Best Home-Office Printer: Epson WorkForce 845
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Nowadays, even a low-budget home office can have professional-grade equipment for a pittance, and the all-in-one $139 Epson WorkForce 845 is a prime example.
Why we like it
The WorkForce is really a workhorse, with a massive paper capacity of 500 sheets — more than three times that of competing all-in-ones. It can print at high volumes (including double-sided), scan at high resolution, make copies and — for retro clients — send and receive faxes.
The WorkForce 845 is a speed demon — one of the fastest all-in-ones out there. Over a Wi-Fi connection, it printed a two-page black-and-white Word document in 18 seconds, a two-page color PDF in 34 seconds and a 4 x 6 photo in 1 minute and 20 seconds. Color PDFs looked especially sharp, and photos had natural-looking colors.
You can print to the Epson WorkForce 845 from virtually anywhere. In addition to Wi-Fi printing from a computer, you can email documents to its unique email address. Using Epson's iPrint app for iOS and Android devices, you can also print from mobile devices or from online storage services such as Dropbox, Google Docs and Evernote. iPrint supports photos, Web pages and Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF documents. The WorkForce 845 also supports Google Cloud Print, which allows you to make the printer available over the Internet to those you choose. You don't even have to be in the same building (or city) to send a job to the printer.
[SEE ALSO: Best Cloud Service: Google]
Keep in mind
The Epson WorkForce 845 printer is a big boy, standing nearly a foot tall and weighing 22 pounds. You'll have a hard time squeezing it in on a desk. But since it's wireless, you have the flexibility to stow it just about anywhere.
The Epson WorkForce 845 prioritizes volume and speed over absolute best quality. While documents and images look very good, you can get slightly better results with other printers, such as the $199 Canon PIXMA MG6220 or the $99 Kodak ESP 3.2.
The high-capacity cyan, magenta, yellow and black replacement ink cartridges cost about as much as those for other printer brands.
Bottom line
For home offices that have to churn out a large volume of prints, the Epson WorkForce 845 delivers — from just about any device or location.
Key specs
- Capacity: two trays, each holding 250 sheets
- Double-sided printing capable
- Scanning at up to 9,600 x 9,600 dots per inch (dpi)
- Printing over Wi-Fi, email, Epson iPrint app and Google Cloud Print
- Dimensions: 17.6 by 14.5 by 11.8-inches
- Weight: 22 pounds
- Price: $139
