Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4530
MSRP $190.00
“It’s a bit bigger, heavier and more expensive than many home MFPs, but for the value and features of the Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4530, it’s worth the higher price.”
Avg
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Quickly
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Very good print quality
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High copy/scan speed
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High performance inks are not prohibitively expensive
Against
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No card reader
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Larger and heavier than many consumer/home MFPs
While the Epson WorkForce Pro WP-4530 color multifunction printer (MFP) ($300) falls into the business category, it has features that make it a very good choice for many home users, such as a large ink capacity, automatic document feeder (ADF) and double-sided printing—as long as you can make room for a device that’s larger than most printers designed for home use.
Features and design
The WP-4530 is a color inkjet multifunction device with four functions (print, scan, copy and fax). Although faxing has passed its prime, it’s amazing how often it’s still used. Many companies and institutions simply reject any document that is in electronic form.
At 13.4 inches, the WP-4530 is a bit taller than many of the inkjet MFPs we’ve tested. This is due to two aspects of the MFP design. The first of these is that the WP-4530 uses very large ink tanks, which are filled by sliding down the front panel. The XL cartridges cost $25 for color and $39 for black, with estimated capacities of about 1,200 color pages and 2,400 monochrome pages.
The cost per page is significantly less than any laser printer and most inkjet printers.
This results in a cost per page of just over two cents per page in color and about a penny and a half for monochrome. That’s significantly less than any laser printer, and it’s cheaper than most inkjet printers.
The input tray is large, holding 250 sheets – half a stack – while the rear feeder can hold another 80 sheets. The rear feed is also used whenever you use anything other than plain/light white paper in the MFP – changing the paper type in the driver automatically sets the rear input tray. Epson doesn’t offer output tray capacity, at least nothing we could find, but there’s no way it can come close to the 330-sheet combined input capacity, so you’ll have to keep your eyes open during long prints.
Automatic two-sided printing is enabled in the paper feeders as well as in the scanner. The ADF has a capacity of 30 pages, so you can fax, scan or copy long documents and forget about it.
The front panel houses various controls and a 2.5-inch LCD. One drawback is that there is no memory card reader.
As with many MFPs suited for a small office or workgroup, the WP-4530 has excellent connectivity. In addition to USB, Ethernet and Wi-Fi, the WP-4530 also offers remote printing via Epson Connect, AirPrint and Google Cloud Print. This is one of the reasons why an office all-in-one works so well for the “connected” home.
What’s in the box
While the box itself is quite large, the printer is more modestly sized, measuring 18.1 x 16.5 x 13.4 inches, which increases the depth from 16.5 to 25.7 inches with the output tray open and extended. The WP-4530 is a hefty unit, weighing in at 30.4 pounds, but unlike some MFPs we’ve tested recently, it doesn’t take two people to get it out of the box.
Also included in the box are four starter cartridges (1,000 pages black and white, 900 pages color), an AC power cord, and, if you need it, the RJ-11 phone cord needed for faxing. Also included is a small sample paper, a poster to set up, and a quick guide to help you get started. The installation disc contains print drivers for Windows and Mac OS X, as well as a scan driver and ABBYY FineReader OCR software.
Installation and performance
We had no problems setting up the WP-4530. The unit is light enough that we didn’t need two people or a forklift to get it out of the box and onto the table. The most time-consuming parts of the setup are removing the countless pieces of blue tape and preparing the print head, which takes about 12 minutes, during which time you have to be careful to turn off the unit or open the front panel. The firmware update added an additional 10 minutes to the total setup time.
The ability to print quality photos is there if you need it, although Epson doesn’t call this a photo printer.
We were very pleasantly surprised by the printer’s performance. Epson claims the WP-4530 is “the world’s fastest automatic two-sided printer.” That’s a bold claim, but we will say that the printer is fast. Epson rates speeds of 16 pages per minute in black and white and 11 pages per minute in color. We printed our test document, a four-page Word document of mostly black text with a small color logo, at an average of just around 16 pages per minute – confirming Epson’s claim.
One thing that surprised us was the WP-4530’s copy speed. Usually, making one or more copies on an inkjet MFP is an exercise in patience. Not so with the WP-4530. The WP-4530 printed five color copies in less than 10 seconds, even faster in black and white. Now, we wouldn’t recommend making 100 copies of a long report, especially one that contains a lot of color, but for occasional copying, the WP-4530 is just fine. This is also reflected in the scanning and faxing capabilities.
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
The image quality was another pleasant surprise. Printing on a variety of papers, including our everyday HP Office paper and Epson Bright White paper was decently saturated and accurate. The WP-4530 will do a good job on documents containing color graphics, color flyers, brochures, and the like. We also tested image quality using two premium Epson papers – Premium Presentation Paper Matte and Premium Photo Paper Glossy. Printing on Premium Presentation Paper Matte was almost photo quality. And while Epson doesn’t claim photo quality for the WP-4530, our test result on Glossy Premium Photo Paper was excellent, with vivid saturation, excellent detail and very accurate color. If you need really high quality printing, you will have to look for expensive paper. But the photo quality print capability is there if you need it, although Epson doesn’t call this a photo printer.
Conclusion
The WorkForce Pro 4530 is described as a business MFP, but has all the attributes a home user would want. It’s affordable, uses low-cost, high-performance ink cartridges, and does a great job with everyday printing, scanning, and even photo printing. It’s a bit bigger, heavier and more expensive than many inkjet home MFPs we’ve looked at, but for its value and features, it’s worth the higher price.
Tall
- Quickly
- Very good print quality
- High copy/scan speed
- High performance inks are not prohibitively expensive
Falls
- There is no card reader or color LCD
- Larger and heavier than many consumer/home MFPs
Editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn