Epson EcoTank ET-8550
EPSON HAS VERY clearly nailed its colours to the mast in terms of addressing the areas of its operation with the potential to contribute to global warming. It’s embarked on a corporation-wide strategy to reduce its carbon footprint to cover all aspects of its operations – manufacturing, offices and products. Forbes Japan magazine has recently named Epson the most sustainable company out of a survey of 100 of the world’s major corporations. Epson’s Turn Down The Heat campaign is, in one area, targeting inefficient laser printers, urging they be replaced by inkjet printers using its Heat Free Technology. Epson says these printers use 96% less energy and power than a comparable laser printer when printing A4 colour (and this survey covered 54 competitive laser devices).
However, perhaps a more tangible way for photographers to make a contribution is via Epson’s EcoTank printers, which replace the highly wasteful one-shot disposable cartridges with re-fillable ink reservoirs. The first EcoTank models were designed for home office use, but now there are a couple of six-colour photo printers, including the A3+ format ET-8550. While Epson is also promoting the potential savings in ink costs over the long term for the enthusiastic printer, it’s really more the environmental considerations that make the EcoTank photo printers well worth the extra outlay required to make the initial purchase. Epson estimates that the supplied set of ink bottles is the equivalent of 185 individual cartridges and that’s a lot of plastic not ending up in landfill (given many users don’t use recycling for one reason or another). There are definitely savings to be made – printing costs are extraordinarily low with the ET-8550 – but you’ll need to be fairly prolific in your output to realise them in a reasonable time frame. It’s also worth remembering that these printers are also designed to last longer, which also has environmental benefits in one way or another.
Nonetheless, Epson has done a lot to make the ET-8550 an attractive proposition versus its convention cartridge based rivals. The new generation of ‘Auto Stop’ ink bottles are designed to make for easier refilling of the printer’s tanks (previously a task with the potential for messy spillages), and the Claria ET Premium work particularly well when making colour prints on glossy papers… although the ET-8550 performs equally well on matte and fine-art papers too. Plus we found that, with a bit of tweaking, the printer could deliver good-looking B&W prints. There’s the flexibility of support for media up to 300gsm in weight, custom print sizes up to a panoramic two metres in width, a host of connection options and a built-in SD memory card reader. Additionally, this is a multi-functional printer, so you get an A4 flatbed scanner and a photocopier thrown in for good measure.
The ET-8550 is actually well suited to a range of photo printing applications (from book making to panoramas) and it is undoubtedly a welcome relief not to be constantly monitoring ink levels for the dreaded low warnings. In fact, the EcoTank photo printers actually encourage you to do more printing – the average cost reductions are in the order of a tenth and you really don’t have to worry about volumes (at least not for a good while). Above all else though, it’s freedom from all the hassles and expense of conventional ink cartridges – while also reducing the environmental impact – that’s the most compelling reason for buying this printer. It’s an investment, albeit small, in the future.