Epson WorkForce Pro
WF-6090DW
SCORE
PRICE £365 exc VAT from printerbase.co.uk
Inkjets have a reputation for slow, expensive prints – but Epson’s WorkForce Pro WF-6090DW turns that on its head, with good print speeds and the lowest running costs in town. With XXL ink cartridges, mono pages cost just 0.75p each, and even colour prints are only 4.3p per page.
This doesn’t look much like your typical inkjet either – it looks more like a laser, and it’s just as capable of heavy duties. For example, the built-in 500-sheet drawer can be supplemented with up to two more 500-sheet trays, while the maximum monthly duty cycle of 65,000 pages implies a recommended monthly output of at least 5,000 pages.
Another thing inkjets are known for is cartridges that run out at the worst possible moment – but Epson’s high-capacity ink cartridges have great longevity, with mono and colour ones lasting an impressive 10,000 pages and 7,000 pages respectively. The only other consumable you need to worry about is a maintenance box, which costs a modest £23 to replace after 75,000 pages.
All the connection choices you could ask for are here: you can choose either Gigabit Ethernet or 802.11n wireless, and there’s also support for AirPrint, Wi-Fi Direct and NFC. We opted to go wireless, and found all services could be configured from either the local control panel or web console. You can tell the printer to search for nearby SSIDs to connect to, or use WPS to connect with zero fuss.
Epson’s driver install routine includes firmware and software update utilities, and you also get a network status monitor, a browser plugin for printing web pages and Epson’s elderly Easy Photo Print utility. If you want to enable remote printing by email, that’s quick to set up too: another wizard registered our printer with our Epson Connect cloud account and immediately assigned it a customisable email address. From the Connect web portal we could view printer usage logs, decide who was allowed to print email attachments and optionally block photo printing.
Local security options, sadly, are limited. Confidential prints can be PIN-protected, but apart from remotely locking the control panel from the separate EpsonNet utility, there are no other access controls provided; you can’t restrict colour
“One area where inkjets always beat lasers is photo printing; on 160gsm semi-gloss paper, our test images looked fantastic”
usage or enforce page limits for individual users.
In use, the printer came close to its quoted ISO speeds of 24ppm, but we couldn’t get near to the claimed maximum speed of 34ppm: in both Draft and Normal mode our 34-page Word document was delivered at 23ppm, tumbling to 12ppm in High Quality mode. Our 24-page colour DTP document was even slower, emerging at 21ppm in Standard mode and 11ppm in High mode. As you’d expect, switching to duplex printing causes speeds to drop further. A double-sided copy of our document printed at Normal quality at 16.5ppm – and it’s a noisy process too. We measured a peak volume of 66dB at 1m.
What of print quality? Text was sharp enough for everyday use, but we noticed a slight dusting around characters when using cheap 75gsm paper. Switching to heavier 100gsm paper yielded cleaner results, but this will increase running costs.
On the upside, colour graphics and photos were excellent: reports were bold and punchy, with no banding in large single-colour areas. And one area where inkjets always beat lasers is photo printing, thanks partly to their ability to use glossy stock; on 160gsm semi-gloss paper, our test images looked fantastic, with masses of detail and no bleeding.
Another area where the WF-6090DW excels is power consumption. We measured it using no more than 36W, where most A4 lasers consume 500600W when printing. The WorkForce Pro WF-6090DW isn’t as fast as a mid-price laser, and access controls are disappointing. However, its tiny power draw, long-life ink cartridges and low running costs will be music to the ears of budget-conscious businesses.
SPECIFICATIONS 4,800 x 1,200dpi A4 inkjet printer, 24ppm mono/colour 1GB RAM 5.6cm LCD mono screen USB 2 Gigabit Ethernet 802.11n wireless NFC (Android only) duplex 500-sheet drawer 80-sheet MPT max monthly duty cycle, 65,000 pages 478 x 522 x 404mm (WDH) 28kg 3yr on-site warranty RUNNING COSTS XXL ink cartridges mono (10K), £72 C, M, Y (7K), £82 each maintenance box (75K), £23. Overall cost per A4 page: mono, 0.75p; colour, 4.3p