Slide 2
Slide 3
Slide 4
Slide 5
Slide 6
Previous
Next
The good: The Epson WorkForce 845 excels in print speeds and output quality, with hardware working overtime in autoduplexing, wireless networking, and mobile printing support by way of Epson's suite of Connect mobile printing services.
The bad: Photo print speeds are slightly lower than for the average inkjet, and the packaging doesn't include the USB and Ethernet cables required for a tethered connection.
The bottom line: Though it's slightly more expensive than competing inkjet workhorses, we recommend the Epson WorkForce 845 for its refined design and Epson's Connect cloud-printing portfolio.
The Epson WorkForce 845 is the company's latest flagship all-in-one printer for medium to large offices that need a multifunction device for printing a high volume of documents, photos, and presentations. The 845 serves up plenty of features to assist in the workload--in addition to Epson's standard array of print, copy, scan, and fax functions, this device bundles in triple connectivity options by way of Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and wired networking, as well as double-sided printing, an automatic document feeder for hands-free scans, and a 7.8-inch touch-panel display with intuitive navigation.
The 845 also is stocked with Epson's newest Connect portfolio of mobile printing features, which not only work in conjunction with Google and Apple's cloud printing services, but also include a free iPhone app and Android app as well as the ability to e-mail print jobs to the 845 directly from any device connected to the Web. With all these impressive features in an attractive package, you shouldn't hesitate to pick up the WorkForce 845 for your high-output printing needs.
Design and features
We wouldn't call the WorkForce 845 compact by any means, but we're still impressed that Epson was able to fit all its extra hardware into a manageable 17.6x14.5x11.8-inch package. The whole device with ink and trays installed also weighs a relatively light 22 pounds, so moving it around the office won't hurt too much.
We wouldn't call the WorkForce 845 compact by any means, but we're still impressed that Epson was able to fit all its extra hardware into a manageable 17.6x14.5x11.8-inch package. The whole device with ink and trays installed also weighs a relatively light 22 pounds, so moving it around the office won't hurt too much.
Comparatively, the HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus carries many of the same features but weighs 6 pounds more. Of course, that number will certainly go up once you fill the two size-adjustable paper trays that sit at the bottom of the device and can hold a combined capacity of up to 500 pages of standard paper.
The controls sit inside a 13-inch-wide panel that houses the 7.8-inch touch-screen display with a 3.5-inch color LCD inside that helps you navigate through the onscreen menus. Home, Page Forward, Page Back, and Menu navigation buttons are just a sample of the myriad controls available on the machine, and Epson conveniently blacks out the buttons that aren't relevant to the process you're working through, effectively eliminating button clutter and confusion.
The rest of the panel holds two media card slots on the front and a PictBridge-compatible USB port down below for direct printing from your digital camera, although we recommend using Epson's Easy Photo Print software included in the box if you plan to do any image editing. You also get Epson's CreativeZone apps, a scanner app, and the driver disc in the box for managing your photo albums and turning them into creative projects like greeting cards, calendars, and to-do lists. The drivers are compatible with Mac and Windows, and our Windows 7 machine had no trouble running the drivers connected via USB, without any speed bumps in the installation.
The Wi-Fi setup is equally simple; Epson gives you the option to use either a temporary USB proxy or a direct network setup on the touch panel itself. We assume that most of you will prefer the latter since Epson doesn't include a USB cable in the box. Smart setup on the touch panel is a two-part process: turn on the machine and click Network Setting, then designate your wireless network and enter its password, and that's it. The entire setup from start to finish, with a connection established on our lab network, took us less than 2 minutes.
Connecting through Wi-Fi also means you can take advantage of Epson's host of free mobile printing apps that let you print directly from mobile devices. First, the Epson iPrint application for iOS and Android devices enables you to print Web pages, photos, documents, and anything else on a smartphone directly to the WorkForce 845, though we did notice some of our photos got inadvertently cropped from time to time. We wouldn't recommend printing important images like business presentations this way; it's more appropriate for quick outputs of spreadsheets and to-do lists.
Epson also launched its Connect Email Print app at the same time it announced the 845. Connect Email Print lets you send a print job directly to a unique e-mail address assigned to every WorkForce 845 printer. This means you can attach anything to an e-mail and send it to the printer's e-mail address, and the print job will be waiting for you in the output tray when you arrive home. Anyone can use the e-mail address, and we can imagine it could come in handy for remote workers hoping to share information with the home office.
No comments:
Post a Comment