Epson WorkForce ET-4550 Pro Reviews

Like most printers on the market, the Epson ET-4550 forces you to compromise. However, instead of compromising quality for speed, or vice versa, you’re compromising quality and speed for low print costs. For some, this may make sense. But, for those of us who value our photos and documents (not to mention how quickly we get them) more than we value a few extra cents per page, the ET-4550 leaves a lot to be desired.

When Epson first told us about EcoTank, we were thrilled that the company was providing a way to deliver decent per-page ink prices—even if receiving this benefit requires a rather steep up-front investment. Its $499.99 list price is nearly five times the initial cost of the underlying printer! Is this a good investment? If you're reasonably sure you'll use the printer enough to benefit, you bet it is. It could save you hundreds of dollars over the years. That said, we couldn't help but wonder if this might be the flaw in the logic here—will North American customers be able to make that distinction? After all, $400 is a lot of money.We'd also like to point out one more time that putting all this ink in the box does not make the ET-4550 a high-volume printer. If a high-volume printer is what you need, you'll be much better off with the next model up, the $1,199 WF-R4640. Yep, it's pretty steep, but well worth it you need volume. Besides, your CPPs will be even lower, which is important in a high-volume printing environment. If you're closer to the 300 to 400 pages per month range, though, this $500 supertanker just may be the best bargain out there over the long haul.