Epson EcoTank Printers Ditch Cartridges

[Ken Lee]

See http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489049,00.asp

I hope this is the beginning of a new trend: no more printer cartridges cluttering up landfills.

Perhaps enough people discovered the advantages of 3rd-party inks and refillable cartridges. Whatever the reason, I hope it drives down the cost of ink and still proves rewarding to the manufacturers.

[Tin Can]

Fantastic!

[jon.oman]

This is good news!

[DKirk]

Been out since September-ish 2014 here - in part a marketing strategy to balance against HP's instant ink promotion. Will be interesting if they expand it, but don't hold your breath. . .

[Jerry Bodine]

Maybe my arithmetic skills are fading, but I wonder about Epson now too. About $13 for individual bottles, but $59 for a set of what appears to be 4 bottles in the pics (CMYK?). 13 X 4 = 52, not 59. Somebody 'splain that? Am I missing something?

[Jim Jones]

Amazon has the set of four 70ml bottles for $33.46, http://www.amazon.com/EPSON-Original-Refill-T6641-T6642/dp/B00NUXE7H6/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1438867636&sr=8-9&keywords=epson+ecotank and individual bottles for 12.50. Amazon charges $53 to $60 per complete cartridge for my Epson 3800, but I get 10ml more ink.

[B.S.Kumar]

They were first introduced in SE Asia in 2011 or so, and have been available in India a year after that.

Kumar

[koraks]

We're currently seeing the move away from laser/toner-based printing towards inkjet in applications where laser ruled supreme only a few years ago. Bringing down the costs of consumables is a necessity.

Laser is on its way out. The offset printing market is being nibbled slowly but surely by inkjet-based production printing. While us, regular consumers, have little awareness of it, the world of printing is on the verge of a revolution.

[philipus]

Can these printers print photos well?

[Oren Grad]

The EcoTank series appears to use dye-based inks with relatively poor image stability:

http://wilhelm-research.com/epson/WIR_Epson_L355_and_L800_2014_10_10.pdf