Epson L350 All-in-One Ink Tank System printer

For the past few years, a lot of people convert their printers into continuous ink systems to lessen ink costs. It’s a popular choice for Filipinos looking for ways to save. Epson introduced their first ink tank system printer a couple of years ago to give us the low cost of continuous ink system without the hassle of conversion and voiding warranties.

The Epson L350 is one of the second generation of ink tank system printers from Epson and combines the functionalities of a colored printer, scanner and copier in one desk-friendly machine. This printer is made for small businesses or medium-sized households requiring print/scan/copy for business or school purposes.

The L350 printer is quite easy to set up and operate. It is bundled with four bottles of dye-based ink (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black), plus two additional bottles of black ink. Additional ink bottles costsP295 each.

There are only four buttons for you to worry about. The Power button, the Copy buttons (one for monochrome and another for colored), and the Cancel button. Below the Cancel button are two LED indicators for Paper and Ink status.

 

At the back is the power port and on the side is the USB port which you need to connect to a computer for scanning purposes (requires installing the bundled software).

First thing you need to do to use the L350 is fill up the tanks with your inks. Don’t worry, it’s not messy as long as you’re careful. Make sure the rubber caps are secured before closing the tank holder.

Note: After plugging the printer, it’s important that you charge the inks first before you can start printing for the first time. You do this by pressing the Cancel button for three seconds until you see the Power button flashing. Charging the ink takes about 20 minutes and it will be finished once the Ink status lights up.

Performance

Printing on the Epson L350 is remarkably fast as it boasts of speeds of up to 33ppm for draft black and white which is good enough for internal office memos. Colored printouts using Epson’s photo papers gave impressive results as well.

Copying documents takes about 5 seconds for black and white and about 10 seconds for color. One thing I noticed is that you need to press the Copy button multiple times for multiple copies which is a bit rudimentary although you can press the Copy plus the Cancel button to make 20 copies in one go.

Scanning documents or photos is done by connecting your PC via USB (no WiFi) and running the Epson Scan software. It’s easy to use and allows you to save scanned items in a variety of image formats.

A bottle of black ink (Php295) will yield up to 4,000 pages which gives you a significantly lower cost per page than traditional inkjet printers.

Verdict

We’ve been using the Epson L350 for over a month and it’s done a good job printing documents, cards and photos, scanning passports and copying birth certificates. It’s fast and printouts are superb especially photos printed on Epson’s photo paper. The only issue we found was that sometimes it takes a while for the printer to ready upon turning on. Other than that, this printer worked smoothly during its duration in our home.

The Epson L350 is a simple all-in-one ink tank system printer that can provide useful in a small office or a busy household requiring more than just print services. It retails for Php9,295 and already comes with 3 bottles of black ink, and a bottle of each C, M, Y colors. It’s a bit pricey initially but you’ll save on ink cost in the long run. You’ll also get a warranty coverage of one year or 30,000 prints, whichever comes first.

Epson L350 Ink Tank System Printer Specs:
Print Resolution: 5760 X 1440 dpi (with Variable-Sized Droplet Technology)
Print Speed: Black text: 9ipm (images per minute) according to ISO 24734, 33ppm in draft mode
Copy Resolution: 360 X 360 dpi (with VSDT)
Copy Speed:Black text: 5 sec per copy (draft) Color text: 10 sec per copy (draft)
Scan optical resolution: 600 dpi
Scanning Speed:Mono (300 dpi) – 2.4 msec/line Color (600 dpi) – 9.5 msec/line
Operating System Compatibility:Windows XP / XP Professional x 64 Edition/ Vista/7/8 Mac OS X 10.5.8 / 10.6.x / 10.7.x
Printer Interface: USB 2.0
SRP: Php9,295