Epson WorkForce WF-3640

PAST ITS PRIME.

RELEASED MORE THAN three years ago, the WorkForce WF-3640 is the dinosaur of this roundup, but it still seems to hold up reasonably well. It can scan to (but not print from) the key cloud services (Dropbox, Google Drive and so on), it supports wireless and mobile device printing, and offers a reasonably-sized 3.5-inch touchscreen for menu navigation.

Epson has also managed to cram in an impressive range and features for the sub-$200 price point and relatively compact footprint, with two 250-sheet paper trays, an automatic document feed and rear feed, and duplex mode for printing, scanning and copying. Running costs are more reasonable than the more expensive Epson on test, coming in at 15c per page.

The first hint of the WF-3640’s age is when it offers a fax setup wizard out of the box but leaves the wireless setup buried in the settings. You’ll need to revert to the browser-based configuration page to add supported cloud services, which seems unnecessary given the presence of the large screen and physical keypad on the printer itself.

The WF-3640 is on the slower end of the scale when it comes to printing. Black documents take a leisurely 4 pages per minute, and colour documents take four times longer, at a sedate 1 page per minute.

Despite its age, the WS-3640 is one of the better printers for documents, producing sharp text that’s close to the quality of a laser printer. Copying time is above average at 7 pages per minute, but scanning lags at 3 pages per minute. A couple of annoyances: it scans double-sided documents with the front page upside down, and it defaults to the second paper tray for all jobs.