Epson EcoTank ET-2803 Wireless Color All-in-One Cartridge-Free Supertank Printer with Scan, Copy and AirPrint Support

Great product, and very carefully and thoughtfully designed so that the setup is idiot-proof. Just follow the directions, which are fairly short. I accidentally set the printer up with the wrong network, and the software figured out and fixed the problem. Printer and scanner work great. Much easier than I’d expected — and I love not paying a fortune for ink cartridges all the time.

So far it works pretty well. Set up was pretty easy. Took a minute to figure out how to connect to the wifi, so if you have a modem that is 5G capable, you may need to go thru the printer itself instead of doing the online setup with your phone or computer, because it needs to run thru 2G wifi. My phone and computer both would only show the 5G option, but I was able to locate the 2G by name on the printer itself. Other than that, everything seems to work great. Print quality is very nice. Easy to fill the cartridges. It does take quite a bit of black ink to configure your initial set up, so Im guessing black ink will be used much faster (as it usually is with any printer) but Ive been able to print quite a bit of color already and the color levels have barely moved. It is a little louder than my old Epson workforce, but I set it to the “quite” setting and it helped somewhat. Still loud, but not as bad. The only thing Im not thrilled about is the paper loading. You cant put alot of paper in at once or it jams very easy, or just wont load at all. I can only have about 10 sheets at once in the loader tray, which is annoying. But what can you do? Overall I like it so far. Havent had a chance to test the sublimation ink I purchased for it yet so I dont know how well that works, but regular ink works great and colors come out nice.

I’ve had a number of Epson printers over the years, starting with a 9-pin FX dot-matrix, and ending with a Stylus Photo R3000. While I never expected to get back into low-end inkjet printers again, my wife’s foray into sublimation printing brought me to the Epson EcoTank ET-2803.

At first glance, you realize that the ET-2803 is an exercise in cost cutting taken to the extreme. For about $250 you get a paper handling mechanism, a print head, a flatbed scanner, an ink delivery system, wireless connectivity, a screen, and actual interface buttons. Oh, and it’s all jammed in a cheap plastic box. Despite that, and the fact that the screen is the size of a postage stamp, the entire package works. It’s hard to know longevity on something like this, but I’d imagine that it will survive long enough to go through a few maintenance tanks. What’s a maintenance tank, you ask? More on that later…

As far as the setup of the ET-2803 goes, there’s very little to it. Unfurl the printer, load the ink, and let it go through the process of drawing the ink down the tubes – you’re in business in less than 10 minutes. Things were a little different for me because I didn’t load the OEM ink, and instead opted to put in Hippoo sublimation ink. I have seen the ET-2083’s OEM ink performance on plain and glossy paper. It’s fine, but not great. Printing is fast, but does not yield sharp text OR photo-realistic prints. This makes sense, as the ET-2803 has a cheap printhead, and the printer is only working with 3 colors (plus black). The driver is pretty barebones, not really allowing for much in terms of settings adjustment. While this may be good for the plug-and-play crowd, it really doesn’t do you any favors when trying to dial in the quality of your printed output.

I definitely have had some clogging issues with my printer, but acknowledge that is probably due to the 3rd-party ink that I’ve put in my printer, and not an inherent problem with the Epson. I mention it, though, because I have run through the various cleaning procedures on the printer’s maintenance menu. The design of the printer incorporates a “last-resort” cleaning method, beyond normal head cleaning, that flushes all of the ink in the tubes into the maintenance box. That’s a LOT of ink. I don’t imagine most users will run a power clean, but it may be necessary if your printer sits unused for long periods. If you do run the power clean, plan to go through ink more quickly than expected, and expect to replace your maintenance tank within your printer’s lifespan (fortunately, it’s not difficult or expensive).

My issues with the ET-2803 are likely self-inflicted through the use of sublimation ink. The ET-2803 is an OK sublimation printer, and is one of the least expensive ways to enter the hobby. As far as a general-use printer goes, the ET-2803 is a mixed bag. Consumables are much less expensive than cartridge-based inkjet printers, which is great. Print quality is usable, but not great. The main thing is that this printer makes sense in some use cases, but not in others. For example, if you print semi-regularly, occasionally scan, and sometimes need color printing, this is a good choice. If you want to dabble with sublimation printing, this is a entry-level choice. However, if you rarely print, you’re probably better off with a b/w laser printer. Conditionally Recommended