Laser printers are still the best option for primarily text and straight lines. They have a cleaner, crisper look to documents without as many gradients and little details. I suspect this won’t be as important for most home printers, where variety and image quality matter more than perfect serifs.

Where color laser printers I tested ran about three or four seconds per page in black and white, the EcoTank was more like six per page, right in line with full color ink cartridge printers. In the small numbers the Epson’s tray can handle, that probably won’t feel all that bad, but it might start to wear on you if you regularly print 50-100 pages at a time.

When printing wirelessly, there’s sometimes a substantial delay of 30-45 seconds between hitting the print button and the printer actually starting up. This is my biggest complaint about the EcoTank, and even printing multiple times a day, I often wonder if I sent the command to the wrong printer, or if it needs my attention about something before it can start, only for it to start whirring shortly after.

Printing Is About Trust

Photograph: Brad Bourque

Printer makers are increasingly concerned with locking you into using first-party toner using microchips and QR codes, which only serves to raise the price even further. The cartridges that come with printers also sometimes have less ink than replacements, so you may find yourself refilling sooner than later. It’s eroded the trust of the very people who print the most, and enough to send you into the arms of off-brand ink makers with inconsistent quality.

With an ink tank printer, it feels like there’s a handshake agreement between you and the manufacturer that nothing scummy is happening. You can watch the tanks fill when you set it up, and see them slowly drain over time while you print. While you should probably use the manufacturer’s ink for the best results, there’s no path here for the company to force it. It’s just ink, and both you and the company know you can just as easily buy liquid gold elsewhere.

While the Epson EcoTank ET-2980 might be more expensive than similar cartridge printers upfront, the savings are significant, and they won’t take long to feel. Particularly if you don’t trust printer makers because you’ve been burned by lousy cartridges and shady practices, you’ll rest easy knowing you’re getting your money’s worth. Everything else didn’t give me a headache, which can’t be said of every printer in my home at the moment.