{"id":889734,"date":"2026-09-09T22:28:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/889734\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T22:28:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:28:16","slug":"forget-the-ink-cartridge-trap-embrace-the-tank-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/889734\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget The Ink Cartridge Trap\u2014Embrace The Tank Instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

The kids are back in school. Which means that right about now, many of you are realizing that your home printer is either out of ink or stubbornly refusing to work. According to published reports, September is perpetually one of the busiest months of the year for home printer purchases. And I think I’ve found one model that will sate all of your needs, while lasting beyond the school year. Plus it won’t break the bank.<\/p>\n

If you’ve ever owned any inkjet printers, you know they’re particularly horrific in running dry at the worst possible times. And when you go to replace the toner cartridge, you realize how expensive those cartridges are. In fact, it’s as if the companies deliberately set the printer price low to suck you in, and then stick it to you on the back end with toner prices.<\/p>\n

Epson’s new EcoTank ET-2900<\/a> works just the opposite. It represents the seventh generation of the popular brand’s cartridge-free “supertank” printer line. Unlike all of those inkjet printers, this model uses four liquid ink tanks that should each last about two years without drying up. Trust me, I’ve been using two EcoTank printers for several years, and they’re outstanding. I’ve rarely even had to run the “clean nozzle” function, the ink lasts what seems forever, and the printers work quietly and quickly. I’ve actually never had an issue with them.<\/p>\n

The ET-2900 promises all that for $240 \u2013 which is a relatively low price compared to the rest of the market. The company claims that with the ink bottles, you’ll save up to 90 percent over ink cartridges, as each replacement ink bottle set is equivalent to about 80 cartridges. Each printer comes with enough ink to print up to 3,600 pages of black or 6,500 in color. And refilling the ink tanks is super easy with zero mess or spilling. And because of the way they’re shaped, you can’t mix up the bottles and put the wrong color in the wrong tank.<\/p>\n

This model is whisper-quiet, and prints at speeds of 11 pages per minute for black and six for color. There’s no warmup time. You can put up to 100 sheets of paper in the tray. The high-resolution flatbed scanner works great, in my experience, and there’s a 1.44-inch color<\/p>\n

display to simplify navigation. I’ve also printed out pictures on photo paper that emerged excellently, and of course have also printed throngs of documents so far on it.<\/p>\n

Mine is physically connected to a computer, but I’ve also printed various items directly from an Android phone and an iPhone, through the Epson app. Yes, you can print double-sided if you want. And you can also print or scan wirelessly from a Mac, Windows machine, or Chromebook. It scans at up to 360 x 360 dpi, by the way.<\/p>\n

For me and my small desk, perhaps the best aspect of this printer is its small footprint \u2013 measuring just 14.2″ wide by 12.5″ deep by 6.4″ high, and weighing 9.3 pounds. This printer really should set the benchmark for all others, in terms of reliability, performance, size \u2013 and most importantly \u2013 ink life.<\/p>\n

So go ahead. Let the kids print their 30-page syllabi. There will be plenty of ink for everyone.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on Forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The kids are back in school. Which means that right about now, many of you are realizing that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,308495,308494,227024,308493,61],"class_list":["post-889734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-desktop-printer","tag-ink-cartridges","tag-inkjet-printers","tag-printer-price","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}