T**N
Epson WorkForce Pro WF-R4640 - This printer is QUIET and FAST!
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-R4640 printer is replacing an old printer we have used for business for the last 7-1/2 years: an HP OfficeJet Pro L7780 all-in-one. It was simple to make the decision to purchase this printer after calculating how much money we have spent on ink cartridges during the first 9 months of the 2015 calendar year; which was a whopping $550.00! And... those were re-manufactured cartridges that cost half of what the HP cartridges cost. I generally loathe re-manufactured cartridges, because they tend to mess up every printer I've had, but since this printer was over 7 years old, why not use them. Of course, they DID degrade the print quality, but they were "good enough" for invoices and general text printing (not for photographs and high quality graphic requirements) but we knew we were soon going to replace the workhorse printer anyway. We just had to decide which one.Enter the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-R4640 Eco-Tank Wireless printer. The main selling point for us is the massive ink quantity and the pro quality of the prints. This printer comes with 4 high capacity bags of ink which, currently, retail for $479.96 direct from Epson. (179.99 for the high capacity black, and 99.99 for the cyan, magenta and yellow) If this ink quantity lasts us a year, we will be happy. Of course, time will tell and I will update this review when it does. But, when you look at it this way, this may be the printer we've been dreaming of! Plus it comes with a 2-year warranty so you've got plenty of time to put it to the test.We installed it on our wireless network and the installation (and registration) was easy, guided by the enclosed CD. Super simple and painless. This printer is QUIET and FAST with excellent, professional print quality, and we love that the two front trays can handle 500 sheets of plain paper (far more than our old printer). Yes, I know - it's brand new and it should be great - which is exactly why I will return with an update over time.Bottom line: If you're doing a lot of printing and seem to be constantly replacing cartridges, do yourself a favor and add up what you've been spending on ink - this, or another Epson EcoTank printer model may be exactly what you need.UPDATE: March 03, 2016The printer is doing great. I've never had a paper jam in it once! And, I've run a variety of paper stocks through it from heavy photo paper to label stock, but mostly run 20# white paper in it. No cartridge (bags actually) spills or drips either. Just checked the status of the ink levels and it appears that we are down between 1/3 and 1/2 on the black and slightly less (about 1/4 down) on all of the colors. It has performed well and gets daily use. Still loving it!UPDATE: July 21, 2016Still loving this Epson EcoTank WorkForce Pro! Still... never had a paper jam. We've already saved LOADS on ink costs because we haven't had to change any of the ink bags as of yet. We recently purchased a high capacity refill for the black ink, so it's on standby and ready to swap out soon. This printer is everything Epson says it is and more, and that's saying a lot since I was once so loyal to my HP printers. The Epson brand has earned my respect.
S**N
Not reliable, overpriced. Lack of reliability & high initial cost kill the deal
UPDATE 1/27/21Printer has decided it no longer will print double sided. Friday it was working as normal, Monday morning it just decides no more duplex printing. Error code 0xF3 Here are Epson's instructions for clearing this code:==============Remove all the external components including the inks tanks from the Epson printer. Along with the windows system as well as rear components too.Detach the ink lever of printer gently. After doing that, simply remove the front panel screws out of the printer.Detach the back panel screws carefully. After that, dismount the LCD and front panel from the device to get rid of this error code.Now, remove the main back section to clean the LCD display. After that, gently clean up the left encoder part with the help of a dry, clean tissue paper.After performing all these steps, print a test page to check whether the printer is printing carefully or not.===========Basically disassemble the unit and put it back together.We paid over $1000 for this? It's cheaper to buy 4 $250 printers and just toss them when they stop working. We only have 5 years out of this thing. $250 printers usually last 2-3 years, so it's cheaper to just buy the cheap printer, run it till the wheels fall off and buy a new one. We'll to the 21st Century world of quality.UPDATE 3/21/19Epson replaced the dead unit, no problems. The new one is working fine. The ink situation is about the same. One extra large bag every year. I would never buy this printer again. For the money, you can buy 4 other printers and 2 years of ink and have money left over.UPDATE 8/26/18. The unit is dead. Called Epson tech.... went thru the error codes and they proclaimed it dead. Still in the warranty period, but $1200 for a printer that can't last 2 years is not cost effective.This printer makes absolutely zero financial sense. We spend the same amount money on ink in a year as we did other printers for ink/cartridges. But this printer costs 3x as much as the competition. It's slower. The quality is slightly less. It's made of the same plastic all the other ones are. So what's the difference? About $1000 in initial cost.Data: The first bag of BLACK ink lasted 9 months. July 2016 to March2017. The 2nd ink bag (R12, not R12X) lasted 3 months. March 2017 to June 2017. The 3rd bag of ink (R12, not R12X) lasted 4 months to Oct. 2017. So far We've purchased 3 bags of black ink. That's $300 in ink in 1 year. Compared to our other printers it's about the same amount of money.Apparently the printer ships with the R12X extended ink. The bag we put in March was the R12, standard capacity ($99). The R12X is $300. So there is no savings there.And this is just on the black ink. The color ink is still fine, but we only use color for highlighting and spot color.Epson's support was helpful and after many calls I finally got someone who "gets it" and they have updated the driver many times and it seems to have fixed some (most) of the problems, so updated my rating.Also it's made of the same plastic and injected molded everything like every other printer you buy now. At 7 times the cost of a typical printer I expected a more substantial product.Setup was easy no problems there.Considering the price and application (high end office printing) it's a total failure. I have to agree with the other reviewers, Epson seems to have gamed Amazon by giving away free printers and getting rave reviews. These are by people who are probably not using the printer the way a real business would.The reporting for the printer is bad. The Brother and Lexmark printers we have allow us to see things like total pages printed. This Epson does not allow you to see that. So when they claim 20,000 pages, you have no idea if you really get that many pages unless you care to count them as they come out. So far we've printed about 1000 pages and the black ink is showing about 15% down (there is no number you have to estimate it from the bar graph).Pleased that their support people were responsive and updating the drivers, but will never buy another Epson Workforce product again. It's a total fraud.
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3 weeks ago
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