I purchased an Epson 2850 last year to replace an HP ink jet printer.
HP printers are workhorses - they last forever and just keep working. But they are expensive to feed - it costs almost as much to replace the ink cartridges as it does to buy a new printer. A big part of the reason for that is that the cartridges include the ink valve and print head, so they are critical components in the printing functionality. I tried using Staples house-brand cartridges, and they didn't work very well - and Staples eventually discontinued them for that reason. So as a result, you are really locked into using HP-brand cartridges, and that's obviously where they make their money. Just like the classic Gillette razor business case.
I had been looking at Epson 'eco-tank' printers for some time, and when I bought a new computer in 2021, I interrogated the technician at Staples about them. He said that he had initially been hesitant but came across a situation where he was given an employee-only offer that he couldn't refuse, and that he had been quite surprised at how good the printer seemed to be.
So when I depleted the cartridges in my HP last year, I made the leap. The Epson 2850 is not inexpensive - you can buy other brands for a lot less. But the economic advantage is that they hold a lot of ink, and you buy replacement ink in bottles rather than proprietary cartridges that include components that are critical to the printing process. A full set of Epson inks costs about half what a set of HP cartridges cost. We have always used 'draft' mode on our printers to minimize ink consumption, and with the HP printers, cartridges would last 6-9 months. We have had the Epson for 9 months, and the ink level is only down about 25%, so my sense is that a refill will last very much longer than was the case with the HP. So my conclusion is that the cost of running the Epson will be much less than the cost of using an HP even with Epson-brand inks. There are aftermarket inks available from places such as Amazon at prices that are lower than Epson-brand inks. But I'm a fountain pen person who has learned to be careful about flushing between different brands of inks, and I don't know if that's possible with an Epson printer; I suspect I will accept the savings associated with bottled Epson inks rather than risk using potentially incompatible aftermarket brands.
Set up was very easy - all it takes is a smart-phone to set up and program the WiFi connection.
The 2850 can also be used as a copier or a scanner and works quite well in both modes. That said, I find that I have to search for the scanner control app on my computer when I want to scan something - that's me rather than the device - the problem is that I just don't use it in that mode often enough to always remember where the control app is located. Copying can be easily done from the front panel of the printer but that tiny 1" square display is hard to read.
