black , and the colours in the graphics deficiency urging and impingement .
The printing machine itself lacked importunity on our standard plain paper tests , where it cruise along at just 5.7 pageboy per minute ( ppm ) when print black text . It was n’t much slower on colour graphics , reaching a decent 5.5ppm on our five - page test .
This is a photo - focused printing machine , though , and happily , it ’s far more telling when churning out pictures at its highest print lineament . I screen it using Epson ’s own 10x15 cm , A4 and A3 + composition , and got great results on all three , whether print with or without borderline . When using a magnifying glass , I could barely make out individual dots of ink – even in the lightest parts of my test prints where they ’d be most likely to appear . To the naked middle , the photos looked like they occur from a lab .
That pronounce , these were n’t the most impressive pushover I ’ve ever take care . In the past times I ’ve tended to prefer Epson ’s prints to those from likewise specified Canon printing machine , with the former typically showing warmer and more naturalistic colours at the price of a small sharpness . I felt it was the reverse here .
In several shots , the ET-18100 seemed to overexpose the lightest wraith , allowing insidious detail in swarm , clear hide and sun - baked Mrs. Henry Wood to be rinse out . Below I ’ve compared the same pic from Canon ’s PIXMA PRO-200 ( true an eight - colour printer ) , with the Epson ( on the right ) . depend in particular at the comparative deficiency of item in my Logos ’s tegument .
There ’s a subjective chemical element to judging exposure quality , though , and the Epson EcoTank ET-18100 stand out in other prints . In particular , I favor its rendition of a morning photo of a silver-tongued car , taken next to the waters of a loch – here its slightly coolheaded quality well stress the car against the warmth in the sky . I find a slight green diagonal in my Shirley Temple - and - blanched mental test photo , but I was otherwise impressed by its sharpness and detail . alas , I could n’t get either difference to show up in image equivalence , show just how subtle the differentiation can be .
If you ’re in a hurry , this printer can oblige when it comes to photograph . It pitch six borderless 10x15 cm print in just less than eight minutes and finish a borderless A4 mark in just under three and a one-half minutes . Even a borderless A3 + photographic print was done in six and a one-half minutes .
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Should you buy it?
The Epson Eco - Tank ET-18100 is a printer made for quantity over quality . It ’s also crafted for photo prints , principally for the inexpert photographer
If you ’re after great plain paper operation or the best possible photos that would suit a professional lensman , the Epson EcoTank ET-18100 is n’t the printer for you .
Final Thoughts
The Epson EcoTank ET-18100 is an expensive printing machine , but it ’s likely to redeem you money if you print a lot of photos over its life-time . My test prints were far better than those from the distinctive four - colour inkjet , however , I do have reservations about whether they were honorable enough for pro photographers . sure enough , they ’re not quite of the standard I ’d need if I was selling limited prints or putting together a folio .
With that in mind , this printer ’s perhaps best accommodate to corking amateur who design to do a lot of printing process . They ’re likely to be delighted by its timber , and by what it might save them compare to cartridge inkjet printers or getting larger print from a laboratory . If unlimited picture quality is preponderant , I ’d evoke Canon’sPIXMA Pro-200instead .
Trusted Score
How we test
Every pressman we review plump through a series of undifferentiated checks project to gauge fundamental affair including photographic print quality , upper and cost .
We ’ll also compare the characteristic with other printers at the same price point to see if you ’re father sound value for your money .
FAQs
If you impress a lot and you require the lowest possible costs , refillable printers like the EcoTank range will save you money in the long run . That ’s doubly true if you ’re printing photo , which use a lot of ink . endeavor to make certain the warranty will last you at least as long as the ink that comes with the printing machine – you ’ll only deduct the higher purchase price once you ’ve used all or most of that up .
Not particularly , in our experience . All inkjets can be prostrate to clogging if they ’re leave behind idle for periods of a few week – you may usually fix it with the maintenance options on the printer itself . Given that refillable inkjets are built for higher mass , they ’re less potential to terminate up sitting idle , making clogging even less potential .
‘ EcoTank ’ is Epson ’s blade name for its refillable ink storage tank printers . Canon ’s equivalent weight is ‘ MegaTank ’ , while HP offers ‘ Smart Tank ’ . All three organization work on well and cut the price of ownership compared to magazine - base printer , offer you ’ll photographic print in fair volumes . With that in head , you should focus on the ink armored combat vehicle printer that accommodate you , without worrying too much about the blade .
They look close together, but you can fill at least two of the ET-18100’s ink tanks at a time. – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Test Data
Full Specs
Compared to the Canon PIXMA Pro-200 (left), the ET-18100 (right) tended to wash out detail from light areas. – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
With trays extended, this printer is deeper than it is wide – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
They look close together, but you can fill at least two of the ET-18100’s ink tanks at a time. – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
Compared to the Canon PIXMA Pro-200 (left), the ET-18100 (right) tended to wash out detail from light areas. – Image Credit (Trusted Reviews)
