My objective was to buy a printer. After much research I decided to buy the Epson L355.
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| The Epson L355 uses the Ink Tank System |
Why?
Firstly, this printer uses the Ink Tank System (there will be a picture to show) instead of using cartridges. There are four tanks for four different colours - Black, Cyan, Yellow and Magenta. These tanks are filled by the respective ink bottles, which came together with the printer with two additional black bottles (in summary, there are three black, one cyan, one yellow, one magenta bottles altogether). Because of this Ink Tank System, the printing cost for this printer is greatly reduced. A new ink bottle cost SGD$9.90, as oppose to a cartridge that can well be in the $30 range, or more.
Secondly, it has WIFI. I thought this function is neat, so I can print documents or photos from devices that are connected to my home WIFI network. This also do away with the need to have cables running around the room and additional switches to allow other computers to print using the same printer.
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| Ink tanks of the Epson L355. |
First Impression
The printer is compact, and that is ideal as I have a small niche that I could place it to optimise space.
Filling up the tanks is easy, but require some nimbleness. I stained my fingers in the process, but I guess it could be avoided if I were more patient. The printer needs to be charged up, which takes about 20min, before you can set up the printer.
Set up is easy. However, to set up the computer to link through the WIFI network requires the printer to be connected physically via the USB cable connected. Not a problem if you use a laptop but it might be tricky on a desktop. Nevertheless, setting up is a breeze once you get over with the physical connection.
After setting up, I loaded some paper and decided to do some wireless printing!
Initially, I have some difficulty to print from my Android device. Then I realised that I need to download a plugin and enable under Settings > Printing. This enable me to do cloud printing.
Impression After First 5 Minutes of Use
It was somewhat a gamble to buy this printer, because I encountered many not-so-nice reviews. The printer was not really consider cheap (I shall come to this later), although the long term operation cost can be, but I was certain that there must be some compromise on the quality. My other concern was the reliability of the WIFI connection.
However, after the initial usage, my concerns were really unfounded.
The connection is reliable. My router is stashed away about 10m away from the printer in a cabinet, with at least 2 walls in between, yet the connection to the printer is still strong.
The quality is good. I printed a picture on my android device in DRAFT mode, and I thought the quality is decent.v Printing speed is fast too.
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| Picture printed using the Epson L355 through WIFI, in draft mode on 70gsm paper. |
I also bought a pack of photo-paper to try printing photographs. The quality is awesome too. However I read that the colours will fade after two months. I shall monitor and give an update on this. The photo-paper I bought was the Epson Photo Paper (Glossy) - cost SGD$6.20 for a packet of 20 from Challenger.
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| Scanned sample photograph printed by the Epson L355 on Epson photo-paper (glossy). Scanned by the printer too, using the Epson Scan application in Full Auto mode. |
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| The original picture - the Pacific Swallow. Well, might not be a good representation because of the loss due to compression and all. |
Costs
Here's the important part - the cost of the printer. The printer cost about $299 and there are 6 bottles bundled with it, which amounts to about $60. A normal inkjet printer would cost half as much, but each ink cartridge would have cost at least 3 times more.
Each bottle fills up a tank, How long it will last I do not know yet. But I am sure, it should be about the same as an ink cartridge, if not longer.
Just for comparison, to replace every tank of the Epson L355 would cost $40. So the cost of the printer PLUS the cost of replacing ALL the tanks is $339 ($299 + $40), whereas a conventional inkjet with the same number of colours would cost about $275. While this number seems smaller initially, it will start to catch up after the second full change - $379 for the Epson VS $415 for the conventional inkjet.
And I have not really discuss the frequency of the ink replacement, which I think is dependent on how long each bottle/cartridge can last if the printing demand is kept the same.
Summary
If you are going to print a lot of stuffs, especially in black and white, such as worksheets (for your children to work on) and reference material, this printer is for you. The photograph print is decent if you are not very particular about the quality. To me, as a photography enthusiast, I think it is good enough.
What's more, this printer is greener in my opinion.
You can find out more about the printer in the Epson (Singapore) website.
~ZF
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