Customer Ratings & Reviews

Only buy if you plan on using very frequently (like more than once a week.) this prints blank pages almost every time I go to use it. It takes running a nozzle head task to resolve this. Very inefficient. Printer also doesn’t handle pictures well. This happens every 2-3 photos. Attached below example. Otherwise gets the job done. I regret spending so much for something that takes *a lot* to make work.

If you are looking for a home office printer this is it.

Love that you don't have to buy/replace ink cartridges.

Love this printer! The bottle refill inks are definitely the way to go! Don't keep buying those expensive cartridges!!

It prints in clear beautiful color. I like how many sheets can be printed with just one bottle of ink.

This printer is a superb choice if quality and cost per page is important to you. The Epson ET-3850 wireless EcoTank All-in-One Printer is a very reliable, inexpensive, easy to use and compact device which will economically and quietly print large quantities of documents at a very nice quality level. Epson is one of the three major units of Japan’s Seiko Group (the other two produce Seiko watches and SII microelectronics.) Seiko created the printing timers used in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, then developed the first electronic mini-printer (the EP-101) in 1968. In 1975 the company created the Epson name to brand the next generation of printers based upon the EP-101 technology. Epson literally means “son of EP” and it introduced dot matrix printers in 1978. Epson created the micro piezo inkjet technology (which is the basis for most modern inkjet printers) in 1993. To combat the cost and waste associated with inkjet cartridges Epson released the first of the EcoTank line of printers in 2015. When it comes to printer technology you can’t go wrong with Epson! Here are the key features of this great multifunction printer: • Epson ET-3850 All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer/Copier/Scanner • 2.4 inch color LCD control screen with animation of help function • Connectivity: Wireless (802.11b/g/n), USB, Ethernet 10/100 • Ink capacity/page yield: Black 127 ml = approx. 7,500 pages, Cyan/Yellow/Magenta 70 ml each = approx. 6,000 pages • Print resolution: up to 4800 x 1200 dpi • ISO print speed: 15.5 ppm (Black), 8.5 ppm (Color) • Automatic duplex (two-sided) printing • Multi-page printing on a single sheet – up to 16 pages/images per side • ISO duplex print speed: 6.5 ppm (Black), 4.5 ppm (Color) • Paper capacity: 250 sheets in lower tray • Paper sizes: Adjustable down to 3.5” width, Letter, A4, Legal, #10 envelopes • Duty cycle: Up to 5,000 pages/month • Scan function: up to 1200 x 2400 resolution, 8.5 x 11.7 inch flatbed (A4 paper size) • Copy function: up to 99 copies, reduce, enlarge, borderless, duplex • Epson Smart Panel app for Apple and Android phones • Dimensions: 14.8 inch Wide x 13.7 inch/19.8 inch (w. tray extended) Deep x 9.7 inch Tall • Weight: 16.1 pounds • Includes Photo+, Photo Editing, ScanSmart, NetPrint utilities, setup and driver software • Two year/50,000 sheet limited warranty First impression of this printer is that is elegantly styled in an arctic white with subtly rounded corners to relieve the bulkiness seen in some competitors’ devices. It has a minimal impact upon your workspace with a nearly square footprint (just 14.8” x 13.7”) and stands a compact 9.1” tall. Epson cleverly designed the sheet feeder to fold flat when not in use, minimizing both the height and the width of the printer. The power cord has no bulky transformer on it so it adds to the clean look of the printer. Overall you will be pleased to share your office with this beautiful unit, especially since when in operation it is very quiet. Wirelessly connected, it can be located in any convenient space – it does not need to be next to the PC it is serving. This is ideal for homes and small offices since you can also use this great device as a supplemental copier. Setting up this printer is very easy. Epson protects the printer during shipping with tape around key parts, but all of the tape is bright blue and very easy to remove. The quick setup instructions are well-written (unlike those of some other manufacturers) and you could just read them. But an even easier method is to download the Epson Smart Panel to your phone. Attach the power cord to the printer, but don’t turn it on. Then just obey the illustrated step-by-step instructions in the app. Filling the ink tanks on the printer Is foolproof. The ink bottles have alignment tabs which securely hold the bottle while it fills the respective printer tank and the filling process stops automatically when the tank is full. There will be some ink left in the bottle, so reclose it and store it in a seal bag (see photo) to prevent possible leakage. Flip down the ink tank cap and repeat the process with each ink color. Once the ink tanks have been filled, turn on the printer’s power and follow the detailed instructions in the Epson Smart Panel. The system will be charged with ink in a process that takes about ten minutes. The control panel will display the progress during this step. Next, load some paper and the printer will conduct an alignment process during which four pages will be printed and you will be asked a series of question to select the line on the page which best matches the sample shown on the control panel. Once the alignment is complete you can continue to follow the Epson Smart Panel app to connect the printer to your wireless network. Alternatively, you could use the CD included with the printer to establish the wireless connection. The CD also contains the supplemental software which you will use to get maximum benefit from the printer. If, for some reason you do not want to use the printer’s wireless connection option, there are two other connection methods: attaching an Ethernet cable to your router or using a USB cable to your PC. Any computer on your network should be able to access the printer. If you don’t want to use the setup CD and have a Windows PC just go to Settings, then Devices and select Add Printer. The Epson printer should be discovered and the driver automatically downloaded. The Epson ET-3850 has a large (250 sheet) paper capacity in the lower paper drawer. It loads easily and is adjustable for multiple paper sizes. To print envelopes you must remove the paper and adjust the paper guides to the width of the envelope. If you want to use legal-size paper the end of the paper tray flips down to accommodate the longer paper. Print quality is really excellent, even in the economy (standard) mode. In the higher quality (business document) mode the print quality matches most laser printers I have used. The printer driver provides nice printing options like 2 on 1, 4 on 1 and up to 16 on 1 (number of page images on a single sheet of paper), borderless, scaled, fit-to-page, booklet and others. The most useful option is the automatic duplexing (two-sided printing) which it manages without drama. Photo printing quality is quite good and will satisfy most purposes. (If you want really outstanding photo printing quality you should invest in a dedicated photo printer with more than three ink colors.) This printer’s color capability will be best used in printing business documents (graphs, multi-colored text, PowerPoint slide copies, etc.) and it does a very nice job on such tasks. The printing speed is not equal to that of a laser printer but certainly acceptable at about 16 pages/minute (black) and about 8 pages/minute for color documents (speeds estimated by my own testing.) For home use and most small offices this is more than adequate. Scanning, at resolutions up to 1200 x 2400 dpi, can be managed from the printer’s control panel or by using the included Espson Smart Scan Utility (or by just using Windows Fax and Scan utility.) I recommend Epson’s utility which will scan to a PDF, stich large documents together and facilitate OCR, among other features. The copy function is excellent, producing up to 99 copies in black print or color from each original with options for shrinking or enlarging originals, adjusting contrast, etc. The color control panel walks you through the options available or you can just hit the start button to make a single copy with the default settings and the automatic document feeder. Other bonus features include easy printing from phones and tablets using the free Epson app. But the most important feature of the Epson ET-3850 All-in-One Inkjet Printer/Copier/Scanner is that wonderful EcoTank. It holds 127 ml of black ink and a total of 210 ml of color ink (70 ml each of cyan, yellow and magenta). Those massive tanks will print about 7,500 sheets of black ink documents and about 6,000 sheets of color documents. If you print ten pages a day that initial ink supply will last you for more than three years! The best part is the incredibly low cost of the ink. The refills for the ink tanks are far less expensive than replacement cartridges. The cost comparison to standard ink cartridges is amazing. A typical replacement inkjet cartridge for other printers costs $30 to $40 and will print 220-350 pages at an ink cost per page of about $0.09. The ink cost per page of the EcoTank system is about $0.004 – less than 5% of the cost of a standard inkjet printer! If you are upgrading from a traditional inkjet printer you may be used to minimizing your printing to avoid the expense of ink cartridge replacement. This Epson Et-3850 will free you to print much more readily since you have a cost per page lower than almost any other printing device on the market. Those savings are due to the fact that you are not replacing the print head, as you must with each new ink cartridge, and the elimination of the plastic cartridge body cost. The ecological benefits of eliminating this waste are a nice bonus. The only replacement item on the Epson ET-3850 is a “maintenance box” which collects excess ink. It costs about $15 and probably needs replacement every other year. The only caution that I would advise is that you print at least one page in black ink and one color copy every month to keep the ink lines from potentially drying out from lack of use. The more I use the Epson ET-3850 EcoTank All-in-One Inkjet Printer/Copier/Scanner, the more I like it. I can happily give this great printer a full five stars and my unqualified endorsement. Buy it without qualms!

It's been about 3 months and now I am reaching out to the geek squad for the second time in a week. Printer settings says driver not available. I would like to take it back but it says my time is up! Flimsy. Unreliable in my opinion.

Printer stopped working after 6 months, could not connect to wifi and cannot print. Bestbuy wants to charge me for just having a technician to take a look at it, or I would have to bring it to a store and pay another fee for repair.

Soooo disappointed. The paper will not load properly and as soon as I set the printer up, I received a message stating, The Maintenance Box is at the end of it's service life. You need to replace it. ". I will definitely be returning this unless Best Buy can remedy the errors.

If you use special characters in your router password you MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HAVE THE PRINTER TO INSTALL AN AN INTERNET CONNECTION. Having to change your password on a guest 2.4 network you would have to reinstall every device in the house using a new password. For me that's 40 some devices (lights, cameras, garage openers, washing machine, etc.). An example is using the < or > characters. It's taking me hours to talk with support to no avail. Only remedy is change router password.

Top notch performance right out of the box and unbelievable efficiency of ink - have printed for over 1 year with the original ink supply

I am so happy that I stumbled upon this printer!! This new Epson EcoTank ET- 3850 is perfect for the at-home office, or for an at-home printer. The setup was super easy, and the printer allows you to print in many ways. I love that this printer comes with its own email address when you register it, and you can simply email the printer and it will print pictures or documents. I also love the app that you can download on either iOS or Android, it also makes printing super easy. I have never had a printer that can do double-sided printing before, but once you have one that can do automatic double-sided printing, you realize quickly what you were missing. I had to print out some forms for my child’s daycare and this printer didn’t skip a beat when printing on both sides, it's incredible. As I said previously, setting up the printer was easy and with the initialization test prints, they were spot on right out of the box. The tray holds 250 pages of paper, and the tray aligns the paper perfectly. The screen is 2.4 inches and is color, I really like how you can adjust the screen and buttons by pulling them out and up, that way the screen is facing you while looking down at it, but also can be put back vertically. This printer can literally do it all whether it be print, scan, or copy, and can be used from a mobile device, computer, email, Wi-Fi, or through the app. The most impressive component to this printer would have to be everything about the ink. Let’s talk about the ink!! This printer comes with 2 years’ worth of ink in the box! I still can’t get over how this printer takes and stores the ink. Epson knocked it out of the park with this idea. To fill the printer with ink, it's as simple as unscrewing the cap, and setting the bottle to its respected color, and watching the ink bubble down into the reservoir. There is enough ink to print roughly 12,000 pages! I am so happy to never have to buy another messy, fragile, and expensive cartridge again. This printer is the boss of at-home printers, an absolute powerhouse, and not one time has it given me any grief. Never once had the printer not connected and printed flawlessly. I am extremely pleased with this printer and can strongly recommend it to anyone with a home office, anyone who wants to print photos or documents while at home or away, or anyone who has kids with lots of school projects, you won’t be disappointed.

This is a comparison review between my last printer, an Epson Workforce Pro WF-3720 and my new EcoTank ET-3850. I had the Workforce Pro for about 8 years before it wouldn't recognize new ink cartridges and was essentially useless. I tried every trick of cleaning the contact points, swapping cartridges, resetting the memory, etc. It's done. My friend has had the identical printer working just fine for 10 years now. It's a great printer, it just the ink cartridge costs really add up. So I figured I'd try the EcoTank this time around. I've had it for a few months now. Bottom line, I dislike the EcoTank compared to the Workforce Pro primarily because it's noisy as heck when it prints. There's ton of gear noise, not like something is broken, it's a noisy design. It will wake people sleeping in the adjacent bedroom. The actually printing is fairly quiet, but the ten seconds before and after it actually starts to print there's a lot of racket coming from it as it preps the paper or whatever. The Workforce Pro also had a touchscreen whereas with the EcoTank you have to navigate using up/down/left/right arrows and an Enter key. It works fine, it just seems a step backwards. Otherwise the two printers are very similar. Print quality, speed, and paper capacity seems to be the same. The EcoTank is a little bit smaller on my desk. I did the math based on how much I print (a few pages per day on average) and it should take me about 4-5 years to come out ahead on the ink cost vs getting another cartridge printer. The ink bottles in the EcoTank were larger than I expected and very simple to transfer to the printer. There's a built-in valve of some sort in the bottle so they only let the ink out when pressed into the socket in the printer - minimal risk of dripping. I don't know if there's longer term maintenance headaches with the ink reservoirs.

Can't beat Eco Tanks. Stop paying for ink cartridges and do this instead.

It is very easy to install this printer using the Epson Smart Panel cell phone app. The ability to print from your cell phone is very handy. Next, you go to your PC and install the utilities from the provided DVD disk. You will have the abilities to print and scan from your PC or initiate a scan/copy from the printer control panel. After you have connected the WiFi setup, it is a good idea to check and install the newest firmware, and there is a simple interface to do this. The installation, though simple, does take about 15 minutes from start to finish. You will install the ink, initialize the ink supply, align the print heads and set up your wireless connection. Don’t rush if it is your first try with the Eco Tank cartridges and don’t touch the exposed top of the supply bottles. Epson very smartly made it so that each color has a different ‘plug’ end such that you cannot put the wrong color ink into the reservoirs. Also the printer senses when the ink reservoir is filled and stops the input of ink – that was kind of magical – well done by Epson. I tested the printing, copying and scanning for black/white and color printing and was very pleased with the clarity and colors. Of course a big plus is the EcoTank system. The printer includes a larger bottle of ink for each color. I can’t test the claim of 2 years of ink yet, but I certainly observed the ink supplied was at least 5 times what you see in ‘normal’ ink cartridges. Note after the ink is initialized, the reservoirs have lowered because the ink is put into the connecting pipes etc., so don’t be concerned. If you had some ink left in each bottle (which I did have), you can add it at this point. Note to add ink you should use the add ink menu since it will ask you to ‘proceed’ when done so that the ink levels will be recalibrated by the printer. I’m very pleased with this printer from all functional angles and I am very happy about the EcoTank system which will reduce the time spent for buying/replacing cartridges and will reduce cost of printing for me. I do highly recommend this nice printer.

The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 printer has ink for years. That's not hyperbole, it really does have ink for years. And, when that ink runs out, you could replace the black and color cartridges for around $60 on BestBuy.com. If you can get past the initial expense, the EcoTank ET-3850 is an economical printer that does a good job with daily prints, photo prints, and scanning. For those reasons, I recommend the ET-3850. Setup: Epson includes a compact disc with drivers and software, but as my PCs no longer have disc drives, I had to download PC software from epson.com/support. Look for drivers and software for the ET-3850. After installation, the software found additional updates on check. But, if you choose to go the mobile route, the Epson Smart Panel software was easy to use and provides a simple interface to set up, print, scan, or troubleshoot the printer. Smart Panel was an easy and convenient way to print documents or queue photo prints directly from my phone. The printer can connect via WiFi on the 2.4ghz band (wifi-direct or over a router), LAN, or USB. There is no included USB or Lan cable. I chose to hook the printer up via WiFi. As long as I was connecting straight to the router, the setup was easy. If I tried to hook up to a WiFi extender, the printer had trouble connecting and communicating with my devices. Not sure if that was a problem with my extender or the printer, but, if you can, your best bet is to hook up to your primary router. Installing the 502 ink was easy and I didn't have any mess. There's a locking system in place to keep the ink from spilling before the tube docks with the printer. But I'm not sure what would keep someone from putting the wrong ink into the wrong slot. I couldn't tell if the colors and black were uniquely keyed. Maybe they are, but I wasn't about to test and find out. Long story short, make sure you match up the colors to the right dock. Also, I should point out that in addition to the ink, the printer requires a maintenance box, part number T04D100, which wears out over time. Price for the maintenance box varied, but it seems to run between $15 and $25 depending on retailer. Experience: The printer is fast with regular prints. Dual sided printing worked, but did experience more of a delay. I printed photos on Epson Premium 4X6 and 5X7 photo paper. I thought the prints came out great. I love the color from Epson printers and the ET-3850 was great in that regard. Blues and purples really popped and lines looked crisp and sharp Cons: Not enough to ding the review, but there are a few design decisions that I wish where changed or improved upon. First, there is no USB or SD Card input. As a result, you won't be able to print directly from a USB stick. There's only one paper tray (or paper cassette). If I want to switch from printing standard documents to printing envelopes or photos, I have to take out the existing paper and make adjustments to the tray and the software on the printer. The auto document feeder was a bit of a struggle. Thinner paper wasn't picked up as easily and I found myself working to get some documents through. But on the whole scanning worked well and looked good. Conclusion: All of that aside, I like the printer. It's nice seeing the physical ink levels from the front of the device. I like how the photos look. Document prints have been done well and single sided prints have come out fast. All-in-all, the ET-3850 is a solid printer for any home office.

I'll be honest, about the 15th color book report that needed printed nearly 10 years ago, I realized that a color laser printer was my best bet. I had just tried to deal with refilling some ink cartridges and then came to the horrific conclusion that I'd have to basically pay for my printer again to buy another set of ink which was compounding by the fact that I hadn't even used up the existing, it'd just dried up. Thus started my relationship with color lasers and I've never looked back... until now. Bravo on Epson taking the step to actually make these inks cartridges refillable and even going so far as to provide bottles so you understand right from the start how to fill it up. Overall everything came clearly packaged and getting started was a breeze. There's a quick start guide commonly found in all tech products nowadays. Removing the two top foam pieces allows you to lift the printer out and the power cord and bottles of (vacuum sealed) ink are individually packaged so there's no danger of them spilling. When you first startup the printer, there's a QR code displayed on the front of the LCD. Scanning this code gets you to install the Epson app which leads you through setup. After that printing is fairly easy. You can install the app so you can print from a mobile device. Adding the printer on Windows can be done via the standard add printer process on your machine once the printer has been setup with its wireless connection. Obviously this is an all-in-one so scanning, copying, and printing are all available. Copying using the flat bed glass surface was easy and produced quality copies. The auto-feeder tray is kind of nice up top because you can fold it out of the way to make a smooth surface when it's not in use. Paper is loaded with the print surface down in case you're loading special paper or labels. Print quality is great and definitely on par with the best inkjets I've used in the past. All in all this is a great hybrid between the longevity of a laser printer and the ease of an inkjet (aka I don't have to have special laser paper for stickers!) I haven't printed enough to refill yet but since I'm familiar from the initial filling, I'm reasonably assured it won't be a problem. Just remember to not squeeze the bottles as once they're set into their respective funnels, they will drain ink into the reservoir until filled!

Disclaimer: I am a member of Best Buy’s Technical Insider Network, TIN for short. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. First Impression: The Epson ET-3850 is lite weight when compared with other multi-function printers I have owned. Single page text and duplex page text print quickly and print to first page is as fast as any laser printer I have used. I was very surprised by how quickly full-page graphics print. Flatbed scanning is quick and detailed. However, colors are not accurate enough for my tastes. I found color accuracy issues with both scanning images and printing images. Scanning documents via the page feeder is terrible. Loading ink is super easy and mess free. The ink tanks hold enough ink to last a good long while under moderate use. See below for further details. Setup: It took me 20 to 30 minutes to setup this printer. Unboxing was easy but time consuming. There was a lot of protective tape used to prevent the printer’s moving parts, doors, and sliders from being damaged in transit. The printer includes four bottles of ink (Magenta, Blue, Yellow, Black), an installation CD, quick start guide, and the usual warranty information. See included photo. You can setup the printer in a few ways: install the included software suite, configure from the printers control panel, or use the Epson app on your cell phone. I chose to configure the printer using the app on my phone. The app walked me through setting up the printer, filling the ink wells, priming the printer, setting up the network, and more. The app setup process is interactive and resembles a texting conversation. I included an image of one of the setup steps. Loading the ink from the bottles was quick, painless, and clean. To see how clean, I laid a scrap piece of pure white towel on the table in front of the ink wells. Each color is loaded one at a time. The neck of the bottle fits snuggling into the tank head and forces the bottle’s seal to open. The tank is gravity fed and will auto stop filling when the tank is full. On bottle dripped a few drops of ink as I removed the bottle from the tank head. I removed this bottle too slow and tilted it to one side as I removed it. Otherwise, there was zero mess. The attached photo is the white after all tanks were filled. The Ink priming process takes about 10 minutes. The print head alignment process takes about another ten minutes. I did not like the alignment process. It was four printed pages of being asked to tell the difference between six possible line configurations and picking out the best. The alignment images were so small that I had to inspect each printed page under a magnifying glass just to see them. Then, I spent a good minute or two trying to figure out which of the six picks were most correct. I think Epson could have accomplish the results with larger alignment images. Anyone without perfect 20/20 vision will have a very difficult time with this. Finally, if you do not have a CD player then you can go to Epson.com/support and get all the software that ships with the printer including the printer drivers. Printing: Fantastic speed and clarity. Single page black and white zoom out of the printer. All ink jet printers I have owned print one line of text at a time. The ET-3850 seems to print a quarter of the page at a time. I cannot confirm if this is happening, but I stand by my statement that this a fast printer. I would say as fast as a fully warmed up and ready to print laser printer. Duplex printing is a little slow mostly because the printer must pull the page back into the printer and flip it over. The duplex mechanism is still close to what I have experience with a laser printer. Color accuracy, however, needs improvement. My biggest gripe is Red. Reds come out orange and never match the original source material. For a test, I downloaded a simple color wheel. See attached images. I printed the color wheel using high resolution settings. The Red and Orange look almost the same. I scanned the image back into the system using both the Automatic document feeder (ADF) and the flatbed scanner. Each scanner read the image differently. Both samples are included in the attached photo. Finally, I photographed the printed color wheel with my Sony Alpha camera in full daylight. I realize the white balance in the photo is off but the differences between orange and red are still evident. As a second test, I scanned in a book cover that had a very vibrant red to it. I then printed that scan and got a very weak red color like the color wheel. I did not include an image of this test because it did not prove anything different than what my color wheel images already reveal. The next test was the difference between the ADF and the flatbed scanner. The ADF has color accuracy issues, paper jamming issues, and does an over-all crummy job creating an accurate scan. See attached photo. For this test, I used the book cover I mentioned in the last paragraph. You can see that the flatbed scan is crisp, clean, and vibrant. The document feeder is a printed copy of the book cover from the flatbed scanner. You can see the colors are dull, washed out, and the image is full of horizontal white lines and artifacts. The artifacts are more clearly present in the pure text example I included in the same image. I would compare the image quality of the ADF to that of a fax machine. The text I scanned is from a report that I printed from the ET-3850. The original hard copy looked crisp and without any artifacts. I did notice that the AFP did not smoothly pull the document through the paper feed and through the scanner. I think this led to both the poor scan quality as well as some of the paper jams I encountered. Faxing: The ET-3850 has zero faxing capabilities. Interface Panel: The interface panel is easy to use, quick between the menus, and well laid out. The display is not touch a screen. Everything is driven by a touch pad. The interface panel is on a hinge that allows that screen to be parallel with the floor for easy use. Then it can folded out of the way when not in use. The LCD panel does have a time-out and will eventually turn off. The power button light will not turn off under any power condition other than unplugged. The power button light is bright enough to light up a small room. If you find this annoying, then you will need to put a piece of tape over the power button. I was unable to find a setting that turned off or dimmed the power light. Images: Full page color prints on standard quality are almost as fast as a full page of black and white text. Fine detail prints take about three times longer. To be honest, I did not see much of a difference between standard quality and high quality. I did not see a setting to allow the printer to do borderless prints. It will print full page with an eighth of an inch white boarder around the image. The printed images are clean, lines are sharp, but color saturation can be muddy at times. For example, I printed the one and only image that I can find on the internet of the Battlestar Galactica from Blood and Chrome. On the screen, I could make out all the detail between the Galactica and the space station in the background. Detail was lost in center of the image where the high contrast features were overtaken the darker colors. The detail that did show was much darker than in the original image. I also saw a similar affect with the image of the Enterprise B from the book cover of Star Trak Shipyards from Eaglemoss. The starship has a lot of dark blues. This caused parts of the ship to fully vanish against the darker background when I printed the image I made from the ET-3850’s flatbed scanner. Is this good enough for term papers and business reports? Yes. Is it good enough to print high quality printers for display in your office? No. Finally, Reds are not accurate. Final thoughts: This printer may not be for you if you require the use of all the features this printer provides. The ADF mechanism is not the best I have used. Color accuracy, paper jams, and scan quality are all major issues for the ADF. Print quality is excellent if you don’t require color accurate reds. I also find detail lost in scenes where a lot of like colors saturate the image. This may be the printer for you if your main goals are lighting fast prints great flatbed scanning capabilities. Epson does market this printer as a home printer and not a home office printer. If you do not need the ADF or faxing functions then this is a good printer for work from home school, or collage. One thing that I really love about this printer is the ADF tray folds up into a flat surface. This may sound minor but ADFs waste space. This allows safe storage of laptops, papers, books, whatever you have. Taken as a whole, the ET-3850 needs some work before I could recommend. If you need a solid MFP that is fast, holds a lot of ink, and can produce great looking reports then this is an easy printer to recommend. I hope you found this review helpful. Thank you.

First let me say that I feel Best Buy is one of the best places to buy printers for several reasons. The salesman was quite helpful, and I love the replacement program. It is well worth the money to add on that fee. I had an Epson EcoTank that was a slightly higher model. The ink is truly very affordable and I use it frequently. It started to ‘glitch’ recently, so I took it back and Best Buy honored my replacement. Epson didn’t make the same model, so I got the ET 3850. Here’s what I like and dislike. First, it is a very economical printer. The ink is so affordable, that I print in color constantly. When it says you will not need to replace the ink until about 22,000 prints, it is accurate. The replacement ink is also very affordable, so this is a big plus. The printing is very clear and bright and was fairly easy to set up (just took some time to go through all the steps). The disadvantage I found with this printer is that it is not touch screen. The last Epson, you could just touch your options and voila. With this Epson, you have to use the side buttons to make your options. This takes a little more time, but is fine once you figure out how to do it. The printer itself was a very reasonable price. It prints slow, but again, is worth the time, if you want cheap ink. If you are a business, and trying to print large quantities, it might pay to upgrade in the model. Either way, the savings on ink is well worth the price of Epson versus a cheaper printer.

The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is a nice all in one printer that provides the basic functionality (copy, print, & scan) you are looking for in a printer, but at a better value compared to most cartridge based printers. The main draw to Epson’s EcoTank line of printers is the “cartridge free” feature that not only offers convenience but cost savings over the typical ink cartridge systems we are all too familiar with. Instead of wasteful, expensive cartridges that only last a few hundred pages; Epson designed a unique tank system that is easy to fill and reasonably priced. Each bottle offers up to 7,500 pages for black and 6,000 pages for color far exceeding typical ink cartridges, which means less waste too! The included set of ink bottles completely fill the printer, which is nice knowing I won’t be hunting down refills anytime soon. The design is basic but clean in an all white finish. The ET-3850 ink wells are in the front, providing a nice visible ink level indicator. Navigation is performed with an adjustable control panel and is easy to use. Basic printing and copying works as expected, this model includes a 30-sheet ADF which aids dramatically in scanning or copying multiple pages. The cassette holds half a ream, which is plenty for a home office printer. At about 15ppm black and 8ppm color, it could be faster but for most people who just print periodically this won’t be an issue. The printer does what I need flawlessly, being able to periodically AirPrint a photo or document without worrying about the printer having enough ink is a winner. If you are looking for a no frills printer that won’t burn your wallet with ink refills, the Epson ET-3850 is a great value and highly recommended.