Epson ET-16500 EcoTank Wireless Wide format Color All-in-One Supertank Printer, Scanner, Fax & Ethernet

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Where to start? Ive gone through three Canon Pixima series all-in-one printers in five years (four if I include one that I bought for my sister). They all failed - and left me with a supply of ink cartridges that cost more than each (yes, the new models use new cartridges - the better to gouge you by) printer itself. Ah, but this is a review of the Epson corp.s ET-16500 (the printer that comes with a full years supply of ink in reserve) all in one printer. Run. Run away. Dont look back. It costs what a new iPhone costs - the loss is more galling than bankrupting. This printer is a huge Kluge. I gave it two stars because I like the idea of a printer having a years supply of ink. Not that a years supply of ink applies to this printer. Google it. Read the reports. It is at best, it is a very unreliable text printer and a terrible color printer. It has multiple paper / envelope trays and a feed path for large photo print jobs (why?) that it cannot print reliably. An unreliable printer serving as a fax station is problematic. The two biggest failures are: (1) it does not print anything reliably; and, (2) it is consistently unreliable. It really does not matter that the driver installs are arcane and that the native print handler for iOS is a kluge, too. Nobody prints to this device. If you have not been running print jobs all day then the beast will require that you clean the print heads to obtain any sort of readable copy. I cant find any way to have an incoming fax trigger the head cleaning routine - so, I store incoming faxes for later print runs. Its either buy a new fax machine or else engage the store & print fax option. Well, that or wonder what letters the ink stripes on your fax report were supposed to say.

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This printer just works! Ive had it for a couple months and am absolutely pleased with it. I got Epson 11X17 photo and presentation paper, and have run several jobs through it for large format and letter-sized. Its not the best photo printer, would go with specialty printer for that, but its more than acceptable for what my customers need to see. Everything prints first-time without hassle, is wonderful after fighting with a lesser printer for a year or two. Im using it as a wired network printer in my home office, also tried it as a stand-alone wireless and found it easy to set up and use. The big scanner works great with the Epson Scan utility, where Ive got a requirement to scan 11X17 sketches and reduce them to 8 1/2 X 11 for on-line posting. If the EcoTanks work as claimed, heads clean themselves as needed, after a year or two Ill be even more pleased after shelling out $800 for this rig and $0 for inkjet cartdriges!

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This is the worst and most expensive printer we have ever purchased! Will never print even 1 complete copy of our brochure. We have to print 1 at a time and check each and every one to see what pages we need to pull from another failed brochure to make it complete! It wont print correctly when printing wirelessly. The copies are half the darkness and nearly impossible to read. I cant connect at all with my Samsung Note 8. It doesnt print borderless. It wont automatically detect a single page in the feeder so I have to go into settings and change the settings each time I want to use the feeder! And then I have to go into the settings and change it back to the trays! This thing is really a huge, horrible disappointment! We are so bummed we bought it before all the horrible reviews had come in and cant afford to replace it right now.

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Our home-based HP7500 large-format printer bit the dust after many years of good service. I wanted to replace the HP with another large-format printer because I occasionally print photos bigger than 8x10. I decided I also wanted a printer with ink tanks in order to avoid the exorbitant cost of ink cartridges – each time I purchased the four ink cartridges for the HP it would cost over $100.00 so my ink costs were $300 to $400 per year. (One consumer publication labeled cartridge printer ink as one of the most expensive liquids we buy.) After looking at the reviews on a number of websites, I decided to purchase the Epson ET-16500. The price was a bit steep, but I figured that the ink cartridge savings over two years would offset the high cost. (I assume the manufacturers’ pricing structure has changed with tank printers – instead of selling printers for under cost and making the money on the ink cartridges, the printer’s cost is higher because the user will be paying less for ink.) A factor in the purchase too was that on electronics stores’ websites other than Amazon, the reviews for this printer are much higher than here on Amazon. (I suggest you check the reviews on sites other than Amazon to get more information, although Amazon likely will turn out having the best price.) The printer was delivered on time and, much to my surprise, in a rather large box. This printer is much heavier than my old HP and makes a larger footprint on my desk. I suggest you have a helper when moving the printer because it is heavy. Also, you will need a spot for the printer where you can assess the rear paper feed assuming you are printing anything on larger than letter-size paper which, I assume, you will be doing or you would not be purchasing a large-format printer. Unpacking is relatively simple – just remove the wrapping and all the blue tape (don’t forget to remove the paper trays because there are tape strips on each of those too). Two sets of inkbottles are included. Be sure to use the bottles labeled “initial” for the initial filling of the tanks. The instructions direct that the entire “initial” bottles be used so don’t be concerned that it might appear that the ink is going over the fill line. Wear disposable rubber gloves because I can guarantee you that you will get some ink on your hands. Load your paper and then follow the instructions to charge the ink system. The charging does take about twenty minutes. I noticed that after the charging, the ink in each of the ink tanks was at the fill line. The wireless network setup didn’t work using the WPS option and, although I have two more robust Wi-Fi networks running, the only network the printer recognized was the one created by my Wi-Fi extender located in a room at the opposite end of the house from where the printer is located. My son eventually figured out that the printer would not recognize a network with a space in the name. He accessed the router and changed the network name to eliminate the space; miraculously, the printer then recognized the network and linked up. Concerned about the negative reviews on Amazon about the print quality, I printed an 8x16 photo using the best print resolution on premium glossy A3+ paper (in the print menu on my Mac it shows up as Super B). Took about 5 minutes to print the photo and, to me, the quality was excellent, certainly good enough that I would feel comfortable framing the photo and hanging it in my home or giving it as a gift. (Glad the print quality was acceptable because it would be difficult to repack and return this printer to Amazon.) In summary, if you want a large-format printer with ink tanks for use as your everyday home and occasional business printing and can afford the price, I recommend this printer. Whether a good printer for full-time business use, I can’t say because that was not our intended use, but I do have to say that many of the features seem appealing if I were using the printer in an office setting.

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Product has not performed as indicated. Epson has said it is defective but wants the retailer to fix the problem. Both SGBox and Amazon refuse to take care of the issue and Epson is not being helpful. I would neither but the printer nor anything through SGBox.

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1/22/2017 UPDATE: Cassette 1 is refusing to detect paper. Doesnt matter what type of paper I put in but the tray keeps giving me an error - either paper jam or out of paper. Neither is true. Printing from Cassette 2 works fine but doesnt allow photo paper so basically, I am stuck with a $50 printer right now. Will return printer for full refund. Very disappointed with this printer. Will look into Canons version of the EcoTank - MegaTank, but it seems like they arent available any where at this time. Original Review I just received this printer and for a whopping $1,000, this printer is crap. First of all, I own a small business and we do marketing for other businesses. I was looking for an eco tank printer that will do 11x17 for the longest time and jumped at the opportunity to buy it once I found out Epson made one. Lets list out some of cons: 1. No Border-less Printing At All: Doesnt matter what size paper, this printer just doesnt support borderless. I dont know why this doesnt allow for it but I just feel that Epson want some separation from their prosumer printers and their pro printers. Cheap printer for $100 can do it this so its obviously not the hardware. 2. Slow Printing In Color: Want decent photo quality for your flyers? Well be prepared to wait 6 mins per page to get it. Thats 10/hour if its one sided or 5/hour for both sides. I timed it using matte photo paper and high quality setting. Lower settings produced under saturated photos and weird color shifts. 3. Cassette 1 Wont Detect Envelope: Specs states it supports #10 envelopes but the printer wont detect it. I tried the rear feeder - which is one by one and half of the envelopes came out bad. 4. Envelopes Prints Out Crooked: The envelope would shift the last half inch coming out of the printer, which is where the return address lies. I tried printing out 260 envelopes and it took me 6 hours trying to diagnose this problem but at the end, I got about 30 good ones, 20 bad ones and gave up trying to make this work. Will try printing out labels instead. 5. Only 1 Cassette Support Photo Paper: I was hoping that to put photo 8.5x11 on the top and 11x17 on the bottom but it doesnt allow you to do that. 6. No Duplex for Photo Printing: It wont allow for auto duplex printing on photo paper. Its probably because the ink wont be dry yet and it will smear on to pick up wheels. If you are doing photo printing, youll have to do one side first then then back side. 7. Smearing Occurred After 50 Prints: The pick up wheel was already getting dirty so I had clean it to remove the smear. This was the center wheel inside the printer.

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From the time I bought this printer, it has never printed well. I wish I had sent it back. Sometimes (very rarely) you can get a good print if you choose High Quality. Then you are using more ink than needed. It has never given me the quality of print that a printer costing this much should. Believe me it is not worth the price or the frustration.

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Day 1. Wife printed 179 pages for her new classroom and had nothing but horrible images. Tried several times to clean the print head and do maintenance. No go. Now its got a paper jam that Im unable to find. No paper was ever ripped or pulled incorrectly from this printer. Going to try contacting Epson support tomorrow. However, for the amount paid we should not be having so many problems. Also, NO driver CD or user information was included in the box. Also, there is a maintenance tank that will need to be replaced on this device. So its finely working after calling Epson and wasting ink doing 3 flushes to clean out the ink lines as well as now the waste collection tank will now need to be replaced after only printing 200 or so pages. Not off to a good start Epson. Also, heavy duty paper above 100lb WILL NOT work in this printer one post said it would. Also, now dealing with paper mismatch issues now with this printer. May return it here shortly if Epson cant fix this issue.

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Very low manufacturing quality We use it in a small office mostly just for color print since we have two other black only Cannon printers. I bought it to save time in reordering ink. After less than six months the paper feeder started to malfunction. I called manufacture and they sent a replacement. Again less than six months same problem. I called them again. They sent a replacement with the the note that this is the final replacement. Again this replacement same issue with paper feeder so we stopped using it and wasting time with calling and asking for help. For past 18 years, I buy paper from Costco for this printer and others so it was not paper issue.

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This all-in-one printer should satisfy all our needs and is a great investment. Setup was easy and quick. Despite all the features and 2 paper storage trays, the printer is still rather compact and light. The savings ink alone will make this a great buy. Large scan bed and still has an automatic document feeder. New purchase, so if any issues arise, this review will be updated accordingly.

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