Epson WorkForce 325

I hope you love buying ink

Based on my extensive research, purchase price aside, the Epson WorkForce 325 All-in-One Printer is THE LEAST economical all-in-one printer on the market in terms of ink use. Lots of better options out there. This one is designed to send you to the store to buy more ink more often than any other all-in-one I researched. See abbreviated list below. I have omitted from the list any printer where cost per page is more than $.04 avg.

results of ink yield (figures based on average page yield vs ink cost between color and BW):

HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus e-All-in-One Printer - A910g
cartridges: HP 940XL
avg $.0315 per page

Brother MFC-6890CDW
cartridges: LC65
avg $.0322 per page

Brother MFC-6490CW
cartridges: LC65
avg $.0322 per page

Brother MFC-5895cw
cartridges: LC65
avg $.0322 per page

Brother MFC-J6710DW
cartridges: LC79
avg $.0333 per page

Brother MFC-J6510DW
cartridges: LC79
avg $.0333 per page

LEXMARK PLATINUM PRO905
cartridges: 105XL/ 100XL
avg $.0432 per page

LEXMARK PINNACLE PRO901
cartridges: 105XL/ 100XL
avg $.0432 per page

Epson WorkForce 840 Color Ink Jet Wireless All-in-One with Fax (C11CA97201)
cartridges: 127
avg $.0438 per page

Epson WorkForce 635 All-in-One Printer
cartridges: 127
avg $.0438 per page

Epson WorkForce 630 All-in-One Printer
cartridges: 127
avg $.0438 per page

Epson Stylus NX625 All-in-One Printer
cartridges: 127
avg $.0438 per page

The list goes on and on but skipping to the bottom of the list. . . The LEAST economical all-in-one printer in my research:
drum roll. . .
The Epson WorkForce 325 All-in-One Printer
cartridges: Epson 125
avg $.0839 per page. Print cartridge print only 230 pgs black or 305 pages color before needing to be replaced.

Great little printer

So far, I am very impressed with this printer. The set-up for wireless took a little doing to understand how to enter the router security codes (repeatedly hitting the letter/number keys cycles through the alphabet for lower and upper case). The manual is a bit vague on this point. Other than that, I am pleased with the performance. It is a good low-level printer for general computer needs (receipts, copies, scans, etc.) I have had it only two months so I cannot comment on longevity of inks (the reason I left HP was the cost and how quickly they use ink). I do like the fact that the color inks are individual so if you use one color predominantly, you need only replace that one color. Programming the logical flow of the printers use is pretty good; I use it with an iMac and, so far, it seems to work fairly well. What took a bit of research was the fact that scanning on an iMac requires one to go to the system preferences screen to select print/fax and then the dialogue for scanning appears. The HP printers gave you a scanning icon that appeared on the desktop. All in all, I still prefer this printer for ease of use, printer quality and cost of inks.

not for me

i called epson support 3 times over 3 days. the helpers tried but were difficult to understand. i was having problems with the fax. i am returning this to amazon today.

Too Noisy for Home Use

Overall, you get what you pay for. It's an average multi-functional machine with some good and some bad points:

Good: Real easy set-up, including the Wi-Fi, which is great since we have 3 laptops and a desktop that uses the printer. Instructions are pretty good and easy to follow, both for set-up and use.

Bad: The noise! - It is way too loud for me. I live in a big apartment and can hear when someone is printing, no matter where I am in the apartment. When sitting at the desktop, it's loud enough that I can't even be near it when I'm on the phone.

Printing - Either it drains ink quickly, or Epson does not fill up these cartridges, because the black ink seems to run out very quickly. I tried switching to `draft' printing, but the quality is so bad that it's not worth wasting the ink doing this. Medium quality printing (black and color) is pretty typical (speed and quality) and if that's all you need it for, then it's ok. I have to print high quality color sometimes, and printing high quality color pages takes about 15-20 seconds per page (I actually timed it). I have to do this a lot, so because of this and the noise, this printer does not work for me and I am taking it back after 2 weeks of use.

Easy Install

Never had experience with installing wi-fi on a network...found this printer to almost install itself! If you can read and follow directions, you can install this printer....Very happy with ease of installation onto my network, and with the quality of printing...it's a little noisy, but for the price, I am very happy!

Great all-in-one.

Easy to install the all-in-one. Wireless is a big plus for printing and scanning. The scanning area is a little small, but ok for home use.

Not what I expected

I ordered this printer because it is wireless and was reasonable priced and Epson has a good reputation. I am disappointed in it because it is noisy and slower than the Lexmark I had previously. I wish I hadn't gotten it. I'll go back to a Lexmark someday.

I like this printer, it is better than my old printer.

This printer is much faster than my old HP and prints much nicer. I have not been able to create a wireless hookup yet because I am on mobile broadband. I haven't used all of the features, so I cannot currently give a better review.

Ran it through multiple, rigorous tests. Mostly good results, a few problems. 4-stars

First, having owned & tested many printers over the years, I must admit that I'm partial to Epson - in inkjet home printers, they always deliver tremendous quality for the price, and they seem to last forever (compared to HP, Canon, Brother, Lexmark, etc).

That said, here's a quick lowdown on the company. Epson invented 2 different types of award-winning inkjet technologies, represented in the R-series printers, and C-series printers. The R-series uses 6 colors (instead of 4, the industry standard), and creates vibrant & depthy photos. Also, many R-series printers were designed to print directly onto CDs, which is a nice feature. Unfortunately, Epson seems to be phasing out the R-series.

The other type is the C-Series. It uses 4 colors, the photo quality is comparable to R. But the C-Series ink is archival, durable, and waterproof. My local Epson rep printed a 4x6 photo, and put it in a jar filled with water. The last time I saw it, it had been sealed/soaking for six months, and the photo still looked great.

The C-series seems to have "won" the Epson battle of the inkjet printers, and the Workforce is indeed part of the C-Series (even though the box doesn't say). I wish they would combine the two technologies. Needless to say, photo quality on the Workforce is great, especially when using the correct type of paper (this is very important). Having said that, this all-in-one Workforce has a lot of different functions, some of which worked better than others:

-GENERAL IMPRESSIONS:

Sleek design, nice display. Relatively small footprint

It comes from the factory with full cartridges, which is very nice. Seems to be ink-efficient.

For refills, look up Continuous Ink Systems (CIS). You add it to your printer (after-market) for about $70, you permanently replace the need for standard ink cartridges, and get enough ink to last the average home user about 10 years. Just make sure to get authentic Epson ink, or else you forfeit the advantages of the C-Series printer (archival, waterproof, etc).

Program & drivers are WAY too bulky. And, every time the print driver comes up, it tries to sell you Epson products, which is extremely annoying. I may eventually uninstall this crazy program and find just a barebones driver (on ZDNet, etc).

This has built-in energy efficiency features, which is nice, but I haven't measured it.

The inner workings are fully enclosed, so there is a lower change of dust clogging up the works. If you have pets, use forced air heating/cooling, or live/work in a dusty environment, it's best to cover the printer while not in use. Debris in the jets is the #1 killer of inkjet printers.

-PRINTING:

The sheet feeder is noisy, but there is a quiet mode in the print settings. (very odd - why would this even be a setting? Who would opt for "noisy"?)

Don't use high quality print mode unless using high end photo paper - it will bleed a bit. The photo paper "soaks" up the ink better, creating a depthy photo image. Regular paper cannot soak up the ink. Just use regular print mode.

I couldn't get draft printing to work! It prints a blank page every time. The recommended fix is to reinstall the drivers, but the program is so big, and it took so long to set up, I'll just live without.

Print speed is fast, for just normal b/w print jobs. I haven't compared it back-to-back with other printers, and these new ISO standards don't mean that much to me.

-COPIER FUNCTIONS:

Copier is 1-touch, color or b/w, very nice. However, it is only 8.5 x 11.

There are only 3 copy quality settings, and the draft mode is almost worthless. So basically you always use medium or high quality, which takes a while (15 seconds per page). Also, since it scans + prints at the same time, you have to hold your object very still while copying.

The copy lid has a 1" hinge, which is nice for copying larger book and 3D objects. However, you MUST put white paper around the borders, or it will print gray or black. This is obviously an engineering error/defect - if the lid isn't touching the glass scanbed, it will print gray, using up your ink, and your print job will take twice as long.

Color copies take longer than I thought they would, but output is excellent on regular paper.

The top-load automatic sheet feeder is absolutely excellent. You can auto-feed up to 30 pages at a time, making home copying much more convenient.

-WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY:

After multiple tries I still cannot get the wireless connection to work. I suspect it has to do with my stupid AT&T 2Wire modem - the printer seems to been a WEP password to connect to my network, which is not how the 2Wire is set up.

The printer does allow printing direct from mobile devices, which I hope to use.

-FAX:

I don't use fax (don't even have a phone line). However, you can easily send faxes directly from your computer. You cannot receive without a phone line.

-BOTTOM LINE:

A fantastic home office copier, print quality is excellent, price point is amazing. Doesn't replace our copier. We will continue using our laser printer for office use. This would be perfect for small home office, photo printing, light copying...even if you don't necessarily need all the functions.

FANTASTIC All-In-One!

I'm a LONGTIME HP user, but when my last HP-PSC died, we did a little research to see if there was another brand just as good, or better. Epson was the one that consistently popped up. The Workforce 325 was the only Epson we found that had nothing but 4 & 5 star reviews, & mine's no exception. First of all you get A LOT of bang for your buck with features & functions (comparable HP's don't come close)! Secondly, the unit looks good-a little larger than I was expecting, but it still fits fine on my printer table.

The MAIN reason I chose this particular one was because just about every review said it was very easy to setup. I'm one of those that no matter how easy it is to supposedly setup, I'm going to have problems. Well, I timed it & in less than an hour, I was up & printing! The step-by-step setup "Start Here" page is great. Just so you know, if you're not wanting to set up the fax machine during the initial setup, just skip Step #6-you can easily do that later.

We only had one small hitch in the process where the instructions were just a little confusing. For us, that came on Step #7-Choose Your Connection: wireless or USB cable (we wanted wireless). Please know that no matter which option you choose, you WILL NEED a USB cable for the initial setup-the one from my old printer is what we used. I recommend that if you have a wireless network already up & running in your house, choose the wireless setup option (you can use the USB cable for printing if you lose your network or cable connection). Put in the software CD & when asked about your connection type, choose wireless (don't ask me why, but we got confused here & initially chose USB & had to start over). After that, the on-screen prompts were easy to follow & the software installed easily. The Hardware Installation Wizard popped up & you'll have to jump through those hoops to get your computer to recognize the printer (which mine did). After that, when it came time for the printer to connect to our wireless network, we kept getting a message saying something like "Printer not found. Check USB connection & try again." The hardware installation was successful, so we were at a little bit of a loss. We went through that 2 or 3 times before we got the idea to turn off the printer, & then turn it back on. We tried again, & our network found the printer! After that, you are prompted to disconnect the USB cable & the printer will print wirelessly. My understanding is that you will have to go through the same process on each computer in your home that you want to connect to the printer via Wi-Fi.

The print quality is GREAT! The Epson Easy Photo Print software seems to work fine. The copier works GREAT in color & B&W! The scanning software doesn't seem to work properly (I'm sure it was my installation error), but I can still scan by going through the Control Panel > Scanners and Cameras > EPSON Workforce & then the Scanner Wizard opens up-I'm going to keep working with it. I don't scan that much anyway. The paper feed is a little loud, but it's something I will get used to. I've got a fax machine if I need one. The only other thing is to wait & see how long the ink cartridges last. I use the draft setting for most everything, so I'm hoping they last a while. I do recommend this printer & I hope this review is helpful to others.