Epson Small-In-One Printers: great printer for the small where you don’t print lots of pages but lots of pretty.
What is a Small-In-One?
Epson’s Small-In-Ones are compact inkjet printers. What makes it compact is the control panel and the output tray flip out when you print.
When not printing, the printer is a perfect tight rectangle which makes it ideal for tight desks and the top of the filing cabinet.
The model I’m testing is an XP-830. XP in the Epson world, stands for Expression Premium. This model is designed for printing on multiple sizes and formats (CDs, envelopes, high quality paper). And prints beautifully on matte, bright white and glossy paper. I haven’t tested the CD printer (just can’t find a reason to print on CDs anymore, one day maybe).
To get the Small-In-One form, the trays are packed in and a bit finicky to refill. Definitely not designed for high volume printing as the main tray capacity is only 30 pages.
Installing and Setting Up
Installing and Setting up the Small In One is not easy if you’re used other printer manufacturers. I mainly work with Brother and HP printers (ideal for offices doing up to 5000 prints a month). The Epson is quirky, you have to do the first configuration before putting in the ink cartridges.
The XP-830 can be installed via USB (cable not included), WiFi and wired networking (RJ-45 cable not included).
Initialization took 7 minutes. I installed the printer on my WiFi from the printer control panel. You can install on WiFi from the software setup. Software installation took about 15 minutes.
And just when you think you’re ready to print, then the setup prompts you to install a firmware update. That only took about 5 minutes. It’s worth doing as the firmware helps protect the printers from hackers and adds functionality. Firmware update took about 10 minutes.
Label Annoyance
One problem with the Epson 830 is that it assumes the only labels you want to print are CD/DVD labels. No matter what tray you select in Word, it defaults to the CD tray. My workaround was to create the label sheet, save it as a PDF and then print it in Adobe Reader.
Envelope Please
Another irritation is the limit on the envelope size you can print. Only Size 10 envelopes are supported even though the tray can handle smaller sizes. Microsoft Word is largely at fault here, Word won’t recognize a smaller envelope size. Still haven’t figured out a workaround for this (don’t have time to try WordPerfect or some other program).
Epson Small-In-One Printers
Epson Small-In-One Printers: small footprint and designed for small/home office where you don’t do a lot of printing. Or you want a printer for pictures. It will be interesting to see how long the pop out output tray lasts. Otherwise the hardware is solid. Also comes with SD card slots and USB slot. I got the XP830 for just under $100.
