Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 Wireless Wide-format Color All-in-One Supertank Printer with Scanner, Copier, Fax and Ethernet

My spouse and I purchased this printer to replace an HP AIO, a Brother laser printer and an Epson XP-950 three-in-one. We used these printers for personal use and a home-based business but will be moving to a condominium and there will not be space for all three printers. This is a large and heavy printer. It was challenging to get it out of the shipping box. I did not realize until I was lifting it around our home office onto a table that there is a small sticker on the side of the printer which calls for two persons to do the lifting but there was no such warning on the shipping box itself (not that I could find). I would strongly recommend that two adults extract the printer and position it as required. There are several blue tape strips holding the various components together, so it is very important to look inside and out to remove them. There are setup instructions for connecting the printer, in step order. Filling the ink tanks was easy and the process went quickly, and the levels filled to the ½ point. The Wi-Fi set up (it can be configured with a USB or Ethernet connection as well) was straightforward. We set up both paper trays for letter and legal sizes; the legal paper tray is easily selected through software and we appreciate the legal size for printing spreadsheets. We have also been using the 11 X 17 configuration in cassette 2 to print and scan [and enlarge] oversize documents, especially drawings associated with our new condo. The included software set up CD would not run on any of our computers and I ended up downloading the software directly from Epson; I do not know why Epson bothers to include the disk. After the download, set up was relatively easy on our home network and the software was installed on three laptops and one desktop, and on two Samsung devices [phone and tablet]. Strangely, on some computers, not all of the suite of Epson software was installed and on one, only the printing software was installed. We have had to reinstall the entire software suite on three of the four computers. One important reason for choosing this printer was the number of documents, diplomas, certificates, print photos and pieces of artwork [the latter from our from our children and grandchildren] that we wanted to preserve digitally as we knew we would not have the room to store them in the condo once we moved. This printer handles the tasks easily, scanning anything up to 11 X 17. It handles printing, copying [see below for issues] and faxing very well. While faxing may not be in use much these days, we have to use it to order legal documents from the province in which we live, for our business. It also comes in handy faxing home improvement contracts and medical documents. In our six months of use, we have been generally pleased with our investment. However, we have experienced the following issues: • Colour printing is quite slow (advertised at 12 ppm); we're not sure if that is indicative of the amount of colour on a given page, Wi-Fi speed, browser issues, etc. • The Wi-Fi connection drops occasionally for some reason, resulting in a queue of documents to print; turning the printer on and off generally solves this issue, however, we have not been able to determine why this occurs. The printer is located about 30 cm from our home network router. Once we move to our condo, we plan to configure it through an Ethernet connection. • We have also experienced frustration in getting documents to copy using the automatic document feeder - in spite of the ADF light appearing on the control panel, I keep getting a message that I have to copy from the platen. We have no problem getting faxes or scans to work from the ADF – strange. • Heavier paper [eg. like that used for greeting cards, etc., also known as cardstock] does not print in either simplex or duplex, resulting in printer jams; given the size of this printer, it is a challenge to open up the necessary covers and rear duplexer to extract the damaged paper. Incidentally, my HP all-in-one handles this weight of paper without problem. • The paper type in the printer settings and those specified in the software must match EXACTLY. We have found this frustrating at times when we get an error message about the mismatch and then must determine where the settings are at odds. • The Maintenance Box tab in the Supply Status window sits at about 75%, however, I am not sure what this status bar means; is there something that has to be installed when this “box” no longer works? I note that some reviewers have needed one, and, apparently Epson does not have them, rendering their printers unusable? In six months of use, we have printed: • 1438 prints, of which 346 were black and white and 1092 were colour. • The total printing has reduced our ink levels by about 25% from when we initially filled the tanks; the levels are now at 25%. If we continue at the present rate, we will need to refill the tanks by mid-2021. We believe the advertising for this printer indicated 2 years of ink; we now believe that means if the tank is filled to capacity. I would recommend this printer for home business/home office use.

One person in an office might eventually get to know how to run this thing, to take advantage of all its features. Me, I'll be checking the instruction book almost every time I use it! I wanted a simpler m/c that would use wider, longer-than-standard paper, but had to settle for this one because the m/c I wanted (much simpler, cheaper) is not available for who knows how long. Really, I'm not happy.