EPSON ECOTANK ET-8550

£730/$800 This is the upsized A3+ version of Epson’s ET-8500 A4 Ecotank bottle-fed multi-function printer

For those who feel that an A4 print size is sufficient, Epson’s ET-8500 retails for around £630/$700. The A3+ ET-8550 doesn’t cost much more to buy and is better value, being fed by the same set of 70ml ink bottles. These comprise a pigment-based black ink for delivering crisp mono text, and five dye-based inks for photo output including CMYK plus a grey ink to enhance the colour space and provide better fidelity for black & white photo printing. A full set of bottles should be sufficient for printing 2,300 6x4-inch photos.

As a printer that’s well suited to both document and photo printing, it features multiple input cassettes for different types and sizes of paper, auto duplex printing, and a large-format 8.5x14-inch scanner. Everything’s brought together by a 10.9cm colour touchscreen with an intuitive interface and, for remote operation via a smartphone or tablet, there’s the Epson Smart Panel app. Connectivity options include USB, Wi-fi and Ethernet, an SD card slot and Pictbridge port.

For printing on larger-format paper up to A3+/13x17-inch, there’s an upright feeder which pulls up from the back of the printer, plus a horizontal feeder for printing banners and panoramic photos up to 2m, as well as allowing for specialist media up to 1.3mm thick.

Performance

Print speeds are pretty rapid in all but the highest-quality photo mode. Photo quality is very convincing. Inkjet printers struggle to produce bold, bright reds but, despite lacking the additional red ink of the Canon PIXMA G650, and not even featuring light cyan and light magenta inks, the Epson produces rich, bright and vibrant colour rendition.