Epson ET-3830 All In One: In-Depth Review and User Opinions

The Epson ET-3830 is an all-in-one multifunction printer designed for home and small office use. This model combines printing, scanning, and copying into one compact device.

Key features of the ET-3830 include:

• Print/copy/scan color pages
• Wireless connectivity
• Voice-activated printing
• 150-sheet paper capacity
• 2.4" LCD screen
• Prints up to 10 ISO ppm in black, 5 ISO ppm in color
• Up to 4800 x 1200 dpi resolution
• Print from various devices using Epson Connect
• Uses Epson 212/202 ink cartridges

With its integrated ink tanks, the ET-3830 can print thousands of pages without replacing ink cartridges. The ET-3830 aims to provide an efficient, high quality, and low cost all-in-one solution for home and small office users.

The Sleek and Compact All-in-One Design

The ET-3830 has a sleek, compact all-in-one design that won't take up much space. It measures 14.8 x 12.7 x 6.3 inches and weighs a light 13.2 pounds. Despite its small footprint, it packs in printing, scanning and copying capabilities.

The printer has a minimalist design with clean lines and rounded edges. It comes in either black or white housing to match different home decor styles. The top scanning lid finishes off the smooth, rectangular shape.

There is a 1.4-inch monochrome LCD screen to control and monitor the printer. Underneath is a well-laid out control panel with buttons for core functions like copy, scan and wireless. The input tray folds up neatly when not in use.

Overall, the ET-3830 has a smart looking exterior that disguises the full multi-functionality inside. Its space-saving design is perfect for home offices or apartments where room is limited. The compact all-in-one won't be an eyesore, and is sure to blend seamlessly with your decor.

Print Quality

The Epson ET-3830 produces high quality prints with its six-color Claria ink system. It has a maximum print resolution of 5760 x 1440 dpi, enabling it to print sharp text and vivid images.

In terms of print speed, it can print 10 pages per minute in black and 5 pages per minute in color. While not the fastest printer, the print speed is sufficient for home use.

The six-color ink system with Claria ink allows the ET-3830 to produce accurate colors. It can print borderless photos up to 8 x 10 inches. The color reproduction is quite good for an inkjet printer in this class.

Overall, the print quality of the Epson ET-3830 is excellent. The high resolution prints, accurate colors, and borderless photo printing make it a great choice for printing both documents and photos at home. The print speed is not super fast but fast enough for most home user's needs.

Printing Features

The Epson ET-3830 offers robust printing capabilities for home office and personal use. It can print on a variety of paper types and sizes up to 8.5" x 44", including plain paper, photo paper, cardstock and envelopes.

Two-sided printing is supported for producing double-sided documents. The printer has an auto-duplexer that flips the pages automatically to print on both sides without having to manually reinsert pages. This saves on paper usage while enabling professional looking printouts.

For printing on the go, the ET-3830 works with the Epson Smart Panel app. Documents and photos on your mobile device can be sent to the printer wirelessly over WiFi. The app allows you to print from iOS, Android and Chromebook devices. It provides an easy way to print from your phone or tablet.

Scanner

The Epson ET-3830 has a high resolution scanner that can scan documents and photos. It offers optical scanning at up to 1200 x 2400 dpi for crisp and detailed scans.

For file formats, the ET-3830 can save scans as JPEG, TIFF, PDF, PNG, and BMP. This allows flexibility for saving scans depending on your needs. Scanned documents can be saved as searchable PDFs or compressed JPEGs. Photos are great as JPEGs or high-quality uncompressed TIFFs.

The scan speed is reasonably fast at about 8.5 seconds for a full color A4 document at 300 dpi. For regular text document scanning, it can deliver decent speeds to digitize paper files efficiently.

Photos take a bit longer at about 39 seconds for a 6 x 4 photo at 300 dpi. So scanning a stack of photos will require some patience, but the high resolution captures make it worthwhile for archiving your photo collection.

Overall, the scanning capabilities are versatile for both documents and photos with good image quality and formats. The scan speed is fast enough for document digitizing, though photo scans take more time.

Copying

The Epson ET-3830 copier has decent copy resolution and speed. It can make copies at up to 600 x 1200 dpi, which is fairly high resolution for a home printer in this price range.

The copy speed tops out at 10 pages per minute for black and white copies and 5 pages per minute for color copies. This is relatively fast for an inkjet all-in-one printer. While not as fast as a laser printer, it's fast enough for light home and home office use.

The ET-3830 has basic copy features like the ability to make 2-sided copies and do some basic image adjustments like contrast and saturation. It also has a preview on the LCD screen so you can see how your copy settings will affect the final output before you start the copy job.

Overall, the copying capabilities of the Epson ET-3830 are solid. The resolution is quite good, the speed is decent, and it has handy features like a preview screen. The copy function gets the job done for basic home and home office tasks. More demanding users may want a faster printer for heavy copy jobs. But for light duties, the ET-3830 copier is a capable performer.

Connectivity

The Epson ET-3830 has several connectivity options that make it easy to print from multiple devices.

WiFi and WiFi Direct

The printer connects wirelessly via WiFi, allowing you to print from your computer, smartphone or tablet from anywhere in your home. It also supports WiFi Direct, which lets you connect your mobile device directly to the printer without a wireless network.

USB

There's a USB 2.0 port on the back of the printer so you can connect it directly to your computer with a USB cable. This gives you a fast, reliable connection.

Mobile App

Epson offers the Epson iPrint app for iOS and Android mobile devices. This lets you print photos, emails, webpages and documents directly from your phone or tablet. You can also scan directly to your mobile device using the app.

Print from Cloud

The ET-3830 lets you print directly from popular cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Just link your accounts to the printer and you can access and print your cloud documents and photos.

Overall, the abundance of connectivity options makes the ET-3830 very versatile for today's connected households with multiple computers, phones and tablets.

Ink System

The Epson ET-3830 has a refillable ink tank system rather than cartridges. This allows you to fill up the built-in ink reservoirs as needed directly from bottles.

The printer comes with enough ink in the bottles to print up to 7,500 pages in black and 6,000 pages in color. Page yield will vary depending on what you're printing.

You'll need to purchase Epson branded ink bottles to refill the reservoirs. The ink bottles come in black, cyan, magenta and yellow. Pricing for the bottles starts around $13 each.

There is no ink subscription service for this model. You simply purchase ink bottles as you need to refill the reservoirs. The printer has on-screen ink level indicators to let you know when you're running low.

Filling the reservoirs is an easy process. Each reservoir has a dedicated filling port with a rubber stopper. You remove the stopper, insert the ink bottle nozzle into the port, and fill. The process takes just a minute or so for each color.

The ink tank system removes the hassle of replacing cartridges frequently. You'll get thousands of pages worth of ink out of a single bottle. This helps lower the long-term costs of printing.

Pros and Cons

The Epson ET-3830 has many benefits as well as some drawbacks to consider. Here is a summary of the main pros and cons:

Pros:

• Excellent print quality, especially for photos
• Fast print speeds, up to 10 ppm in black and 5 ppm in color
• Versatile connectivity options, including Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Ethernet, USB and mobile printing
• Large 100-sheet paper capacity
• Automatic 2-sided printing capability
• Convenient flatbed scanner and copier functions
• EcoTank system provides ultra low-cost replacement ink
• Included enough ink to print thousands of pages

Cons:

• No ADF (automatic document feeder) for the scanner
• Lack of LCD display screen on the printer
• No support for printing from flash drives
• Max paper size limited to 8.5” x 11”, no legal or tabloid support
• Large footprint may make it difficult to fit on a small desk
• Initial purchase price is higher than standard inkjet printers

Overall, the Epson ET-3830 is a solidly built, feature-packed all-in-one equipped with Epson's game-changing EcoTank ink delivery system. It provides excellent performance for home offices looking to print high quality photos and documents at an ultra-low operational cost. The lack of an ADF and small display are minor drawbacks that are overshadowed by the exceptional print quality and low cost of operation.

Conclusion

The Epson ET-3830 EcoTank is an excellent choice for homes and small offices looking for an affordable all-in-one printer with low running costs. Its ink tank system completely removes the need to buy ink cartridges, instead allowing you to refill the built-in tanks directly with bottled ink.

This results in an ultra low cost per page - around 1 cent for black and 5 cents for color. The savings add up over time compared to standard inkjet printers. Print quality is very good across the board, from text documents to high resolution photos. The scanner and copier also perform well for an AIO in this price range.

The ET-3830 has a minimalist, compact design that looks nice and saves space. Connectivity options like WiFi, WiFi Direct and USB accommodate most home setups. The 2.4" LCD screen makes navigating menus straightforward.

Overall, the ET-3830 delivers excellent value for money with its inexpensive ink system and solid performance across printing, scanning and copying. It's easy to recommend for home and home office settings where low operating costs are important. Users looking for more robust features like ADF, fax, or business-level print speeds may want to look at Epson's higher-end EcoTank models. But for most home needs, the ET-3830 gets the job done very economically.