Epson EcoTank ET-2820 review: cheap and cost-effective for home printing

Table of Contents
There are plenty of printers out there to pick from, with a range of price points and uses. This time around, I’m testing out the Epson EcoTank ET-2820, a more budget-friendly printer and implementation of an ink tank device that keeps your printing costs down. This model even keeps the initial cost down to make it an affordable option.
But does that also mean it does the job? Up to a point, it does. For everyday users and at-home solutions, it is a good option, especially when you don’t want to invest in something more than you need and don’t want to go with old-school cartridges. Either way, I put it to the test to see how it fared in this printer review.
- Printer Output: Color
- Printer Type: InkJet (Epson Micro Piezo print head)
- Connectivity Technology: USB, WiFi, Wi-Fi Direct
- Duplex Printing: Manual
The Epson EcoTank ET-2820 provides a very economical home printing solution for those who require just the essential printing requirements every so often. With a cheap initial price and refills, thanks to its bottles, you don’t have to spend a fortune on getting a lot of pages printed.
It does lose out on some quality in the finer details and in photos, but in general, it still has an excellent quality to it for you to get all you need from it. Even filling out your picture frames and any documents, the ET-2820 is a versatile solution with a range of supported papers and connections.
- Very low cost per print
- Great general quality in documents and photos
- Good color range
- Strong paper size support
- Plenty of wireless connectivity
- Slow print speeds
- No automatic duplex printing
- Loses quality in photos and small details
Box contents and setup
Opening up the printer box reveals the various components you get with the unit. You can expect to find:
- 4 x 65ml individual ink bottles (Bk, C, Y, M)
- Main unit
- Power cable
- Setup guide
- Warranty document
One of the big things you get with this printer is four bottles of ink that can be used to fill up the tank. Epson claims that it will last up to three years (heavily reliant on your printing habits), so it is an excellent start for your printer without needing to increase costs straight away, replacing the starter ink like some cartridge options do.
There is also plenty of packaging holding the main unit in place, which is good to see. Utilizing both hard foam, a bag covering it, and tape holding it shut means nothing is moving or getting damaged. Seeing as you get quite a bit inside, it’s probably best that nothing is bashing around in there all over the place.
Following the setup instructions for the printer is very simple. The easy-to-follow instructions guide, with details explained in various languages and images portraying what to do, makes it rather hard to mess up. It also gives you the option to use your smartphone or PC to set it up during the process to make it available to the network or device off the bat.
It can take quite some time for the process to complete, though. As with the ink bottles, each one needs nearly a minute to fill up each colored tank, taking a few minutes in total. Then, once those are filled and you turn on the printer, the ink initialization and charging take around another 11 minutes. Even after that, you might need to align the print head too after printing out the test page, so be sure to leave plenty of time and not need urgent printing right away.
Design
The ET-2820 is very much in line with the other Epson printers we’ve looked at previously. It is a black box without too much standing out for it, except for the tank that sticks out and bulges surprisingly far, which breaks up the boxy shape. Even still, with the minimal implementation of an all-in-one printer, it manages to keep its size smaller and less in the way, with dimensions of 375 x 347 x 179 mm and a weight of 4.1kg.
As part of that design, it has a scanner sitting on top, with the ability to copy and scan alongside the usual printing capabilities. The paper trays for those printing are definitely more basic in this model of printer. The input tray extends from the back when unfolded, while still providing you with a paper size slide to adjust. At the front, it’s a simple pull-out tray that can extend a lip to hold the maximum A4 sheets it supports.
As for the controls, they sit on the front panel that can conveniently tilt upwards for a more convenient control standing over the printer. There you’ll find quite an array of controls spread across the whole width, with the rather small 3.7cm screen in the centre below the logo. Even without having a touchscreen, not being a touchscreen has increased the required buttons, but at least they do have some good tactile feedback when using them.
At the rear, apart from the paper tray input, which slopes inward, you can find the connectors, even if there is a sparse number. All you get is a power connector and a USB-B port embedded rather far down the side, halfway in from the cutout at the back, in fact.
Scarring the right side and giving a bit of depth in comparison to the left side, which is flat and featureless, with just a window of a look into the cyan ink tank.
Print results and speed
With the printer all set up, I put it to the test and evaluated its performance in our testing lab. To do that, I ran the standard range of printouts in a queue to assess their accuracy and performance, along with a range on photo paper to see its capability.
From the start, the ET-2820 does a top job of showing off the impressive line control, gradients, and alignment in both color and grayscale. In color, they keep separated without bleeding into each other and fade out well. It did have trouble with the yellow, though, with some spotting in the color.
In grayscale, it does create some fuzziness and spotting as the lines get closer together and fade out. Otherwise, it does a top job keeping the lines intact, even at the smaller text sizes, keeping the words legible.
As for the copy ability of the scanner on top, it keeps the quality of the print, but drops some of the color brightness. The copy has a bit more faded colors compared to the original. It also makes the black gradient purple rather than just a standard black.
It also doubles up as a decent photo printer. Adjusting the print settings to match the glossy, matte, and different-sized papers gives it the capability to print photos on the paper. It does lack some of the extra colors and depth more specialized printers offer, but for home printing every now and then, it does a good job without visible faults.
For the printing speeds of the printer, I ran six pages split across color and grayscale to see how long it takes. In total, it took one minute and 33 seconds to complete the lot. The color prints took between 18 and 27 seconds, as the initial print took some time to warm up and complete, while the black and white options were solidly 9 or 10 seconds each. It’s not the fastest I’ve seen, but it’s still not too slow once it gets going.
Specifications and cost
Printing Technology | Epson Micro Piezo print head |
Maximum Print Resolution | 5,760 x 1,440 DPI |
Ink Type | Ink tank |
Scanner resolution and type | Contact image sensor 1,200 DPI x 2,400 DPI |
Operating Systems | Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later, Windows 10 (32/64 bit), Windows 11, Windows 7 (32/64 bit), Windows 8 (32/64 bit), Windows 8.1 (32/64 bit), Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Vista (32/64 bit), Windows XP Professional x64 Edition SP2 or later, Windows XP SP3 or later (32-bit), Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 SP2 or later |
Dimensions (W x D x H) | 375 x 347 x 179 mm |
Weight | 4.1 kg |
Connectivity | USB, WiFi, Wi-Fi Direct |
Mobile and Cloud printing | Apple AirPrint, Epson Smart Panel App, Epson Connect (Email Print, Remote Print Driver) |
Paper Sizes | A4 (21.0×29.7 cm), A5 (14.8×21.0 cm), A6 (10.5×14.8 cm), B5, B6, C6 (Envelope), DL (Envelope), No. 10 (Envelope) |
Input Paper Capacity | 100 Sheets |
Display | 3.7cm color |
Looking at the full specs of the ET-2820, you can get an insight into its supported formats, systems, and controls. It does keep a good range of connectivity available, especially if you do want wireless availability. Plugging in is a bit more limited; well, you still have USB, but you lack Ethernet options. There is also a limited size support to just the more basic sizes, up to just A4, no large format options available in this one.
For the pricing, the Epson is a rather budget-friendly option. In the UK, it’s available for £249.99, while in the US, its respective ET-2800 is available for $229.99 instead. It has been surpassed by a newer model now, but even still, for an ink tank printer, it is rather inexpensive, especially as it is more cost effective in the long run.
The supposed ink lasts for 4,500 or 7,500 pages for black and color on a full tank. That results in a cost of £0.0019/$0.0036 per black page and £0.0034/$0.0064 for color pages. This is a rather economical solution, especially compared to smaller-sized cartridge options.
Conclusion
- Printer Output: Color
- Printer Type: InkJet (Epson Micro Piezo print head)
- Connectivity Technology: USB, WiFi, Wi-Fi Direct
- Duplex Printing: Manual
Overall, the Epson ET-2820 is a decent home printer. It’s cheap, with inexpensive refills that last for thousands of pages. All while providing a good quality. Of course, you lose out on some of the finer quality, and it misses out on some nice-to-haves like a larger touchscreen, ethernet connectivity, or automatic duplex, but for the price, it’s hard to complain. It even offers great versatility as an all-in-one solution with a large paper format support.