Epson Expression Home Xp-340 Wireless Small-in-one Printer Reviews

Epson has ever been known every bit a high terminate brand. Many of their printers are used in professional photo labs, and serious photographers know that their specialty inks are the all-time way to go a truthful-to-life print.

Despite the prestige that the brand carries, Epson even so has quite a few entry level products on the market place. This business strategy isn't exactly common.

Accept Mercedes, for example. Their affordable B-Series vehicles sold very well, merely they pulled them off the market. Why is that? Equally they were a fraction of the price of a standard Mercedes, the build quality wasn't of the same standard. For many this is to be expected. Simply others thought that it would cheapen their brand proper name, and then they decided to stick to the high end market place.

What does this have to do with printers? Well, we all know that you become what you pay for. This means that Epson's latest entry level office printer is going to exist 1 of two things. Either it'due south an amazing bargain on a printer that was congenital to Epson'due south high standard, or an inexpensive knockoff that doesn't stand true to the name. To notice out, we put the Epson XP-340 to the test.

First Look

This all-in-i printer is the latest aspirant to Epson's "expression home" line of consumer printers. It's designed to be a jack of all trades. It prints both documents and photos, copies document, scans pictures, and even emails scanned files. There are dozens of other printers that have the aforementioned features as this model, but none come close to the incredibly low price that Epson is selling it for. The XP-340 is geared towards casual users who don't demand a printer all the time, merely want something reliable when they do use it.

Design & Layout

When a popular manufacturer is creating their entry level model, it's common for them to strip the printer down visually as well. On shop shelves, consumers are probable to look away from the simple utilitarian printer towards the one with all the bells and whistles.

That'due south why we were surprised to see the sleek and modern blueprint of the XP-340. The combination of precipitous lines and rounded corners would expect right at home on a shelf with Epson's high end printers.

Featuring a 1.44" colour display, a digital navigation pad, obvious kickoff and stop buttons, and a front-facing SD card reader, you lot're definitely getting a lot of bang for your buck. The simple control scheme allows you lot to whip through all the settings with ease, so you're not going to become frustrated while trying to change simple settings.

The residue of the layout is pretty straightforward. Load up to 100 sheets of newspaper in the dorsum, have printed documents pushed out the forepart. Our principal business organisation was with how the documents looked.

Printing

This printer uses a 4-color ink cartridge set, filled with standard pigment ink. Ane of the upgrades from previous models is the new impress heads, which Epson calls MicroPiezo Inkjet Head. A MicroPiezo is a pocket-size electronically controlled ink outlet that vibrates at a very high speed. The thought is that it allows smaller, more precise amounts of ink to be pushed on the page. At 3 picoliters, the drop size is definitely smaller than near printers in this price range. This allows colors to exist blended more than evenly, creating a polish looking print.

This was obvious to us when nosotros were printing color. Nosotros didn't encounter any banding like we would on most budget printers, and the colors seemed pretty accurate. It was surprising how practiced photos tin look, fifty-fifty when they're printed from such an inexpensive printer.

At a resolution of 5760×1440, these aren't the well-nigh detailed images on the planet, but they're more than acceptable for documents or personal files. Plus, while you're printing you won't have to worry about letting the pages dry. This ink dries instantly, so you tin can take your documents and leave as soon as they hitting the tray.

Scanning

The flatbed scanner on top allows you to digitize your documents and photos with ease, although simply one at a time. It scans at a resolution of 300 dpi. This makes it a fairly entry level scanner, but it's still pretty practiced. Nosotros were able to browse our documents, and utilize OCR software to catechumen them into editable give-and-take files. In that location were very few errors, and the text looked dainty and sharp.

Digitizing hardcopy photos also went pretty well. The photos were more than adequate for posting online, and some fifty-fifty needed to have the resolution reduced a little. While nosotros wouldn't want to rely on this for loftier end archival purposes, the scanner is totally competent and we couldn't ask for more than.

Connectivity

Gone are the days when you lot had to physically plug your printer into your reckoner with a special (and expensive!) printer cable. Today, everything is wireless. This used to be a feature reserved for loftier end printers, but today Epson has made it clear that this is the new standard. If a printer this affordable can have wireless printing, in that location is no excuse for whatever modern printer to be without it.

The easiest way to print wirelessly is to use WiFi direct. The printer creates its ain wireless network, and you connect directly to it. This means that you lot don't have to become through the trouble of entering your home WiFi information. WiFi directly works with PCs, Macs, Android, and iOS.

If you're looking to cut out an extra stride, yous can utilise the setup wizard CD to get the printer on your network, and print from anywhere. I of your computers tin exist used as a host, assuasive you to impress files through Google Cloud Impress or apple Air Print. With cloud services, yous don't even have to be in your abode to brand a hard-copy of an of import document.

Cost of Ownership

Many consumers tend to be skeptical of inexpensive printers. From the late 90s until the mid-2000's, retailer shelves were stacked loftier with high quality printers that didn't cost much more than than this model. The deals were too skillful to pass upwardly. In fact, they were so expert that manufacturers were losing money on every printer they sold. Why would they do that? Well, they would accuse such a high markup on ink, that they wound up making more money.

When you're getting a deal this expert, information technology'south of import to run the numbers and see how much this printer volition price you over its life bridge.

The ink cartridges are a niggling price than some, but not unreasonably so. Printing documents in black and white is the most affordable, with a per page cost of simply 5.6 cents. Printing an image on standard 8.5 x 11 paper is a little pricier, only even so simply costs 27 cents.

Based on these numbers, you lot tin meet how much you'll spend every month to keep this printer running. Let's say that you print 2 reports for piece of work every week. Each report has one comprehend page with colour graphics, and 5 sheets of text. At this charge per unit, you're only spending $ane.09 per calendar week on ink. This is very affordable, simply if you print high volumes then it can become expensive quite quickly.

Disadvantages

It'southward rare to find a printer in this price range that creates such good looking prints, merely there is one downside to this design – it's boring. Printing ten sheets of monochrome text took nearly 1.5 minutes, and color documents took near twice that time. If you're merely press a few sheets this Is no large deal, but for college capacity you lot might want to wait for a different option.

Concluding Verdict

It'southward clear to us that the Epson Expression Home XP-340 has earned information technology's branding. This really is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to printers, and manufacturers are forced to make compromises. Only it's these compromises that make the XP-340 stand out.

It looks great on your desk, and comes in a meaty and easy to use form factor. The prints look smashing, and information technology connects to all of your devices wirelessly. In terms of basic functionality, this printer checks off all the boxes.

Certain, it is a little slower to print, and you're paying a few cents actress for each page. If you're a low volume printer (under 150 pages per calendar month) so this shouldn't brand much of a deviation.

If you are printing higher volumes, this might not be the best option for you. We'd recommend that you check out our guide to the all-time monochrome laser printers on the market. These take the lowest cost per page of any printer, making the initial toll well worth information technology for high volume users.

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