Epson EcoTank ET-2760 Printer – Part 2

Last week we introduced you to the Epson ET-2760 printer. Read Part 1 of our review here.  This was our introduction to the EcoTank system that uses bottles of liquid ink instead of the more common ink cartridges.  Since it’s the whole idea of using bottles of ink rather than cartridges that makes the ET-2760 stand out from every other printer we have ever used, we wanted to do a deep dive into EcoTank concept.

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The Economics of EcoTank Printers

Some may argue that dealing with ink bottles is too much of a hassle.  We were suspicious too. The thought of dealing with liquid ink, potential spills, etc., was a concern. But after setting up the Epson ET-2760, we can honestly say that while it took a few minutes longer than a printer with ink cartridges, it was much easier and cleaner than we expected.  But it’s the economics of the EcoTank system that really impresses us.

Epson boasts that their EcoTank printers come with two-years of ink in the box. Of course, that is an average based on user statistics since they don’t know how much printing someone might due.

But when you look at the cost of ink cartridges vs.EcoTank bottles, the difference is striking.

Here is an actual example.

Earlier this year, we reviewed the Epson Expression XP-6000 printer (read our review here.) This is one of their newer printers and uses Epson 302 standard ink cartridges or 302XL high capacity cartridges.

Based on Epson’s documentation, the 302 Black cartridge will print about 250 pages and each 302 color cartridge will print about 300 pages.  The high capacity XL cartridges will print about 550 black and 650 color pages. The XP-6000 printer also uses a photo black cartridge but Epson did not list yields for that.

You can learn more about how Epson measures ink yields on their web site, here.

Epson recommends that you always use their ink to get the best results from your printer. For the purposes of our comparison, we are only looking at Epson ink.

In checking Amazon, the most economical option for a full replacement of all of the ink cartridges is their multi-pack.  This includes a high-capacity (302XL) black cartridge and one of each color standard capacity (302) color and photo black cartridge. The price for the entire multi-pack is $77.99.

The Epson ET-2760 uses Epson 502 ink bottles.  Based on the same testing matrix, Epson rates the black ink bottle at approximately 7,500 pages and the color ink bottles at approximately 6,000 pages.  It is easy to see that the Eco-Tank printer holds much more ink and therefore will print many more pages before needing to be refilled.

But what about the cost?

The closest we could come to matching the 302 cartridge multi-pack was by purchasing the 502 Combo Pack which has one each of the three color bottles, and adding a single bottle of 502 black ink.

The single bottle of black ink costs $11.30 and the three-color combo pack is $36.80.  That makes the total cost for a full ink replacement $48.10.

So, not only does the 502 ink produce ten times the number of pages when compared to the 302 cartridges, but the total cost is about 40% less.  On a per page basis, Epson estimates that the cost per page using bottled ink is about $0.01 vs. cartridges at about $0.20, and one set of ink bottles, is equivalent to 80 ink cartridges.

Since most used ink cartridges wind up in landfills, the Epson EcoTank system is also good for the environment.

Epson EcoTank ET-2760 Printer – Test Results

We have printed a variety of documents, charts and photos using the Epson ET-2760 Printer and have been satisfied with the results.

The printer produces crisp blacks for crystal clear text and bright colors for charts and designs included on a printed page. The Epson ET-2760 printer also supports duplex printing, although the setting has to be selected in the macOS Printer Dialog box.

The print quality is highly dependent on the paper that was used.  When using lower quality general purpose copy paper, we thought the colors tended to be more muted on the printed page and there was some minor bleed through when doing double sided printing, while using the higher quality Epson Premium Printer Paper made the colors “pop” with less bleed through.

The same was true for printing photos, which looked much better when printed on Epson Glossy Photo Paper.

The front panel has a 1.44” LCD display.  This is used to control functions like paper size, selecting the copy function, etc. as well as machine maintenance like resetting ink levels, aligning print head, etc.  Given the size of the printer we thought the screen could have been a little bigger.  But the information, though small, was sufficient to get us to do whatever we needed so it seems to serve the purpose.

The same was true for the copying function, although most of our copies where of plain documents and we found the difference in output quality didn’t justify the cost of a more expensive paper.

Finally, our testing of the flat-bed scanner function was excellent.  While the printer is a little loud when printing output, we found the scanning function to be so quiet, that we initially thought it wasn’t working.

Epson has included the full set of options that you would expect from a scanner application and provides full control of the desired output. Like the printing function, scanning is wireless, and while you obviously need to be near the ET-2760 to load the pages to be copied, your computer does not need to be.

Epson also provides a remote app that supports remote printing from your iPhone and iPad.  They also offer a remote printing service which allows you to send a print job to your printer via email.  If your printer is not turned on when the job is sent, it is stored in a queue and will print when you next turn on your printer.

The Bottom Line

The Epson ET-2760 Printer is our first experience with the EcoTank line and our introduction to the use of liquid ink in bottles.  While we were skeptical in the beginning, it didn’t take long for us to get won-over.

The EcoTank line of printers tend to be more expensive than some of the cartridge printers we have tested, but that is off-set by the lower cost per page going forward.

The large capacity ink tanks hold so much ink, that we can easily see why Epson says you get 2-years of ink in the box.  For people or small offices that do lots of printing, the ease of use and the economy of the EcoTank system is a hands-down winner.

If you are a homeowner that does a limited amount of printing, you’ll have to decide whether the higher up-front cost is worth it.  We certainly like the EcoTank system over cartridge type printers but we’ll have to see how the EcoTank system stands up over time when there is low use. The Epson ET-2760 has an MSRP of $299.00 but is available at Amazon at a substantial savings.

If you prefer a slightly smaller printer, check out the ET-2720.

Other models are also available with an Automatic Document Feeder.

We would like to thank the folks at Epson for proving an ET-2760 Printer for our testing and review.

What is your favorite type of printer?  What do you think of using liquid ink bottles instead of cartridges?  Why not join the conversation and leave a comment below?

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