Epson EcoTank ET-2800 Wireless Color All-in-One Cartridge-Free Supertank Printer with Scan and Copy – The Ideal Basic Home Printer - Black, Medium

A month with the ET-2800 in my home office

I picked up the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 as a basic, cartridge‑free all‑in‑one for my home office, where I print a mix of black‑and‑white documents, homework packets, shipping labels, and the occasional photo. After living with it and pushing it through a variety of tasks, I’ve come away impressed by its low running costs and solid everyday output, with a few caveats around software polish, noise, and speed that you’ll want to weigh.

Setup and design

Setup was quick and pleasantly low‑stress. The keyed ink bottles make filling the tanks cleaner than I expected; they fit only the correct color and stop automatically when a tank is full, so there’s no squeezing or guesswork. After filling, the initial ink charge takes several minutes; I let it finish while I installed the driver and the mobile app.

I tried both USB and Wi‑Fi. USB was plug‑and‑print. Wi‑Fi setup through the app worked on the first try on a 2.4 GHz network. The ET‑2800 is compact and light enough for a small desk, with a simple control panel and a basic screen for status and maintenance tasks. As a home unit, it’s minimal: no Ethernet, no automatic duplex printing, and a flatbed scanner without an automatic document feeder. That simplicity keeps cost and size down but also defines who this printer is for.

The EcoTank advantage

If you’re moving from cartridges, the supertank is the story here. Epson rates a replacement bottle set as the equivalent of about 80 cartridges, with up to 4,500 pages of black or 7,500 pages of color under standard test conditions. Even allowing for real‑world variance, it’s a different class of running cost than traditional inkjets. Epson also claims up to 90% savings versus cartridges, and it’s consistent with what I’ve seen so far—my tanks barely moved after the first ream of mixed documents and a stack of 4x6 photos.

Beyond the economics, not tossing cartridges feels good. Supertanks aren’t zero‑maintenance—more on that below—but the reduction in plastic waste is notable.

Everyday print quality and speed

For text, output is crisp, dark, and reliably clean on standard copy paper. Small fonts remain legible, lines are even, and there’s none of the grayness I sometimes see from budget inkjets. Epson’s Micro Piezo heat‑free printhead does fine work in Normal mode.

Color documents look vibrant enough for handouts, school projects, and light home‑office graphics. On plain paper, colors lean a touch to the saturated side in default settings, which helps charts and flyers pop. If you switch to higher quality modes, gradients smooth out and banding (rare in my testing) disappears, but you pay in speed.

Photos surprised me—in a good way. This isn’t a dedicated photo printer, but on glossy photo paper, high‑quality prints are punchy and detailed, suitable for frames and albums. Shadows don’t hold the very deepest detail the way a multi‑ink photo system does, and very subtle skin tones benefit from careful paper and quality settings, but for family photos and crafts, the results are more than satisfying.

As for speed, Epson quotes “up to” about 10 pages per minute. My real‑world numbers were a bit lower: around 8–9 ppm for plain text in Normal, and 4–5 ppm for mixed color documents. A borderless 4x6 photo in high quality took roughly 90–120 seconds. None of that is fast, but it’s consistent, and for the intended use—basic home printing—it’s adequate.

Scanning and copying

The flatbed scanner is straightforward. Single pages scan sharply, and color accuracy is fine for receipts, forms, IDs, and the occasional photo. Copies come out clean, with text well aligned and colors reasonably faithful. There’s no ADF, so multi‑page jobs are manual—fine for small batches, tedious for stacks. If you regularly scan or copy multi‑page documents, you’ll want a model with an ADF.

Software and connectivity

Wireless printing from laptops and phones worked well once configured. AirPrint from iOS and the Epson app both saw the printer consistently on my network. I did run into occasional “paper type mismatch” prompts that paused a job even when the settings looked correct. Tapping through the warning or double‑checking the driver settings (paper type and size) cleared it, but it adds friction.

On Windows, one driver quirk held onto a failed job in the print queue until I manually cleared it. That only happened once, but it’s worth noting. The control panel provides easy access to nozzle checks, cleanings, and paper settings; I ended up using those maintenance tools a few times after long idle stretches, which is typical for inkjets.

Practical tips that helped me:
- Leave the printer powered on; it uses very little idle power and can run light maintenance to keep nozzles clear.
- Print a simple test page weekly if you’re an infrequent user to minimize cleaning cycles.
- Match paper type in the driver/app to what’s in the tray to avoid mismatch prompts.
- Use genuine bottles; the keyed caps reduce spills and prevent cross‑contamination.

Noise and reliability

The printer is audible. In Normal mode, it has a mechanical whir and carriage noise that’s noticeable in a small room. Quiet mode reduces volume but also slows printing further. It’s fine for daytime use, less ideal next to a sleeping space.

In regular home use, reliability has been good. I haven’t had paper jams so far, and nozzle checks have mostly been clean. After a couple of weeks of very light use, I saw a faint band on a color block; a standard cleaning cleared it. Be aware that power cleanings consume a lot of ink; they’re a last resort. If you’re allergic to any maintenance, a laser printer might suit you better, but you’ll give up color photo capability and the super‑low ink cost.

One more consideration: this is not a high‑volume workhorse. Extended runs of hundreds of pages are slow and loud, and consumer inkjets typically have service counters associated with waste ink and maintenance. For a small office that prints continuously, a laser or a higher‑tier EcoTank would be a better fit.

Sustainability and ownership experience

The supertank approach meaningfully cuts plastic waste, and the bottles are easier to recycle than a stack of cartridges. The printer’s “heat‑free” Micro Piezo system also avoids warm‑up, which keeps idle energy use modest and helps with first‑page time in small jobs. Owning it has felt refreshingly low‑touch in terms of ink management; I’m not micromanaging levels or dreading a “magenta is out” surprise mid‑print.

Consumables are predictable: bottles last a long time, and paper quality makes a bigger difference than ink in the look of your prints. If you invest in decent glossy stock for photos and set the driver to match, you’ll get results that look far more expensive than they are to produce.

What it gets right—and what it doesn’t

What I like
- Extremely low running costs and long intervals between refills
- Clean, simple tank refilling with keyed bottles
- Strong text quality and pleasing color on plain paper
- Surprisingly good photos on glossy stock in high‑quality mode
- Straightforward flatbed scanning and reliable copying
- Compact footprint and easy setup

Where it falls short
- No automatic duplex printing
- No ADF for scanning/copying multi‑page jobs
- Audible in Normal mode; Quiet mode slows things down
- Occasional paper type mismatch prompts and minor driver quirks
- Not designed for sustained high‑volume printing

Who should buy it

The ET‑2800 makes a lot of sense for households and students, crafters who want the option to print decent photos, and home offices with light‑to‑moderate monthly volume that value low ink cost and color capability. If you print sporadically, plan on a quick nozzle check now and then, and you’ll be fine. If you print every day but in small batches, you’ll benefit most from the supertank design.

If your needs include automatic duplexing, large scan/copy jobs, or heavy monthly duty cycles, consider stepping up to a model with those features or a color laser. And if absolute photo fidelity is your top priority, a dedicated photo printer with additional color inks will still outshine this in the shadows and in subtle tonal transitions.

Recommendation

I recommend the ET‑2800 for basic home printing and scanning where low cost per page, simplicity, and good everyday output matter more than speed or advanced features. It consistently produces sharp text, vibrant color documents, and surprisingly nice photos on glossy paper, while the supertank system largely eliminates the cartridge hassle and cost. Just go in knowing it’s a single‑sided, flatbed‑only, modestly noisy machine with software that’s functional but occasionally fussy. For the price and running cost, it’s a practical, eco‑friendlier choice that has earned a permanent spot on my desk.