Hands on: I tried out the Epson EcoTank ET-2830 – see how this cheap inkjet holds up
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This comment first appeared in issue 353 PC Pro.
if Epson’s The Ecotank ET-2830 is a regular inkjet that we would crave for its high price and aim for relatively basic specifications. We will go back to the latter, but the first one is explained by this MFP refilled ink tank. The ET-2830 comes with about 6,000 pages of bottled ink – enough to see a year or two in lightweight use at home. It’s worth better than comparable cartridge-based devices.
ET-2830 is entry-level. It’s a three-in-one that can print, scan and copy, but no monitor, no USB port, and no Memory card Coin vent. Instead, you get some buttons and LEDs, and a rather attractive and neat design. It only offers a backpaper feed, and a basic scanner without ADF. this printer Although the driver can manually help you with double-sided printing, the page cannot be read.
The ET-2830 comes with blue tape that presses every possible flap. Remove it, it’s time to flip its ink tank and clear the black and color ink provided into the relevant nozzles – they are physically keys to prevent catastrophic misunderstandings. Usually, this is the bit we have to wait for the one-time ink to start up, but EpsonThe new smart panel application allows you to join MFP to enter the wireless network and continue to install the software while you wait. We found it annoying in detail, but it worked well and proved to save time overall.
After setting up, this MFP has no real surprise. Despite its basic nature, it will be happy to perform normal home or microprocessing duties and leave printed pages in a neat stack. As you might expect, it’s not particularly fast, managing only 12.3ppm in our 25-page black text test. However, as the printing quality dropped to 17.2ppm, it was much higher than what Epson said was 15ppm.
Cheap inkjets usually give us challenging 24-page color graphic tests, but the ET-2830 crawls at a steady 4.5ppm – more competitive than it sounds. Not even that slow when printing photoevery 10 x 8 inch shot takes about three minutes. Unfortunately, it only offers borderless prints on 10 x 15 cm paper, and the beard that took 14 minutes to extend six prints. Colored copies provide another opportunity to grow facial hair, and a single copy takes 35 seconds. The mono copy is relatively light for at least 14 seconds.
ET-2850 scanner Not hanging out on lower resolutions. It completes the preview in 12 seconds and can capture A4 documents at 150DPI within the same time range. At 300DPI, the same work took 22 seconds. The medium resolution is slower, and it takes 37 seconds for the scanner to take 10 x 15 cm photos on 600DPI. However, the scanning speed remains competitive at 1200DPI, and the same file takes only less than one minute.
Pleasantly, the quality of the MFP prints, scans or copies is nothing particularly entry-level. The draft text is very weak, but the normal quality produces crisp and dark results. Color graphics aren’t the boldest graphics we’ve ever seen, but they don’t have bands and are enough for home and in-house business use. The photocopy faithfully copied the original – although the color copy felt less touched.
The MFP’s photo print is a highlight of our test, combining surprisingly clear details with bright colors and realistic skin tones. Only our black and white photos bring a challenge, the ET-2830 adds a slightly green tone that can’t preserve the darkest shadow details. We were also impressed by the quality of our scans, combining excellent color accuracy with a wide dynamic range to make the most of office documents and photos.
The Ecotank ET-2830 may be basic, but it’s not overly slow, and everything is fine. Yes, it lacks duplex printing and other useful features, but it’s as cheap as refilled inkjet. Once a large amount of bundled ink is used up, its continuous running cost is less than 0.5p per color page. Don’t be fooled by the purchase price: ET-2830 is cheap.
