Epson WF-100 Printer: In-Depth Review and User Opinions

Epson WorkForce WF-100 Printer Review

The Epson WorkForce WF-100 is an inkjet printer designed for home and small office use. It offers wireless printing, an automatic document feeder for scanning and copying, and includes several features aimed at reducing ongoing printing costs.

Key features of the WF-100 include:

• Compact all-in-one design with integrated scanner and copier
• Prints up to 20 pages per minute in black or color
• Wireless printing from mobile devices and computers
• 100-page capacity auto document feeder for scanning and copying
• 150-sheet main paper tray capacity
• Prints at up to 4800 x 1200 dpi resolution
• Uses Epson's high-capacity ink cartridges to lower ink costs
• Supports borderless printing on photo paper up to 8.5" x 11"
• 2.4" LCD screen and control panel for stand-alone operation

This review will examine the WF-100's design, print quality, connectivity, paper handling, scanning, ink system, included software, pros and cons.

Design

The Epson WorkForce WF-100 is a low-profile printer with a compact design that takes up minimal desk space. Measuring 14.8 x 13.7 x 7.3 inches and weighing just 12.1 pounds, this printer has a small footprint perfect for tight home offices or dorm rooms.

Despite its small size, the Epson WF-100 comes in several stylish color options to match different decor, including black, white, red, and blue. The rounded edges and sleek finish give it a modern look. This printer is easy to tuck onto a shelf or desk without it standing out too much.

Overall, the compact and lightweight build makes the Epson WorkForce WF-100 easy to place in any room. The choice of color options is a nice touch that allows the printer to seamlessly blend into your existing setup.

Print Quality

The Epson WF-100 offers excellent print quality for both documents and photos thanks to its advanced printhead technology. It has a print resolution of up to 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi, allowing it to produce sharp text and fine details in photos.

The printer uses Epson's proprietary DURABrite Ultra ink, which is formulated to be smudge, fade, and water resistant when printed on Epson photo papers. It can print a 4 x 6 photo in as fast as 10 seconds. For documents, it has impressive speeds of up to 34 pages per minute for black text and 15 pages per minute for color.

The combination of high print resolution, pigment-based inks, and fast print speeds makes the Epson WF-100 capable of producing lab-quality prints right from your home or office. Photos have vivid, accurate colors with no signs of banding or graininess. Text is razor-sharp even at small font sizes. For the price, you get exceptional print quality across the board with this printer.

Connectivity

The Epson WF-100 offers several connectivity options for home and office use. It has built-in WiFi for wireless printing from computers, smartphones and tablets. Connecting to the printer's WiFi network is quick and easy using WiFi Protected Setup (WPS).

The WF-100 also supports WiFi Direct, allowing you to connect your mobile device directly to the printer without a wireless router. This is useful for printing when away from your normal network.

For wired connections, the WF-100 has a USB 2.0 port for hooking up to a single computer. While not as convenient as wireless, a USB connection can be more reliable and may work better for certain applications like high-volume printing.

In addition, the WF-100 is compatible with the Epson Connect service for printing directly from smartphones, tablets and laptops over the internet. This gives you printing flexibility from virtually anywhere with an internet connection. You can send jobs to the printer via email as well.

Overall, the WF-100 provides versatile connectivity options of WiFi, WiFi Direct, USB and mobile/cloud printing. This allows both home and office users to print conveniently from multiple devices. The printer's wireless and mobile capabilities make it easy to share among several people.

Paper Handling

The Epson WF-100 has a paper tray capacity of up to 250 sheets of standard copy paper. It supports a variety of paper types and sizes including plain paper, photo paper, envelopes and labels.

The main paper tray can hold up to 250 sheets of plain paper up to 8.5 x 11 inches in size. The rear paper feed slot allows you to manually feed in specialty paper like envelopes, glossy photo paper, etc. It can hold sheets up to 8.5 x 44 inches, making it easy to print banners or other large formats.

The WF-100 supports common paper sizes such as letter, legal, 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10 inches. You can print borderless photos on 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10 inch glossy photo paper. Envelopes need to be fed one at a time through the rear slot, and the printer supports #10, DL, C6 sizes.

Overall the WF-100 offers very flexible paper handling for an inkjet aimed at home and small office use. The 250 sheet input capacity is higher than average in this class. And the rear feed slot makes it simple to use specialty media without having to swap out the main paper tray.

Scanner

The Epson WF-100 comes with a built-in scanner that allows you to easily digitize documents and photos. The scanner has an optical resolution of 1200 x 2400 dpi, ensuring sharp and detailed scans.

The maximum scan area is 8.5" x 11.7", which is sufficient for scanning letter-sized documents. Some of the key scanning features include:

• Can scan documents directly to the cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote etc. This allows scanning documents while on the go without requiring a computer.

• Supports common image formats like JPG, TIFF, PDF etc. Scanned files can be saved directly to external USB devices.

• Comes with Epson ScanSmart software that makes it easy to scan, email and organize scanned content. The software has built-in OCR for converting scans into searchable PDFs.

• Fast scan speeds at 300 dpi - it can scan a letter sized page in as little as 8 seconds. The ADF can hold up to 30 sheets for scanning multi-page documents.

Overall, the scanner is very capable for home use. It has all the essential features like cloud connectivity, PDF support, fast scan speeds and an ADF to improve workflow. The high resolution scanning also ensures crisp and detailed scans.

Ink and Toner

The Epson WF-100 uses a 4 color ink cartridge system including black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. The included ink tanks are high capacity and Epson reports yields of up to 11,000 pages in black and 8,000 pages in color. This allows you to print thousands of pages before needing to replace the ink.

The ink cartridges use Epson's DURABrite Ultra ink which is smudge, fade, and water resistant when printed on Epson photo papers.

Replacement ink cartridges include:

• Black (T6641)
• Cyan (T6642)
• Magenta (T6643)
• Yellow (T6644)

The high page yields on the ink tanks keep long term printing costs low. And Epson provides convenient ink replenishment options when you do need to restock ink.

Software

The Epson WF-100 comes with a robust software suite for both Windows and Mac operating systems. For Windows, it includes the Epson Print Layout software which provides advanced print options like booklet printing, fit to page, and multi-page printing. The Epson Scan Utility allows you to scan directly to your computer or the cloud. Epson's Easy Photo Print lets you quickly print photos and albums directly from your computer.

On Mac, you get the Epson Mac Printer Utility for printer monitoring and maintenance. The Epson Scan 2 utility provides scanning to your computer or popular cloud services like Dropbox. For easy photo printing direct from your Mac, the Epson Creative Print app is included. The printer also supports Apple AirPrint for wireless printing from your iOS devices.

Overall, Epson covers all the bases for printer software on both major desktop operating systems. The suite provides utilities for printing, scanning, maintenance, and photos. The software is designed to make using the WF-100 seamless on both Windows PCs and Macs.

Pros

• Excellent print quality for both text and graphics. The Epson WF-100 produces sharp black text and vibrant, accurate colors in photos and graphics. Print quality rivals much more expensive laser printers.

• Versatile connectivity options. You can print from wireless devices via Wi-Fi Direct, Ethernet, or USB. The Wi-Fi Direct feature lets you print wirelessly even without a router.

• Compact, space-saving design. Despite having an automatic document feeder for scanning and copying, the WF-100 has a surprisingly small footprint that takes up minimal desk space.

• Superb value for the price. For under $100, you get excellent print quality, fast print speeds, a handy scanner, and wireless connectivity. It's an unbeatable package for home and small office use.

Cons

Epson WF-100 printer has a few drawbacks to be aware of:

• Small paper capacity. The printer only holds up to 100 sheets at a time, which means you'll need to refill paper frequently for high volume printing. This can be inconvenient compared to printers with larger 250+ sheet trays.

• No auto-duplexing for double-sided printing. The WF-100 lacks a duplexer for printing on both sides of the paper automatically. You'll have to reinsert pages manually to print double-sided, reducing efficiency.

• Slow print speeds. This printer maxes out at about 10 pages per minute for black and 5 ppm for color. It's quite slow compared to similarly priced laser printers that offer 15+ ppm. Large print jobs will take significantly longer.

• Only prints. The WF-100 does not offer copy, scan or fax capabilities. It's limited to just printing. An all-in-one could be preferable for offices that need scanning/copying features too.

• High ink costs. Like most Epson inkjet printers, replacement ink cartridges for the WF-100 are expensive. The ink could cost more than the printer over a few years of frequent printing. Consider a laser printer for lower consumable costs.