For quite some time now, companies have been looking for ways to use less ink to save money. At the same time, they still need their copiers and printers to look professional and be able to perform a wide variety of functions. Thankfully, there is a solution that brings all of this into focus. Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 is a wide format office printer that prints at A3+ (up to 13″ x 19″) size. It has the ability to print from smartphones and tablets over Wi-Fi or Ethernet networks. The EcoTank Pro ET-16600 is a worthy competitor to the big players, but there are some things you should know before you buy.
This blog is about the Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 wide-format all in one Supertank office printer. Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 is an excellent device for any business due to its versatility and efficiency. If you need a workhorse printer to help you handle a heavy workload, you should consider buying this printer. This printer is big, fast, and well built to print any large format documents without jamming or slowing down after long periods of usage.
Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 Review
The EcoTank Pro ET-16600 is a professional quality all-in-one printer that offers fast monochrome and color printing and high-capacity ink tanks that eliminate fussing with cartridges. The printer is designed for businesses looking for reliable, comprehensive documentation output, heavy-duty production environments, and applications requiring photo-quality output. This printer has a copier, scanner, and fax capabilities too. You can get more work done around the office in less time and do it all for less cost with the Epson EcoTank ET-16600. The wireless connection allows for easy sharing of your work, and it offers a fast printing speed of up to 25 pages per minute (Epson claimed).
If you are looking for a photo-class printer ink system that can print borderless photos and high-resolution documents, then this Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 is worth checking out. Imagine being able to print everything you need when you need it. No worrying about running out of ink or sitting around waiting for it to dry. You could print as much or as little as you like and run your business without limits. That’s the promise made by Epson with the ET-16600 EcoTank Pro wide-format office printer. This all-in-one might not be for everyone, but it will save you time, energy, and money for those who print a stack of documents every day.
Design
The ET-16650 is part of Epson’s EcoTank Pro Business printer series and is a high-end model in that line. While its trays are closed, the ET-16650 measures 13.8 x 20.3 x 19.7 inches and weighs 46.1 pounds. Its compactness and light weight also place it among many other wide-format competitors, especially given that most don’t support super tabloids. For example, the Brother MFC-J6945DW is a little taller and more extended and weighs about seven pounds more than the Epson.
Exceptional Printing Quality
The company’s EcoTank Pro printers use the same PrecisionCore 4S printhead found on Epson’s WorkForce Pro printers, which feature small, dense ink chips with densely clustered nozzles for incredible detail and color accuracy. Almost all inkjet printers today churn out decent output, but few, in particular when graininess and detail are closely scrutinized, perform this well.
Even with the smallest font we tested, 4 points, this printer easily rivals laser printers in text quality. Therefore, it is more than adequate for business documents. Moreover, the graphics and handouts we printed came out without glaring errors. We did not see any unwanted color shifts, and details such as hairlines less than 1 point all looked the same from end to end. Our discovery of minor banding on a few dark fills and gradients came only when we examined the output closely, looking for specific types of ink distribution errors. Our focus is on minor mistakes.
The ET-16650 also prints good photos. It supports borderless printing up to tabloid size, unlike the HP 750dw and Epson WF-C8690, to create professional-looking marketing materials directly from your printer. Using bleeds creatively lends a document a more professional appearance. Consequently, we have no complaints regarding the ET-16650.
Print Speeds
Epson rates the ET-16650 at 25 letter-size pages per minute, or ppm, which is moderate for a midrange all in one. We printed 12 pages of Microsoft Word three times in the first round of tests and then averaged the results. We clocked the ET-16650 at 27.5ppm, or 2.5ppm faster than Epson’s rating. That’s 9.2ppm faster than Brother’s MFC-J6945DW, 0.8ppm slower than the Epson WF-C8690, and 8ppm behind HP’s 750dw.
During the next test, we timed the ET-16650 while it chewed through a bunch of business color documents. We then combined this value with the output from printing the 12-page text document to obtain an average of 17.9 pages per minute. In these tests, the ET-16650 outperformed every model except its WorkForce Pro counterpart, which beat it by 0.8ppm or by a sufficient margin to be considered a tie.
As a final test, we did a timed and averaged test of the ET-16650’s performance at printing our color, busy 4 x 6-inch snapshots. Compared to the printers mentioned above, it achieved a score of 11 seconds for each.
Operations
On the control panel, you will find a 4.3-inch touch screen and some hard keys. It is more like the control panel of a standard office copier. From my experience, combining hard and soft keys creates the best layout. You can restrict access to control panel functions via passwords and user codes. You can also restrict access to USB ports and print jobs for security reasons.
The layout of functions is good overall. There are no cluttered screens, and there are no hidden advanced settings either. The loading of paper is simple. As opposed to the non-pro series, the cassettes do not have a folding rear. This is a matter of preference rather than criticism. The rear tray can be folded up when not in use.
The process of loading ink is very simple. Plugging it in is all you have to do. Additionally, it can copy ID cards, do 4-up copies, reduce shadows, and forward faxes. The display brightness is also adjustable. There are so many times I wish a copier had an option to adjust the display’s brightness when it’s glaring or reflecting.
Advanced Features
There are several ways to scan and print documents. Users of mobile devices can either use apps or automatic drivers to scan and print documents. When you use AirPrint or Mopria print service, the drivers will be automatically installed on your smartphone, tablet, Chromebook, or Mac. The print service is also available for PCs, but Epson print drivers are recommended. It is recommended anyway as part of the setup utility.
Epson print drivers are well worth examining. They come with a lot of nice features. The preview feature lets you see the output before you print it. You can create a single print job by combining multiple files. PDFs, Word docs, or JPEGs can be arranged to print the way you want them. This feature will enhance barcodes, shipping labels, or QR codes. Additionally, it will also enhance the text and thin lines.
Printers and scanners are available from Epson through two different apps. With iPrint, you can perform basic scanning and printing functions and push scans to the cloud. An additional Epson application, Epson Creative Print, is designed for basic image marking, editing, and sharing on social media platforms.
You can scan a USB flash drive, email, folder, web service, or cloud with Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600. It includes a searchable PDF. It can also scan originals up to 11×17. Scanners are included with Smart Scan software. During scanning, it will prompt you at every step. Unlike expensive document management software, it does not have archiving and retrieval capabilities. However, it makes acquiring and sending images quick and easy.
Connectivity
Considering the ET-16650’s many interfaces, it is unlikely that there will be any device that cannot connect to it in some way, whether laptop, desktop, or handheld. In addition to Ethernet, the hardware interfaces include USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, and Bluetooth BLE. The latter two allow you to connect your smartphone and tablet to the printer on a peer-to-peer basis without them or the printer being part of the same network.
Epson offers a variety of mobile connectivity options. Apple AirPrint and Mopria are among the other mobile connectivity options available, as are many others, including Email Print, Remote Printer Driver, Scan to Cloud, and more. For printing and scanning directly from iOS and Android devices, you can use the Epson iPrint Mobile App.
What We Like
- Unlimited ink for two years
- Exceptional print quality
- Low operating costs
- Auto duplex printing
- Print up to 13″ x 19″
- ADF
- This box of ink contains a lot of pages
- Registration includes a two-year warranty
- A wide range of options for mobile connectivity
What We Don’t Like
- An expensive purchase price at first
Note: Epson provides incredible performance while delivering unbeatable costs per page. The printer itself does not only offer excellent quality but also offers an impressive list of features for a mid-range all-in-one laser printer.
Final Words
Overall, the Epson EcoTank ET-16600 is an excellent printer for office use. It’s dependable and easy to use. Plus, you won’t have to worry about replacing cartridges anymore once you get your hands on this machine. We hope that this Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 review helps you choose this printer. If nothing else, we hope that you had better understand the benefits of this fantastic printer. The Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16600 is worth the price with all of these features and more. Many people agree that the purchase price does not reflect the value received from having such a wide format, high resolution, exceptional quality printer. This is as quiet as it gets!