In August, BLI analysts were invited to a Hudson Yards-gallery in lower Manhattan to catch a glimpse of Epson’s newest printers and scanners. Epson officials guided groups of exhibit-goers through several themed mock ups ranging from a trendy gallery to a “house you grew up in” set a la any Miramax movie.
What We Saw
Members of Epson’s EcoTank family were on display, including Expression and WorkForce models. Analysts got a firsthand look at the SOHO-aimed Expression ET-2550 and ET-3600, along with WorkForce models ET-4550, ET-16500 and WFR-R4640. The family’s architecture trades ink-cartridges for refillable tanks to eliminate “no more out-of-ink frustration.” Customers also receive two years’ worth of ink with the purchase of every EcoTank device, an offering not available anywhere else in the market place.
The Epson DS-1630 is a flatbed color document scanner that aims to help businesses streamline workflows and increase productivity. The device simplifies workflows thanks to one-touch scanning to a variety of destinations such as networked folders, email, and cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, Evernote, and many others. Documents can be scanned and saved as editable, searchable file types, which are much more convenient to work with later on down the road. The 25-ppm device sports a 50-page ADF plus auto-duplexing for faster scanning and preservation of originals. The device also comes bundled with productivity enhancing software such as ABBYY FineReader for advanced OCR functionality and Presto! BizCard Reader for batch scanning business cards, plus the company’s own proprietary Epson Image Processing Technology for auto-crop, deskew, and blank page and background removal. The optional Network User Interface makes the scanner perfect for low-volume shared scanning environments.
The Epson DS-530 is a color duplex document scanner aimed at increasing a business’s efficiency in the document management arena. The device features a 50-page ADF with single pass duplex scanning as fast as 35 ppm. The TWAIN- and ISIS-ready device pairs nicely with virtually any line-of-business application or ECM system and offers one-touch scanning to Dropbox, SharePoint, Evernote, FileBound, Google Drive, and others. The device leverages OCR technology to convert paper document sto searchable, editable file types. Noteworthy is the devices architecture, which features three sets of rollers for “Dynamic Skew Correction,” which Epson claims will prevent missing pages. Enhanced features such as Double Feed Detection and Slow Speed Mode will reduce the need to rescan documents, while programmable jobs will keep workers moving, instead of configuring commonly used scan jobs over and over again.
The Epson FastFoto FF-640 converts photos and other delicate documents to digital form and preserves them in the cloud. The device can scan photos as fast as one per second at 300 dpi, including the image and handwritten notes—which are indexed by date or season—on the back. While the device is primarily intended for home use, SOHO users who want to organize, share, and store receipts or other similar documents. The device comes bundled with ABBYY FineReader and Epson’s Document Capture Pro for advanced capture and routing functionality. The device also comes with proprietary software Custom FastFoto which enables users to enhance photo quality via Smart Photo Fix technology. The device’s architecture features a special handling sheet, custom rollers, and a paper path built to accommodate fragile documents.
The Epson Expression Premium XP-640 Small-in-One Printer provides SOHO users with a flexible, highly connectable printer, copier, and scanner. The device delivers PC-free printing via USB and memory card slots, plus mobile printing from most mobile devices with or without being the same network as the printer. Users can also print from or scan to—via the device’s color flatbed scanner—social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram via the Epson Create Print App and Easy Photo Scan software. All of these functions are easily executable via the device’s 2.7" color LCD and touch key control panel.
The 13/10-ppm (print/copy speeds) device delivers cost saving features like auto 2-sided printing and an individual ink cartridge design so users only have to replace the ink they need. Dedicated photo and DVD trays extends device uptime, as users won’t have to spend time changing between different media types.
Epson employed a five-color design that produces droplets as small as 3.5 picoliters, so even the little guys can achieve professional-looking quality output at resolutions as high as 5760 x 1440 dpi. The device can print borderless photos up to 8" x 10" and accommodates media as large as 8.5" x 14".