Whether you are a student or a businessman, you will always need to print emails and documents in the best possible manner. This is where things get tricky. You have to find a printer that does not consume much of your time and energy as well as money for every single mission. The Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 monochrome printer combines wireless and long-lasting ink in a compact size. This feature-rich printer boasts an excellent print quality, excellent speed, and many other impressive features that make it ideal for home or small office use. You can print on your own schedule without spending more on ink cartridges and save up to 75 percent of the cost of ink cartridges with the ET-M1170 printer from Epson. This is unique as most printers require you to replace the whole cartridge at a time when only one color runs out. The Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 is a monochrome wireless inkjet printer that can print up to 6,000 pages without buying new ink tanks.
You are probably here to find out if this printer is worth the hype. We hope to answer all your questions in this Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 review. There is a lot of information about this printer online, but most of it is just a bunch of ambiguous hype about how great it is. Luckily, we have taken the time to research this printer to give you an honest review.
Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 Review
The Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 printer is a wireless inkjet monochrome laser printer designed for home users and small businesses, and people who print infrequently. Epson’s ET-M1170 monochrome Supertank printer is designed to produce crisp, professional-quality prints at up to 20 ppm. It has an auto two-sided printing capability that is perfect for any regular work. It’s an interesting combination of features, including everything from low-cost ink replacement bottles to real-time print status information via its accompanying mobile app, ensuring minimal hassle and getting more from the device. We’ll take a detailed look at it in this Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 review.
Monochrome printers are used in offices and households around the world. Most people use them to print standard documents like spreadsheets, accounting records, and emails. But you can also use a monochrome printer for printing photographs. Printers designed for this purpose can cost thousands of pounds from High Street photographic suppliers. Still, if you do not want to spend so much money on an expensive printer, then Epson EcoTank ET-M1170, a new monochrome Supertank printer, is a much more affordable option.
Although this is a monochrome printer, Epson has added some exciting features like borderless printing, smart paper support, and cloud printing to help give it a few features traditionally reserved for color printers. All in all, we really liked the ET-M1170 printer. It offers a lot of value at an affordable price, and if you’re looking for a good monochrome printer, the Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 is definitely worth checking out.
Design: Our Score 7.0/10
EPSON produced three different monochrome EcoTank inkjet printer models ET-M2170, and ET-M3170, including the ET-M1170, as standalone or print-only printers. The ET-M2170 and the ET-M3170 are all in one.
The ET-M1170 is very small and takes up little desk space with dimensions of 13.7 x 14.8 x 5.9 inches and a weight of 12 pounds. In order to print documents from your computer or mobile device, you have to use the ET-M1170 printer. The printer has a simple control panel, even for this size device. It has a built-in website that lets you monitor consumables, publish usage reports, and more. Epson calls it the Embedded Web Server.
In addition to a main 250-sheet tray in the front of the ET-M1170, there is a one-sheet override tray at the back. With a recommended monthly print volume of 1,500 pages, the ET-M1170 has a maximum monthly duty cycle of 20,000 pages. The duty cycle of the WF-M5299 is lower than half of the duty cycle of the HL-L2370DW, which prints 5,000 pages per month more.
Printing Seed & Quality: Our Score 8.5/10
This Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 is equipped with a point and print system. It is possible to print from most devices as soon as they are on the same network. The printer is capable of printing 20 pages per minute. Together with a rapid first page out time, this printer seems extremely fast. However, printing two sided or printing photos in high resolution will slow it down. Overall, it offers excellent quality. The only downside is that it does not print in color. The halftones look better than those on laser printers. Graphs, maps, and other graphics will also look much better.
Paper loading is a strong point for Epson printers. That is also true for this model. It has a foldable cassette on the back. Unlike loading paper by hand, this is an easy and efficient process. That’s a considerable improvement over most inkjet printers. Epson invented folding down one end of their cassettes, which is a feature common to laser printers.
You can trivialize simple tasks like adding ink or paper easily. Nevertheless, these are the simple tasks end-users need to accomplish when using a printer. Having a printer that seldom needs ink, is simple to add paper too, and is easy to operate can contribute to overall satisfaction.
Excellent PrecisionCore Text and Graphics
Compared to laser competitors, the ET-M1170 and its AIO contemporaries have several advantages, such as superior grayscale graphics and output that the average laser machine cannot compete with, which is certainly the case here. The test handouts, full-page graphics, as well as the handful of photos and snapshots printed were in excellent detail, showed appealing gradients, and had rich backgrounds.
A majority of businesses purchase monochrome printers for printing text, which laser printers excel at. The ET-M1170 is no exception. Our test documents produced crisp, clear, and legible text down to about 5 and 6 points, which is more than sufficient for business documents.
Operating Costs: Our Score 8.0/10
Its low operating costs are one of the main advantages of Epson’s EcoTank ET-M1170 printer. The printer is perfect for printing statements, reports, or documents. The Ecotank is the ideal printer for saving money. Buying it once pays for itself in reduced operating costs repeatedly. A supertank printer has a lower total cost of ownership than a laser printer. Laser printers are good for users who print fewer than 200 pages a month. Even so, a supertank class printer can still offer some savings over standard models.
Additionally to its outstanding print quality, the ET-M1170 offers a low cost per page (CPP) of 0.3 cents. You really can’t do any better. When you consider the ET-M1170’s very low power consumption and the high power consumption of laser printers, you will notice that it is considerably more efficient than an average laser printer.
Furthermore, you get 6,000 pages of ink with the ET-M1170 (500 pages a month for one year). There’s a good chance you won’t buy any ink for a while.
Apps for Printing: Our Score 8.0/10
With AirPrint and Mopria compatibility, the EcoTank ET-M1170 provides point-and-print functionality for most mobile devices. You can print from your Mac or Chromebook in no time. These drivers are ideal for routine documents that have simple instructions to print. However, they don’t function without a computer. More accurately, they are universal drivers that do not require a computer. In this regard, they are effective. However, Epson offers proprietary drivers for more complicated documents.
The Epson printer driver is proprietary. However, it has a lot of features for a proprietary driver. These include bar codes, text enhancements, and previews. When your shipping labels have unreadable bar codes, the bar code feature will make them readable. This will also work for QR codes and bar codes, naturally.
You can preview the output before printing with the preview feature in the driver. Slide the contrast and gamma sliders to see how they affect the output. Check the effects before printing by enabling or disabling the enhancements. Despite only printing in grayscale, the EcoTank ET-M1170 is still a useful printer. You don’t have to print multiple pages to figure out what setting you need.
Many brands have their own print applications. Epson’s is no different. It’s easy to install and print from it. Due to the fact that the ET-M1170 is a Black and White printer only, I have an alternative recommendation. You should install the Mopria Print Service App rather than Epson’s. Since it is compatible with almost every modern printer, you will get more use out of it. With this application, you are able to set up and print to any Mopria-compatible printer. This replaces several printer apps.
Versatile Connectivity: Our Score 7.5/10
Business-oriented printers like the ET-M1170 offer standard connectivity. Wireless 802.11b/g/n, Ethernet up to 1000Mbps, USB 2.0 connection to a single PC, and Wi-Fi direct connectivity are available. This last one makes use of peer-to-peer networking, which allows mobile devices to connect directly to the printer without using a LAN or router.
In addition to Epson iPrint, Apple AirPrint, Epson Remote Print, and Google Cloud Print, you can also use Epson Remote Print. However, this printer does not have USB thumb drive printing capability. Nonetheless, the ET-M1170’s connectivity options should give you enough options for everyone in your small business or home office.
What We Like
- Connectivity options available in a wide range
- Prints with precision core technology
- Excellent ultra-sharp print quality
- Print up to 6,000 pages with the ink bottle
- Exceptionally low running costs
- The box contains a large amount of ink
What We Don’t Like
- It is somewhat slow compared to lasers
Final Words
Ultimately, the EcoTank ET-M1170 is a fantastic step forward in Wi-Fi printing. It’s reliable, consistent, and practical in so many ways. What’s more, it comes from a company that’s already mastered the art of wireless printing with their high-quality Supertank line. So if you have the need for long-lasting wireless printing in a busy office, the ET-M1170 is an excellent choice. Be sure to read our entire Epson EcoTank ET-M1170 review for more details though!