Epson Expression Premium XP-810 Pro Reviews

I was disappointed by the cheap feel of the output tray and the pricey bent of the inks on the Epson Expression XP-810. It’s otherwise one of the best consumer printers you could buy, perhaps overshadowed only by its fancier (and higher-priced) cousin, the Epson Expression XP-850 Small-in-One Printer. As noted before, the HP Photosmart 7520 e-All-in-One has cheaper inks, though its photo quality isn’t quite as good.

The Epson Expression Premium XP-810 Small-in-One comes up short on paper capacity, but it delivers all the right features for the dual role of home and home office MFP.

Like the XP-800 before it, the XP-810 is a light, compact, and attractive all-in-one desktop printer. It churns out excellent-looking business documents and photographs, at workable (though certainly not spectacular) speeds, and its copies and scans are above average for an AIO in this price range. As we said about the XP-800 last year, these Small-in-One models are remarkable feats of engineering, but their ongoing cost of ownership, in terms of the cost per page, is steep. So steep, in fact, that we can’t recommend the XP-810 for home-office environments that need to print more than, say, 100 or so pages each month. You can find just too many close-priced machines out there, such as the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus$299.99 at HP (which, at the time of this writing, we found available at several outlets for $230) with substantially lower CPPs. While that OfficeJet Pro is significantly larger and lacking in visual charm compared with this trim machine, it’s also much faster, and it delivers your prints at a far, far lower cost per page. Occasional-use "keeper" photo printing for home users and small offices, on the other hand, is the XP-810’s forte. Our bottom line here is the same as it was for last year’s XP-800: The XP-810 is an excellent printer at a reasonable price for the feature set, but with a vexing dark side. Though it delivers quality prints, it’s not suited as a volume printer. That said, if you don’t mind spending extra for ink and waiting a bit for that glorious output, we can’t think many other reasons not to buy this AIO.