You can connect to the printer via Wi-Fi or USB, and it supports Apple AirPrint and Mopria Print Service. When comparing ET-8500 black-and-white prints with those from Canon’s Pro-200, some reviewers felt that there were some images where Canon produced a more truly neutral print, noting that the ET-8500’s print had a very slight cool tint to it, but it depended upon the photo, the lighting, and the media used 7 In general, when producing black-and-white prints, dye inks tend to display much more variability under different lighting conditions than pigments. Overall, while the list of "dislikes" is almost as long as the list of "likes," I really like the Epson EcoTank ET-8550. You can use your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to easily print via Airprint without the need to install drivers or configure the printer queue. It can handle up to 100-sheets of A4 via the standard input tray and up to 50-sheets of A4 via the rear feed.

A driver update in late 2021 apparently changed it to the current set of Draft, Quality and Hight Quality. And it makes me hopeful for a future day when we’ll have true “supertank” photo printers with wide-gamut, 8- to 12-color inksets that have much lower ink costs (and waste) than the ones we have today.The Fujifilm XF 23mm F2 R WR delivers a 35mm full-frame equivalent field of view and stands out due to its small size and weather-resistant build. The optimised resolution is good and high at 5,760 x 1,400 dpi with 180 nozzles per colour and 360 black nozzles putting together very finely detailed pictures. As for the setup process, the hardest part was finding and removing all the tape and bits of packing materials. The pigment black is slightly warm whilst the dye black is not such a good black, in spectral response terms. There’s no Bluetooth or NFC, but there is an SD Card slot alongside a front USB Host port behind that front flap.

ET-8550 users who will print more at 11″x14″ or 13″x19″ will obviously need to replace inks earlier than users of the ET-8500. For example, "Standard Quality" for matte paper is lower resolution than "Standard Quality" for Velvet Fine Art. Epson inks have been developed to work flawlessly with Epson printers to deliver crisp, smudge-proof text that will last for generations.

While it initially seems a bit freaky to be holding an open bottle of ink and inserting it into the appropriate tank opening, it really is a clean operation. You can either follow the step-by-step onscreen prompts, or follow the QR code displayed on screen that takes you to a downloadable Android/iOS app. Fortunately, the issue isn't that greens don't look green or anything like that, but rather, that the saturation of any given color isn't quite accurate.

I also profiled a number of Epson higher-end papers, including Exhibition Fiber and Legacy Fibre, as well as quite a few third-party papers from Red River, Canson, and others. Although there are two more colours than we’re used to, filling the tanks is as straightforward as with Epson’s other ink tank printers. One other thing: if you are printing on matte paper, the only way to get the ET-8550 to use the pigment black ink instead of the photo black ink, is to use Velvet Fine Art (VFA) as the media setting (this does not mean you have to use VFA paper). Its ink tank yields thousands of prints, which leads to a remarkably low cost-per-print and less maintenance.The Claria ET Premium inks used in the ET-8500 and the ET-8550 are a hybrid dye/pigment inkset, of which only five inks print at any one time.