Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Upon opening the package I was a bit taken aback at how big and heavy this printer is. Compared to my (now relatively) small Canon Pixma ip6000d (which I love).
But this printer has filled a big void that the Canon could not: all in one printing AND instantaneous two-sided printing.
Installation: The installation and set-up is very easy. Just follow the instructions, install the drivers, and software, and you're ready to go. Don't forget, however, to readjust your settings in Control Panel--> Printers and Faxes (right click for properties) to a permanent model (i.e. I always have it set to two sided printing, minimal ink use, and print last page first) so that I get everything the way I want to, right away. If you don't do that, then you'll be stuck having to switch it manually every time you print it out of Word; which gets annoying real fast.
Design: This is a very sleek looking machine that looks very professional. The touch screen is really a smart-screen. Meaning: when I'm trying to choose options manually on the printer it only lets me choose those that are actually available based on all the previous steps I have taken to get to the current screen. However, I will not be using the touch screen a lot, if ever, as I can do everything right from my computer with the software provided, which is much easier and more convenient (both of the other printers I've had I've also avoided the more primitive screens).
Printing Speed: This is a very fast printer (it's obviously not as fast as the monstrous and expensive ($25,000) laser printer at my former place of work), but it's certainly the fastest inkjet I've encountered (a claim they boldly state). I print two sided pages all of the time, 1000's of them, and I can't tell you what and incredible relief it is to be able to have a double sided page come right out, instead of waiting for the odd pages to print, then sticking back the pages in the right order into the cassette in my Canon, and waiting for the even pages to print on the other side. If however, you print high quality pictures, I can't say that this is that much faster than my Canon, maybe just a bit, but it is certainly better quality.
Scanner: I can't say that the scanner is anything special here, it's like anything else. The quality is top notch at the highest settings, but, as with any scanner, you might as well brew a pot of coffee while you get that high quality image saved to a hard drive that can hopefully sustain it (especially if you've got lots of images to scan); I see no reason to scan at the highest quality setting for most every-day page-text; and in this scenario it's lightning fast. The biggest advantage of this printer versus a traditional lift-lid-scan printer is that, thanks to the feeder, you can actually go ahead and brew that coffee and do something else while the printer (without glitches so far) scans and the faxes and/or downloads to the computer and/or copies the paper/pictures/etc for you, without you having to sit there and manually input every single **** ****....bad memories...
Fax: The fax is just like any printer with a fax option; you simply enter in all of your information and away you go. A test fax was received and sent very easily, but without any additional flair. Did you seriously expect the scanner and fax options in an all-in-one printer to somehow be revolutionized in the span of the last 5 years (when I had my last all-in-one printer)? NOTE: A phone cable is included, BUT if you use DSL, make sure you have an extra filter, or get one from your ISP.
Paper (free sample comes included, yay!): This isn't about actually the paper you use, but rather, the really awesome cassette system in this printer! There's two cassettes! That's one more than I had before and it made me feel giddy inside! Then, I realized, I only use one type of paper. Oh well, at least for some of you this will be important. I used to send a lot of mail and hated switching out the paper and envelopes, a printer like this would've solved that hassle. Again, so far, no glitches or jams; but this is actually the least you should expect as modern printers rarely glitch if they're any good.
Ink (B/W and color included right away): Epson claims instant dry inks. So what? My experience with printers isn't vast, but the two other inkjet printers I have (Canon's ink only costing $2-$5 for a cartridge the same size as Epson's), print dry as well as long as you use the right paper. And, too touch base on the whole cost of ink issue, Epson loses me here big time. I have been spoiled by my Canon, which has cost me over the last several years a grand total of $50 in ink ($25 of which is still sitting on a shelf, unused); and I print literally thousands upon thousands of pages every year. Roughly the same capacity ink cartridge ($2-B/W and $4-5Color in Canon) runs you a whopping $28 for B/W (the B/W Epson cartridge is twice as large but the color one is the same)!!! I obviously haven't printed as many pages with this printer yet, but I sure as heck hope that cartridge lasts for several years, even though, based on size, it doesn't really look like it. Regardless, I just wait and pray for OEM cartridges that will be much cheaper sometime in the future. If anyone reading this knows of any, please comment.
Wireless: No more cords! Ah, I can't tell you how many times my cords from the printer knocked my speakers off of the desk! You have to install the software on every computer that will be using the printer wirelessly. This is really not a hassle and a much better option to have in an office and multi-computer household than a printer for every computer or having to walk over to a computer with a printer and kick your relative off of the computer because you need to print something really fast. The set-up of the wireless network is really easy; just follow the on-screen instructions, I had no hassle.
MAC USERS: I use a PC (please don't rate me negatively because of it :-), but anything Mac-exception related in the instructions was covered well by Epson, and I read over those parts and there didn't seem to be anything major or important to note other than you having to follow a slightly different set of instructions every now and then to set everything up.
Overall: I rate this product a 5, because, despite the cost of ink, it really is easy to use, hassle free, and saves me a lot of trouble and time that I had experience with other printers before.
Who this printer is for: Office or home office users who need a helping hand from a machine to speed things along, automatize, and network certain processes so you can focus on other things after giving your command. Also, those unconcerned with the potential large costs of ink; if you print a lot.
Who this printer is not for: If all you need is to print paper (no reason to scan or fax, or not very often), and can handle the "rigors" of having to switch paper in and out when doing double sided printing, then don't waste your dime here. Get something cheaper in cost and cheaper in ink.
***Update 11/6/11: Printer is still going strong, I'm even more impressed than before as I realize how much this printer has simplified everything for me, how convenient it is, and how easy and quick to use it is. IMPORTANT NOTE: non-OEM cartridges ARE available now!!!
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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program For the sake of comparison, I have a Canon PIXMA MX870 multifunction inkjet with wireless connectivity that I'm using as a benchmark on the Epson WorkForce 840, since they're competitive products in the same segment.
While Epson touts how much space you save on your desk with the 840, the space hasn't disappeared, it's simply gone up. The 840 is surprisingly tall. So much so that using it in an enclosed space may be difficult. Out of the box, I noticed that the unit itself felt a bit flimsy. With the exception of the flatbed scanner, everything from the ADF tray down to the paper trays felt as though they'd snap without much force.
Setup was quite simple, and it's unlikely that experienced buyers would need to look at the setup poster to get started. Take the tape off, drop your cartridges in, and turn it on. The menu system is fairly logical, and getting the printer on my wireless network took about a minute. A minor quibble on this one: the 840 wants to spend upwards to five minutes calibrating itself when you first turn it on, and locks out the menu in the process.
The display panel was surprisingly crisp, though the touch-sensitive areas didn't consistently register input. On both sides of the color LCD, you have a series of touch-sensitive "buttons" that light up when they're relevant to the menu context. Although this was fine for most things, some of the icons were a bit cryptic in context. Overall, I found the interface to be a bit on the gimmicky side, and would have preferred a few softkeys instead.
Printing is everything you'd come to expect from Epson. Text was very sharp, bordering on "cheap laser" quality, and pictures looked almost impossibly good on "cheapest you can get me" copy paper. Without question, the 840 kicks out sharp black text faster than any printer I've used. But... mixed content isn't nearly as fast. A good example here is the built-in ability to print out ruled paper and graph paper. The function is kind of cool, but a single ruled page takes an excruciating amount of time.
One serious oddity is the way Epson chose to deal with paper. They tout the top cartridge being versatile enough to handle any paper or envelope smaller than 11 x 17 you can imagine, and that the bottom cartridge holds an entire ream of paper. That's great. Problem is, the 840 expects letter paper in the top cartridge, and there's no way to set it to use the bottom cartridge globally. Yes, you can set it to use Cartridge 2 in the driver... unless you're using a Mac. If you're using a Mac, some applications allow you to hit the Paper Handling settings (and pick Cartridge 2 every time), but some applications don't. On Windows, if you're using this in a workgroup, every computer has to have the driver configured to use the "big" cartridge.
If you've got a Mac, that's not where the pain ends. Scanning is reasonably fast for an all-in-one, and the quality's pretty average, too. Want to put a stack of paper in the document feeder and have them scanned to your computer? No problem. Hit "Scan", "Scan to PC", and pick your computer from the network. Unless you're using a Mac. While Canon multifunction printers have been able to do this for years, Epson can't seem to do network scanning to Macs running Snow Leopard. Just to be certain, I downloaded the latest drivers from Epson's site, to no avail.
For Windows users, the Workforce 840 is a solid multifunction inkjet. The materials are too flimsy for sustained workgroup use, but it's definitely nice for a hone office user who likes the distinct look of Epson printing. For Mac users though, I can't really recommend this. The drivers aren't good at all, and you're going to lose functionality out of the box.
Mac OS Lion Update August 2011:
To anyone wondering, I've been using the printer on a clean Lion install for just over a week now, and basically, it's the same. I still can't scan to a Mac from the printer, and there's still no way to permanently set a specific tray.
One thing that is worth noting though: getting the printer going on my Mac took no effort at all. The Lion installer saw the Epson printer on the network, and added drivers. I have to say, I was relatively impressed.
Best Deals for Epson WorkForce 840 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer
I own this printer, i bought it from the manufacturer's site directly since it wasn't available at amazon at the time i wanted it.
This printer is awesome in every imaginable way you can think of. And it can help you save a lot of money of you really want the all in one capabilty. Read on and i'll explain how an why.
First things first, the printer is way smaller than the HP Laserjet 2840 i own too, it's not heavy at all, and it looks great. The text printing on this Epson truly looks like a laser printer. The color is fantastic to, i even print photos on glossy photo paper and they look amazing. The scanner is fast and very good too. It allows you to scan and print both sides of docs at once, no manual interference needed.
I was looking for a printer that would give me great photo printouts as well as it could be used as a work printer since i do print lots of documents as well. I also wanted to buy a Fujitsu Scansnap 1500 for fast double sided multisize document scanning capabilities, Well this epson gives me all that and much more, and for less than half what the scansnap costs. I use adobe acrobat pro to scan docs to PDF directly from the epson scanner(could not do this with the scansnap) and all that is done wirelessly, i can also fax any document right from my computer just like i print them.
Bottom line, for $200 you're getting a very fast high quality printer scanner fax and both-sides copy machine as well as the card readers and a lot more, the ink seems to last, and this printer comes with the highest capacity cartridges, which seem to yield a lot. So now i solved my scanning, pc faxing and photo printing needs all in one small very good a nice machine. And i saved whatever a photo printer costs, plus the $430 for the scansnap s1500, and i get laser quality text as well as (N) wireless conectivity from my printer. What else could i ask for?
Note: My comparison with the scansnap s1500 are not based on web reviews, i actually bought a scansnap which i later returned since i get the same if not better results with this printer.
Also, i've owned canon photo printers and i still have a huge HP color laserjet 2840. So my comparisons and references are based on actual usage of all equipment mentioned.
My recommendation, buy this one and you'll be very pleased.
Honest reviews on Epson WorkForce 840 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Epson has a real winner in this machine. If I listed every feature and praise I have for this machine you would completely miss the few minor issues I found, so I'm going to list them first in case they're important or deal breakers for you, although they're non-issues for me.
CONS:
The biggest con is with the two paper trays, in that, only tray #1 can take mixed media sizes, while tray #2 is limited to 8.5x11/A4 paper. This in and of itself isn't a problem, but the machine and software really favors tray 1. Some examples: There's a gimmicky, but fun, feature to let you print edge to edge ruled or graph paper straight from the printer's interface... but it only prints from tray #1, so you best not have 4x6 photo paper in there, and you can't have small photo paper in tray #2. Also along the same vain, some reports like network status only print from tray #1. This could be fixed in a future firmware upgrade, especially since the Copy feature from the printer does let you select your paper tray. On the software side... from your computer you can select to either print from tray #1, tray #2, or tray #1 and the #2 if empty. This covers most bases and works for me (I can just print docs from tray #2 and photos from tray #1), but it would be nice if I could say print from tray #2 first and tray #1 if empty. This minor gripe could also be fixed with a future driver update.
The second con is, that if you want to scan to your computer you have to either 1) Be connected via USB and you can use either the software or the printer interface OR 2) Be connected wirelessly, but you need to use the software interface since the printer can not automatically find your computer on its own. This again is a minor issue for me since the printer is close to the one PC I'd scan from regularly, but if it were far away it could be inconvenient to have to load the scanner at the printer and then trek back to start the scan from the PC and not be able to monitor it's progress.
The only other con I could find is, the default touch screen beep confirmation is slightly loud, the quieter option is an annoying sound, leaving silent "beep" as my choice... although the default beep is pleasant enough if the noise wasn't an issue.
Okay enough complaining on with the pros...
PROS:
+ This thing is fast... full page photos at a reasonable speed and regular text at near reckless speed.
+ The ink supplies are easy to install and relatively huge so less frequent refills.
+ Each ink color is separate, I always hated having to replace a tri-color cartridge after a big print project with one predominate color.
+ Wireless network setup is a breeze.
+ All the main scan/copy/fax/print features are available wirelessly... older all in ones only supported wireless printing.
+ The touch screen is responsive and only the relevant options appear or light up, making usage a breeze.
+ Huge paper capacity for an inkjet... 250 sheets in each tray, 500 sheets total.
+ Two sided printing and scanning.
+ 30 page auto document feeder that takes legal size sheets.
+ The automatic document feed folds away which keeps dust out of it.
+ No more straight through paper feed like older Epsons.
+ The ink is dry as soon as it comes out. Even when I printed a really color saturated photo where it was dark it felt slightly damp, but didn't smudge or transfer to my fingers.
+ Direct wireless printing from an iPhone (or similar) device using the Epson iPrint App. The WorkForce 840 wasn't listed in the App description in the app store, but it showed up instantly as such when I launched the app. Oh but this is another time when the paper trays could be an issue... it only prints from tray 1.
+ Almost every utility has easy or advanced modes so if you just want to scan or print you don't need to know all the technical aspects of it, but if you do know exactly what you want you can get to it fairly easily.
+ Need ruled or graph paper... no problem, just select from the printer's menu and viola, instant paper.
+ All varieties of memory card and direct print options.
I really could go on, it's a beautiful machine and would work well in an office or a busy home. One other thing to note is that the Epson WorkForce line of printers unlike the Epson Artisan line (like the Artisan 835 for example) doesn't have CD/DVD printing and it uses 4 colors of ink rather than 6 (this means less consumables to buy and keep track of in exchange for wider color range, but it really isn't noticeable for most business use). And on the other hand, the Artisan 835 doesn't have as much speed or capacity (in terms of paper storage, trays, ink, and more). So if you need the direct disk printing then you pretty much have to go with the Artisan, but for everything else I'd stick with this model.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Epson WorkForce 840 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I decided to get the Epson Workforce 840 for home use even though it is marketed as a business printer. The reasons were that my 13-year old fax machine was well on its way out and that my regular Canon photo printer (a Canon PIXMA iP4700) was at times driving me insane with the time it took to warm-up after I initially turned it on. And even though I am highly satisfied with my dedicated Canon CanoScan 9000F Color Image Scanner, there were many times I wished it had an automatic document feeder something the Workforce 840 provides (30-sheet capacity for letter/A4 formats, 10 sheets for legal-size sheets).
So here is my assessment of the Workforce 840:
The entire device feels well-built, even though I am not a fan of the 4-part slide-out receiving tray (where the prints are ejected to) it just feels a bit wobbly but that might well be subjective as I have not had any trouble with it as of yet.
Printer setup was easy although it took a bit longer than with regular printers, mainly because of the wireless setup and the software installation. I set it up on a Vista 64-bit desktop, a Vista 32-bit notebook, and a Win 7 Starter Netbook. All setups completed without any problems.
The functionality of the Workforce 840 is top notch:
* Can be operated wirelessly, through a wired Ethernet or a USB connection
* Scanning from PC both through the Epson Scan software (one can specify which folder to make the default scan-to location) as well as through other TWAIN-enabled applications
* Scanning to PC (images are by default stored in the main drive's Pictures folder but the location can be changed through the Epson Event Manager which sits in the PC's System Tray)
* Scan to PDF (default scan-to location again is the main drive's Pictures folder; change through Epson Event Manager)
* Scan directly to email
* Option to scan/copy/fax letter, A4 and legal-sized sheets, even two-sided, with the automatic document feeder (Note that legal sheets can only be scanned/copied one-sided!)
* Two paper cassettes with a 250-sheet capacity each, and the Workforce 840 can even handle paper sizes up to 8.5" x 44"
* There is a function on the touch screen panel to print out various ruled papers pretty cool!
* Add to that the possibility to use various memory cards (some of those require adapters) through a convenient slot at the front of the printer to directly print pictures from or scan to those cards as well as PictBridge capability, and it really doesn't get much better than this.
I particularly love the big and well-lit, tilt-able touch screen panel it is very well organized and not confusing, enabling the user to get going quickly without having to consult the manual too much (or at all, depending on how familiar a user is with such menus in general).
No USB cable is supplied with the Workforce 840 but Epson recommends using one for the initial setup of the wireless connection. But that's only because one must enter the wireless network's SSID and password in order to establish the connection a bit tedious with the printer's touch screen but doable. I did not use a cable and did not run into any trouble during the process.
Printing is also incredibly fast. The quality of the prints looks ok to me when printing documents, the quality of photo prints is definitely not as good as with my photo printer but that is to be expected. The same goes for scans generated with the Epson. While these are fast, the scans I get from my Canoscan 9000 are better but dedicated printers/scanners address very different needs than all-in-ones which must find a balance between different functions, speed and quality.
As it stands I am more than happy with the Epson Workforce 840 it does a great job all-around and is incredibly easy to use something I did not expect from such a device. I recommend it without any reservation.
