Epson EcoTank ET-2800 Review

The Epson EcoTank ET-2800 is an excellent all-in-one printer for those trying to keep operational costs down in a small home office environment, but not the best choice for performance, speed, and exceptionally high quality printing.

Performance Comparison

Text Quality

In our text quality printing metric, we tested each printer's ability to print both black and white text as well as maintain a high level of text resolution. Overall, we found the text printing quality of the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 was good but not exceptional compared to its peers.

In our black and white text quality testing, we found the darkest shade of black was lighter than the black produced by other printers. While not as dark a black as other printers, the ET-2800 produced text without any noticeable blemishes or blurring. Its performance is also more consistent than previous generations of EcoTank printers that we've tested, marking an improvement over those models.

When it came down to text resolution, our test team observed an average performance from the EcoTank ET-2800. While text across all of our testing was always legible, it simply wasn't as crisp as the text produced by other printers, and thinner fonts were just not as sharp as they appeared on the screen.

Operating Cost

Very few printers, or printer manufacturers, can match the incredibly low operational costs of Epson's EcoTank line of printers.

The Epson EcoTank ET-2800 is practically unrivaled when it comes to operational costs. If low operational costs are the focus of your printing needs, and you are willing to sacrifice some fidelity, photo quality, and speed, then the ET-2800 may be the perfect choice for you.

Ease of Use

Our ease of use metric tested and evaluated initial printer setup and unboxing, wireless setup, customer service, and the printer interface. Due to some hiccups with the wireless setup and the extra steps of filling the 'eco tanks', the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 earned an average score overall.

Initial printer setup unboxing isn't too difficult with the EcoTank ET-2800. It comes with a clear instruction manual that includes visuals, and the screen on the printer also provides step by step instructions that provide visuals throughout the process of loading the ink into the printer.

While it does take time to pour the ink into the containers, it is both mess-free and straightforward, as well as a smoother process than on previous EcoTank models. We also had almost no issues with jamming or alignment in the test prints at the end of the process.

Wireless setup is where our test team ran into issues with the Epson EcoTank ET-2800, and it took more than a few tries to identify and connect wirelessly. In different environments, without other networks present, we had less issues.

Customer service is fairly average, the app is very simple, the website is straightforward, and the live chat isn't exactly something to write home about.

The printer interface is helpful through the setup process, is easy to use, and although the screen is rather small, it's on par for usability with many of the other models we tested.

Graphics and Photos

Between our photo quality, business graphics, resolution, and color quality tests, our test team observed a loss of detail and quality in the resultant prints. Rather than getting into each and every individual test, it's probably easiest and most direct to say that, overall, the quality of photographic printing was underwhelming.

We had hoped for more from the ET-2800, but the end result was average to below-average prints with muted and undersaturated colors, a loss of sharpness, and an all-around lack of fidelity.

Printing Speed

The Epson EcoTank ET-2800 is not the fastest printer on the market and underperformed many of the other products we tested in our printing speed metric, which we broke down into the following five tests: mixed text and photo speed, high resolution photo speed, 10 page duplex, and 10 page simplex.

The mixed text and photo speed test took this model three minutes and 33 seconds to complete. This placed it toward the back of the test group. For comparison, the fastest models finished this test in less than 30 seconds. It really is not the fastest, especially with double sided documents, due to the manual feeding requirement of duplex printing.

The ET-2800 struggled to do well on our high resolution photo speed test, taking 101 seconds to achieve the task. This is rather slow when it comes to high resolution photo printing and is actually ten times slower than the fastest models we tested.

This printer requires pausing and manually feeding paper to achieve duplex, double-sided prints. As such, it is only as fast as simplex printing, at an average 10 pages per minute on our 10 page text document duplex test, which is surprisingly still above average for the test group. The 10 pages per minute on simplex printing also placed it above many of its peers.

Should You Buy the Epson EcoTank ET-2800?

While the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 offers incredible short and long term operational costs, it is not particularly fast and does not support un-aided duplex printing. We also found the quality of prints to be less exceptional than many of the other printers we've tested. Therefore, we can't recommend this model over many other great options.

What Other Printers Should You Consider?

While some may find that the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 has an attractive low operational cost, more demanding home users and office environments may want to look at better performing printers like the exceptional Canon ImageClass MF741Cdw or the more budget-friendly Epson Workforce Pro WF-4820.