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Sunday, July 3, 2011

Good Set of All in One Functions and Superior Paper Capacity from Epson WorkForce 840

The Epson WorkForce 840 is the flagship model of the company's line of WorkForce all in one printers for small and home businesses. WorkForce 840 features Ethernet and Wi-Fi networking, two-sided printing, an automatic document feeder (ADF), and the ability to print directly from your mobile device. And it performs all of these functions in an impressively compact package that can hold a full ream of paper. It offers competitive text speeds and impressive graphics speeds, and our only critique is that it's slow to print photos.

This machine comes standard with a honking 500-sheet paper capacity, split between two 250-sheet trays. Not only does the 840 provide an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper, its 30-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) also duplexes, letting you automatically scan or copy both sides of a sheet of paper. Despite its impressive feature set, the matte-black 840 retains a relatively small footprint, measuring 12 by 17.5 by 14.5 inches (HWD). Centered within its 7.8-inch tiltable and responsive touch panel is a 3.5-inch LCD screen.

It offers Ethernet or WiFi networking, or can connect via USB cable to a computer (though no USB cable is supplied). We tested the 840 over an Ethernet connection using a printer running Windows Vista. The Epson WorkForce 840 turned in a strong performance, It pumped out 12.48 pages per minute (ppm) on our all-black text speed test, which was nearly the same score as the Epson WorkForce 520 and the HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus. The WorkForce 840 performed just as quickly when printing graphics, especially in our presentation speed test, in which it outpaced the competition by printing 10 color PowerPoint slides at a clip of 6.79 ppm.

Unfortunately, it struggled in our photo speed test, taking roughly 70 seconds to print a 4x6-inch photo on glossy photo paper for a time of 0.86 ppm. Competing models were two to three times faster at printing photos. The WorkForce 840 proved a bit speedier than average on our scan and copy tests. It scanned a 10-page color document at 5.59 ppm, and copied a 10-page monochrome text document at 5.48 ppm.

Epson backs the Epson WorkForce 840 with a limited one-year warranty that includes toll-free customer support weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT. Further support is available online with a model-specific troubleshooting guide, FAQs, e-mail support, driver updates, and document downloads. You can also purchase exchange/repair coverage at $39.95 for one year or $59.95 for two years.

It's not the fastest photo printer, but for all other jobs the Epson WorkForce 840 excels. We recommend this multifunction inkjet for its high-quality prints, rapid text and graphics speeds, easy-to-navigate control panel, and abundance of features that include autoduplexing, an ADF, wired and wireless networking, and support for mobile printing.

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