Good for Windows users. Not so good for Mac users., March 16, 2011

By 

Kevin Nicholls “jaded, aging hipster” (Milford, MI) – See all my reviews

  

  

  

For the sake of comparison, I have a Canon PIXMA MX870 multifunction inkjet with wireless connectivity that I’m using as a benchmark on the Epson WorkForce 840, since they’re competitive products in the same segment.

While Epson touts how much space you save on your desk with the 840, the space hasn’t disappeared, it’s simply gone up. The 840 is surprisingly tall. So much so that using it in an enclosed space may be difficult. Out of the box, I noticed that the unit itself felt a bit flimsy. With the exception of the flatbed scanner, everything from the ADF tray down to the paper trays felt as though they’d snap without much force.

Setup was quite simple, and it’s unlikely that experienced buyers would need to look at the setup poster to get started. Take the tape off, drop your cartridges in, and turn it on. The menu system is fairly logical, and getting the printer on my wireless network took about a minute. A minor quibble on this one: the 840 wants to spend upwards to five minutes calibrating itself when you first turn it on, and locks out the menu in the process.

The display panel was surprisingly crisp, though the touch-sensitive areas didn’t consistently register input. On both sides of the color LCD, you have a series of touch-sensitive “buttons” that light up when they’re relevant to the menu context. Although this was fine for most things, some of the icons were a bit cryptic in context. Overall, I found the interface to be a bit on the gimmicky side, and would have preferred a few softkeys instead.

Printing is everything you’d come to expect from Epson. Text was very sharp, bordering on “cheap laser” quality, and pictures looked almost impossibly good on “cheapest you can get me” copy paper. Without question, the 840 kicks out sharp black text faster than any printer I’ve used. But… mixed content isn’t nearly as fast. A good example here is the built-in ability to print out ruled paper and graph paper. The function is kind of cool, but a single ruled page takes an excruciating amount of time.

One serious oddity is the way Epson chose to deal with paper. They tout the top cartridge being versatile enough to handle any paper or envelope smaller than 11 x 17 you can imagine, and that the bottom cartridge holds an entire ream of paper. That’s great. Problem is, the 840 expects letter paper in the top cartridge, and there’s no way to set it to use the bottom cartridge globally. Yes, you can set it to use Cartridge 2 in the driver… unless you’re using a Mac. If you’re using a Mac, some applications allow you to hit the Paper Handling settings (and pick Cartridge 2 every time), but some applications don’t. On Windows, if you’re using this in a workgroup, every computer has to have the driver configured to use the “big” cartridge.

If you’ve got a Mac, that’s not where the pain ends. Scanning is reasonably fast for an all-in-one, and the quality’s pretty average, too. Want to put a stack of paper in the document feeder and have them scanned to your computer? No problem. Hit “Scan”, “Scan to PC”, and pick your computer from the network. Unless you’re using a Mac. While Canon multifunction printers have been able to do this for years, Epson can’t seem to do network scanning to Macs running Snow Leopard. Just to be certain, I downloaded the latest drivers from Epson’s site, to no avail.

For Windows users, the Workforce 840 is a solid multifunction inkjet. The materials are too flimsy for sustained workgroup use, but it’s definitely nice for a hone office user who likes the distinct look of Epson printing. For Mac users though, I can’t really recommend this. The drivers aren’t good at all, and you’re going to lose functionality out of the box.

Mac OS Lion Update – August 2011:

To anyone wondering, I’ve been using the printer on a clean Lion install for just over a week now, and basically, it’s the same. I still can’t scan to a Mac from the printer, and there’s still no way to permanently set a specific tray.

One thing that is worth noting though: getting the printer going on my Mac took no effort at all. The Lion installer saw the Epson printer on the network, and added drivers. I have to say, I was relatively impressed.

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Excellent all-in-one printer!, January 24, 2011

By 

memoiai (USA) – See all my reviews

  

  

Upon opening the package I was a bit taken aback at how big and heavy this printer is. Compared to my (now relatively) small Canon Pixma ip6000d (which I love).

But this printer has filled a big void that the Canon could not: all in one printing AND instantaneous two-sided printing.

Installation: The installation and set-up is very easy. Just follow the instructions, install the drivers, and software, and you’re ready to go. Don’t forget, however, to readjust your settings in Control Panel–> Printers and Faxes (right click for properties) to a permanent model (i.e. I always have it set to two sided printing, minimal ink use, and print last page first) so that I get everything the way I want to, right away. If you don’t do that, then you’ll be stuck having to switch it manually every time you print it out of Word; which gets annoying real fast.

Design: This is a very sleek looking machine that looks very professional. The touch screen is really a smart-screen. Meaning: when I’m trying to choose options manually on the printer it only lets me choose those that are actually available based on all the previous steps I have taken to get to the current screen. However, I will not be using the touch screen a lot, if ever, as I can do everything right from my computer with the software provided, which is much easier and more convenient (both of the other printers I’ve had I’ve also avoided the more primitive screens).

Printing Speed: This is a very fast printer (it’s obviously not as fast as the monstrous and expensive (,000) laser printer at my former place of work), but it’s certainly the fastest inkjet I’ve encountered (a claim they boldly state). I print two sided pages all of the time, 1000′s of them, and I can’t tell you what and incredible relief it is to be able to have a double sided page come right out, instead of waiting for the odd pages to print, then sticking back the pages in the right order into the cassette in my Canon, and waiting for the even pages to print on the other side. If however, you print high quality pictures, I can’t say that this is that much faster than my Canon, maybe just a bit, but it is certainly better quality.

Scanner: I can’t say that the scanner is anything special here, it’s like anything else. The quality is top notch at the highest settings, but, as with any scanner, you might as well brew a pot of coffee while you get that high quality image saved to a hard drive that can hopefully sustain it (especially if you’ve got lots of images to scan); I see no reason to scan at the highest quality setting for most every-day page-text; and in this scenario it’s lightning fast. The biggest advantage of this printer versus a traditional lift-lid-scan printer is that, thanks to the feeder, you can actually go ahead and brew that coffee and do something else while the printer (without glitches so far) scans and the faxes and/or downloads to the computer and/or copies the paper/pictures/etc for you, without you having to sit there and manually input every single **** ****….bad memories…

Fax: The fax is just like any printer with a fax option; you simply enter in all of your information and away you go. A test fax was received and sent very easily, but without any additional flair. Did you seriously expect the scanner and fax options in an all-in-one printer to somehow be revolutionized in the span of the last 5 years (when I had my last all-in-one printer)? NOTE: A phone cable is included, BUT if you use DSL, make sure you have an extra filter, or get one from your ISP.

Paper (free sample comes included, yay!): This isn’t about actually the paper you use, but rather, the really awesome cassette system in this printer! There’s two cassettes! That’s one more than I had before and it made me feel giddy inside! Then, I realized, I only use one type of paper. Oh well, at least for some of you this will be important. I used to send a lot of mail and hated switching out the paper and envelopes, a printer like this would’ve solved that hassle. Again, so far, no glitches or jams; but this is actually the least you should expect as modern printers rarely glitch if they’re any good.

Ink (B/W and color included right away): Epson claims instant dry inks. So what? My experience with printers isn’t vast, but the two other inkjet printers I have (Canon’s ink only costing – for a cartridge the same size as Epson’s), print dry as well as long as you use the right paper. And, too touch base on the whole cost of ink issue, Epson loses me here big time. I have been spoiled by my Canon, which has cost me over the last several years a grand total of in ink ( of which is still sitting on a shelf, unused); and I print literally thousands upon thousands of pages every year. Roughly the same capacity ink cartridge (-B/W and -5- Color in Canon) runs you a whopping …

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Epson Workforce 840 Best Printer ever!!, January 25, 2011

By 

Rodolfo Farinas Jr. – See all my reviews

  

I own this printer, i bought it from the manufacturer’s site directly since it wasn’t available at amazon at the time i wanted it.

This printer is awesome in every imaginable way you can think of. And it can help you save a lot of money of you really want the all in one capabilty. Read on and i’ll explain how an why.

First things first, the printer is way smaller than the HP Laserjet 2840 i own too, it’s not heavy at all, and it looks great. The text printing on this Epson truly looks like a laser printer. The color is fantastic to, i even print photos on glossy photo paper and they look amazing. The scanner is fast and very good too. It allows you to scan and print both sides of docs at once, no manual interference needed.

I was looking for a printer that would give me great photo printouts as well as it could be used as a work printer since i do print lots of documents as well. I also wanted to buy a Fujitsu Scansnap 1500 for fast double sided multisize document scanning capabilities, Well this epson gives me all that and much more, and for less than half what the scansnap costs. I use adobe acrobat pro to scan docs to PDF directly from the epson scanner(could not do this with the scansnap) and all that is done wirelessly, i can also fax any document right from my computer just like i print them.

Bottom line, for 0 you’re getting a very fast high quality printer scanner fax and both-sides copy machine as well as the card readers and a lot more, the ink seems to last, and this printer comes with the highest capacity cartridges, which seem to yield a lot. So now i solved my scanning, pc faxing and photo printing needs all in one small very good a nice machine. And i saved whatever a photo printer costs, plus the 0 for the scansnap s1500, and i get laser quality text as well as (N) wireless conectivity from my printer. What else could i ask for?

Note: My comparison with the scansnap s1500 are not based on web reviews, i actually bought a scansnap which i later returned since i get the same if not better results with this printer.

Also, i’ve owned canon photo printers and i still have a huge HP color laserjet 2840. So my comparisons and references are based on actual usage of all equipment mentioned.

My recommendation, buy this one and you’ll be very pleased.

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