As its identify suggests, the Epson Expression Premium XP-800 sits close to the top of Epson’s range of home MFPs. It has a top-notch specification, with a spotlight being a scanner with a 4,800×4,800dpi optical resolution – that is lots of details, so it is a shame that there is no backlight for scanning old film negatives or slides. It additionally has a fax, and a 30-page ADF that works within the duplex, permitting double-sided copies and faxes.
That is a simple printer to use, with a big color touchscreen flanked by touch-sensitive controls which light up solely when applicable, helping to reduce clutter. We additionally had no issues setting up the printer on our wireless network, either utilizing WPS or by entering a passkey with the onscreen keyboard.
When you send the 1st print job the MFP’s massive control panel motors upwards to disclose the paper output tray, which extends automatically from the front. It does not close automatically once you flip the printer off, however, and we could not find a menu option to shut it; we assume you are meant to close everything manually, but doing so did not quite feel right, leaving us with the suspicion we would missed a trick. This MFP has 2 paper trays in its belly, with the lower one holding 100 sheets of A4 and the upper good for 20 photos. It’ll additionally print to suitable CDs although the supplied media holder slots in under the paper trays with its front protruding awkwardly.
It is a quick device, spitting out more than 16 pages of draft text in a minute and managing an impressive 13.2ppm on the default print quality. It isn’t bad in color both, delivering our graphics-heavy test at 4.0ppm. Whereas it was not unusually fast to print 2 10 x 8in images, it was extremely fast to deliver six, 6 x 4in borderless prints, reeling off every in just a minute and 16 seconds. Photocopies were fast too, with a 10-page color copy taking just 2 and a half minutes.
Overall we were quite pleased with the outcomes. Scans were sharp, with faithful colors and well-preserved fine detailing. Graphics prints on plain paper were impressive, with powerful colors and even fills in areas of solid color, while pictures were excellent, reproducing nice details and very accurate colors with no obvious grain. The regular black text was nice, but draft prints were somewhat faint and blocky. We additionally noticed a tendency with color duplex printing for pictures to bleed through the 80gsm paper we used for our testing.
While it is a good general-purpose MFP, it is just too costly, particularly given its very excessive 11.4p-per-page running costs. If you want its office-oriented features, Epson’s own WorkForce WF-3540DTWF has it beaten. If you do not, the Canon PIXMA MG6350 is much better value.
Pros
Compact. Two-sided printing, copying, scanning, and faxing. 30-page ADF. Prints on optical media. Touch screen. Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Direct connectivity.
Cons
Sub-par text quality. Paper capacity low for use in a home office.