Epson has just launched its EcoTank series of all-in-one inkjet printers, comprising five models with one primary thing in common: the use of refillable ink tanks instead of ink cartridges. Epson’s banking on the "ultra low-cost" of replacement ink and the "super-high capacity" of the ink tanks as the main advantages over your usual ink cartridges.
Case in point: the ET-2500, ET-2550, and ET-4500 model printers are rated for 4000 and 6500 monochrome and color page prints, the equivalent of "20 ink cartridge sets". The more expensive ET-4550 boosts those figures to 11,000 and 8500, respectively, while the flagship Workforce Pro WF-R4640 can do a staggering 20,000 each.
The replacement ink comes in the form of user-friendly squeeze bottles, costing $13-20 USD each for black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. The $39 needed to refill one of the bottom three EcoTank printers is lower than the $60+ for a typical set of ink cartridges. The exception is the WF-R4640’s larger ink bags, at upwards of $99 per color, but that’s already an expensive device by design.
Naturally, Epson’s EcoTank models carry premiums over their more conventional counterparts. $380, $400, $430, $500, and $1,200 are the current going rates for the ET-2500, ET-2550, ET-4500, ET-4550, and WF-R4640. One could say that the ink tank system, if it really lives up to Epson’s hype, might make these prices worth it, as these printers may cost far less over the long term compared to a cheap ink cart-toting model.
