The Epson EcoTank Pro ET-5850 is an inkjet all-in-one printer that more than lives up to its “pro” moniker. It’s a workgroup printer built like a workhorse, with high-capacity tanks that hold enough ink to print thousands of pages (as the product name suggests). The tanks keep ink costs very low.
Aside from the standard multifunction functions of printing, copying, and scanning, this workgroup printer also has fax capability and can store 200 speed dial numbers. It has a number of features that we’ll go over in depth, and it breezed through our tests with lightning speed all while delivering excellent image quality. Our Epson EcoTank Pro ET-5850 review concluded that it is one of the best all-in-one printers available, capable of handling up to 3,300 pages per month.
Design
The front panel of the EcoTank ET-5850, like that of another ink tank competitor, the recently reviewed HP Smart Tank 651, has little windows into its ink reservoirs, allowing you to plan ahead on ordering ink. But you won’t have to do it for long: The box includes two bottles of each ink (worth nearly16k): black, cyan, yellow, and magenta. At nearly 40 pounds, the ET-5850 is a heavyweight.
When printed, it measures 16.7 x 32.4 x 18.1 inches, requiring a significant amount of tabletop space. That’s not surprising given that it has two 250-sheet paper cassettes, a 50-sheet specialty media tray, a 50-sheet ADF, and a duplexer. The ET-5850 can scan as well as copy two-sided original documents via the ADF in addition to making two-sided prints.
The large 4.3-inch touch screen is responsive. The large on-screen buttons make menu selections simple, and the menu icons can be swiped across the screen, just like on a smartphone.
Print Speed
The ET-5850 pushed the envelope in our tests, delivering lightning-fast performance in every print, copy, and scan test. Our five-page text document was printed in 19.6 seconds, or 15.3 pages per minute (ppm). That was significantly faster than the HP Smart Tank Plus 651, which took 34 seconds or 8.8 ppm, and slightly slower than the Canon Maxify MB5420, which took 17.5 ppm. For ink tank and high-yield cartridge models, the average was 31 seconds, or 9.7 ppm. In our tests, business workgroup inkjets averaged 22.1 seconds, or 13.6 ppm.
The EcoTank printed our six-page colour PDF with mixed text and graphics in 32.8 seconds a blistering 11 ppm rate that is less than half of the category average of 2.6 ppm (or 2 minutes and 19 seconds). The HP Smart Tank Plus 651 printed the same document in 3 minutes and 30 seconds, or 1.7 pages per minute. The Canon Maxify MB5420 printed it in about 1 minute, half the time it took the EcoTank.
Scanning and Copying Speed
The ET-5850 produced a black-and-white copy in 6.7 seconds, the fastest time we’ve seen for an inkjet all-in-one printer. It was more than four times faster compared to the average for ink tank and high-yield models, which was 28.8 seconds, and it was also the fastest among business models. The next-fastest business model was the Canon MB5420, which completed the same copy in 7.6 seconds.
The EcoTank was also extremely fast at making colour copies, doing so in 10 seconds, a fraction of the time most general-purpose models took. Similarly, the Canon MB5420 produced a colour copy in 13.4 seconds. The industry standard for business models is 31.1 seconds. In our testing, high-yield models were somewhat slow at this task, taking an average of 49 seconds.
Print Quality
The EcoTank ET-5850 produces excellent prints. Text appeared crisp and as close to the razor-sharp letterforms of a high-quality laser printer as an inkjet can get. The text in two-sided prints was just as sharp.
Graphics prints were of high quality. There was some minor banding visible in flat areas, but it was evenly spaced and not distracting. Banding appeared to be reduced when using high-quality inkjet paper. Colours appeared saturated and natural, midtone transitions were smooth, and details appeared sharp. Photographs printed on glossy paper appeared to have rich colours and sharp details. The EcoTank emphasises reds and yellows, creating a warm tone that is arguably unnatural in appearance. Photographic prints’ shadow areas tended to lose some subtle details.
Ink cost and Yield
The EcoTank ET-5850’s ink costs are extremely low. A bottle of black ink costs INR 2,500 and is expected to last 7,500 pages. Colour inks are 2k each and have a page yield of 6,000. The box includes two bottles of each ink. There is a three-pack of cyan, magenta, and yellow inks, but it costs only 2 cents less than buying the three inks separately. All of the inks are pigment-based.
Verdict
The ET-5850 is an excellent choice for a busy office due to its extremely low ink costs and exceptional performance. The ET-5850, with a document feeder, three paper trays, duplexer and two-sided scanning, is likely to meet the needs of most busy offices.
If your print volume necessitates a workhorse like the ET-5850, you’re unlikely to be disappointed. The ET-5850 delivered high image quality at record speed in every test we ran it through. Print quality was excellent, copy quality was excellent, document scans looked sharp, as well as two-sided operations were completed quickly. The only drawbacks were that the default settings produced too dark scans of photographs and that the included scanning software does not support automatic cropping.
If your office equipment budget allows it, the fast and feature-rich ET-5850 is well worth a serious look, and you can get it for discount with an Epson coupon code.
