EcoTank ET-3850 A4 Multifunction Air Print Wi-Fi Ink Tank Printer with Duplex and ADF, Up To 3 Years Of Ink Included

First time I have ventured into printing with refillable ink and I must say I am very impressed. I have had many Epson printers all with cartridges. I have always bought compatible ones and have constantly dodged warnings, naggings and refusing to print because of it, and they never lasted that long anyway. This is a game changer. The reservoir is huge compared to the cartridges offering up to 72 cartridges worth (they say) of ink. And you get this included with your order. Even when pricing original Epson ink it will work out cheaper and no nagging. Plus, you are doing your bit for the environment and giving the manufacturer all the money to invest. True the printer is a lot dearer but will work out just as cheap or cheaper if you are keeping it for the duration. The actual filling with ink is a doddle. The bottles have been ingeniously designed from the ground up to fit each tank individually. They don’t spill and the ink stops flowing when enough ink is in the tank. I was a bit apprehensive about doing this initially but it’s easy and not messy in the slightest. Epson have put a lot of effort into setting up their EcoTank models. You can install it perfectly and easily from new by downloading the setup APP to your smartphone. This communicates with the printer from the outset and expertly guides you through the whole initial set up process with pictures and confirmations at each stage. Leaving you with an initialised product ready for connection to your computer. This to is easy as it links itself to a specific setup page just for the model and does all the work for you just by responding to the questions. Mine was a Windows 11 installation. Very clever and very simple. It all takes a bit of time but patience is a virtue. The new software is good too. One example is organising scans from the scanner. The software is intuitive. Organising pages is easy and it can even intelligently rotate pages. This more or less does away with spending a lot more on double sided scanning as there is so little effort in just popping the pages back on the ADF knowing there is minimal effort needed for sorting. It takes up a small footprint for the amount it does. It is relatively light as well. It does feel a little plasticky but I don’t think so much so that it will fall apart. It just appears functional and is. The screen is small and is not touch meaning you have to keep pressing buttons and then okaying. Shame I would have loved the touch screen so much better. Also, when you lift the scanner unit it only holds in place when you force it upward so that it locks. I found this nerve racking as I thought it might break, I am sure this could be better manufactured. I will not be printing photos on it. For me it is meant for office type documents and they have all printed really well so far. It prints double sided also. I am more than happy to give anything I print to anyone who I believe should find it much more than acceptable. I do use decent paper. Perhaps the only down side is it seems to be a little slow in everything it does. Don’t get me wrong in no way a deal breaker for me but if you were in the office and want everything at speed then perhaps another model may better suit. I note some people are reporting a WiFi issue mine worked straight away although I cannot know yet whether this will come to haunt me. But there is the 5 year warranty which Epson are currently offering on their EcoTank models. Overall, I am extremely pleased so far. Far better than my Epson’s of old in terms of hardware, ink printing and software. A great upgrade. At this stage I am glad I bought it. My major gripe was Amazon reducing the price 2 days after I bought it.

My old HP Multi-function printer was ruined during a house move so I was looking for a quality replacement. I have alway bought HP as I like the software and quality of the kit but was fed up with the cost of the ink and print head cleaning. After much research, I saw the Epson ink tank printers scoring highly in a number of independent reviews. It seemed to me that the initial cost of the machine was off-set by the low cost of ink over the long-term. The features of the ET3850 were exactly what I was looking for; quality printing (including auto-duplex), scanning and wifi printing from mobile devices. It was easy to set up and the ink filling process was easy and spill-free using the foolproof fittings which differed for each colour to avoid mistakes. Connecting it to my wifi network was also easy although it did take a little time to update its firmware early in the process. I have 2 minor niggles when comparing it with the various HP models I’ve owned: 1) the software is not as user friendly or as comprehensive, but it works, 2) pressing the off button does not switch the machine off, you have to then use the menu buttons to change an option and then confirm with the ok button before it switches off. Although some might find this a benefit, I find it annoying that I have to press 3 different buttons to switch it off. On the plus side, as well as good quality printing, the machine seems to be able to print decent quality when started up even when it hasn’t been used for a while. I found that the HPs often required head cleaning and test printing which wasted paper, time and expensive ink! So far, I haven’t had to do this at all. Overall, I think this model is good value when looked at over a two or three year period and hope it last much longer than that. Having owned and used it for a few months now, I would buy it again.

Update 24/11/25 I have taken the trouble to update my review becasue I am totally gobsmacked that the awful ET-3850 is still available. For all of you out there looking at the many positive reviews, take my word for it that this rinter is not for printing photographs. It work fine for b/w but and indeed it prints a nice photograph. But if you want to print a number of photos - not just one or two - it WILL keep ejecting paper and tell you that there is none in the magazine. It's still £300+ plus and behaves like a £50 printer, fit only for b/w or occasional photographs. I have to sit alongside it constantly trying to convince it that it has paper. They even suggest cleaning inside with isopropyl alcohol. They know this printer is badly flawed but they carry on selling it. Do yourself a favour and don't be a mug. AVOID the ET-3850!!!! I bought this for a large photograph printing project that I have undertaken. It was recommended by Which? for the purpose. I need to start off by saying the project - 100s of A4 photos - would be absurdly expensive with a cartridge printer. I used the supplied bottles quite quickly - on A4 pictures at Highest Quality - but in normal use they would last for ages. You can use generic ink which is cheaper than Epson and I couldn't see any difference, The quality of printing is, to my eyes, very good. Now onto the problems and idiosyncrasies. Firstly, my early pictures had horrible colour casts - often orange. After trying all sorts of paper and all sorts of settings, the truth dawned on me. This happened with any picture I had photoshopped! I also use Luminar Neo and this causes no such problems. So this must be down to Photoshop, not the printer. The printer, however, tends to print darker than on your screen so before printing a photo I strongly recommend you rauise the brightness of your picture and. in some cases, reduce the colour saturation. The user interface on the printer is much too small for its complexity and there is much fiddling with buttons. It is very frustrating and not for those with poor eyesight. The panel is like something from twenty years ago. The software is also confusing and there are far too many modules. Ease of use is very poor all round. In fact I hate the user interfaces. Then the biggest issue - the Wireless function. Want to print a few pages on plain paper? Its fine. Want to print A4 photos on glossy paper? It's a nightmare. Too often pages come out half-printed after lots of clacking and whirring at which point the printer asks if you want to check the connection. It repairs it. Half a dozen pages later it happens again. I found out on a forum that it's a common problem with no solution despite Epsons's feeble "answers" such as updating the firmware etc. What's more, it seems that, as it did for me, this problem emerges after a while just when you think you have bought a great printer. The only solution - obtained from a forum - is to connect via a usb cable and this solved the problem for me. You can install a usb connection whilst keeping the wireless connection for more everyday tasks. You CANNOT, however, use an Ethernet connection next to your wireless, connection. I can only think that there is some sort of buffer in the wifi interface that causes problems when it overflows. I repeat, you will find many people have had this problem. Then there is the paper handling. Plain paper - no problem. Photo paper? It will drive you mad by unnaccountably ejecting sheets before finally finding one it likes.. Bizarre and annoying. USB connection cannot solve this issue, of course. Whether changing brand of paper would fix it, I don't know. Overall, it prints good pictures but the shortcomings have meant my first few months of ownership have been a bit of a battle. How a company like Epson can produce a £300+ printer with so many issues is something of a mystery. Like all ink tank printers it can save you a fortune in ink. But I can't help feeling there are others as good but less problematical in use out there. Thumbs down for Which? as well as Epson frankly. Update 15/9/25 : It's now just terrible. It will print a batch of pictures then decides continually that it is out of paper. You can re-feeding the tray, fanning the pages, whatever but it still keeps happening. There's a lot of clacking and whirring and sure enough, up comes the "paper out" message. This is the most frustrating pievce of kit I have ever owned. You would be mad to buy one.

What a great printer it produces good photos on premium paper (I use cheap home bargains Stationery store, Premium Gloss Photo Paper) and uses very little ink so should last a long time before refilling all being very cost effective. It prints and copies documents from you PC or phone or by placing them on the scanner and has a good app, it is easy to set up and use for a home office. The downside is it has a fax facility that is outdated and most people no longer fax, the money would be better spent on providing a larger screen after all it has the cut out for one on the front control panel.

The Epson EcoTank ET‑3850 delivers excellent value overall. If your priority is low‑cost printing with the flexibility of scanning/copying and decent document output, this is a strong choice. The primary trade‑offs—slower colour speed and less refined photo/colour output—are acceptable for many home‑office use cases.I use the printer daily and it performs great.

THe only problem i had setting this up on the network wifi was finding the password required on the app for setup. It is on the inside of the front bottom cover next to the word password, doh! Once that was entered the setup went through effortlessly. As for the Printer I find it quick to print and the quality even on normal paper is quite good, haven't tried real in depth printing with photo paper yet.

Very little printing so far, but the quality looks excellent. The packaging was great, the ink-filling was flawless and with no mess at all, and the set up of the printer was simple with the app. HOWEVER... The app crashed every single time it came to installing the computer. I gave up after six attempts (and five deletions & reinstalls) and went to the Epson website to install from there. App now deleted, never to be used again. After four attempts with the process appearing to run smoothly but no printer driver actually being installed, I resorted to their technical support. After 45 minutes and more installations, they discovered that the printer cannot cope with multiple wifi signals. Oh, and it doesn't like MacBooks very much. Still, we got there, I said 'Thank you' and got down to printing. Or not. No double-sided option was available, and it would not print via USB cable. I then spent another hour with a different technician on yet more installations (!!!) until we were able to obtain a 2-sided print option. They also managed to resolve the USB cable option BUT at the expense of wifi connection. So, I paid £350 for a wifi printer that will not print via wifi! Essentially, it's a good printer, but DON'T buy this if: 1. You have more than one wifi signal in your home. 2. You have an old home with thick walls that require a wifi booster. Nope. No can do. Epson cannot cope with that! 3. You use a MacBook. 4. You like the option of wifi AND USB connection. It's one or the other. It's been a complete ballache, I've lost most of my day with the set-up and subsequent problems, and I shall never, ever buy Epson again, but at least the pages of text I printed look good.

This is the worst price ter to setup. To get help from Epson is a waste of time. The lables are so small to read and are placed in places that are difficult to read. The answer from Epson is get a neighbour to help. When one is disabled and only has the use of one hand life becomes very difficult.