Epson Ecotank printer ET 3850 Unbox, Set up

Costco version which adds bonus 2 black refills.
For awhile, printer companies sell their printers at a loss because they have the consumer captive in having to feed their printers with expensive refill cartridges.
Most of the costs of the refills are the electronics within the cartridges.
The electronics in the cartridges communicate with the printer regarding ink levels, maintenance issues, and of course if the cartridges are original equipment or after market.
Now with the introduction of large tank printers, the companies can no longer sell the printers at a loss since they are no longer making huge profits on refill cartridges.
So the old addage, pay now or pay later applies. For most consumers that do a fair amount of printing, it makes sense to pay now with the knowlege that ink refills will be a lot less in the long run.
[Contents]
00:00 Opening
03:35 Unbox
06:05 Setup the printer using app
08:05 Fill ink cartridges
11:34 Setup the best printer quality
15:39 Download and install the Epson Connect Printer Setup Utility
17:36 Ending

[firstrate]

I made the same printer switch! Brave of you to fill ink on that white carpet!

[michaelwest]

Just bought mine today after watching your video, thanks for the good job .

[martymar]

Thank you so much for your video on this Epson ET-3850 Ecotank printer setup. It is now November 29, 2023 and I got the identical deal from Costco too!

[atakrd]

Very good job in explaining the set-up. I will be purchasing one tomorrow.

[freewillietoday]

Excellent how-to-set-up video! Voice clear and instruction focused! 👍

[larrysmith]

The most important reason to buy N ET3835 or ET3830 (no ADF) is the replaceable waste ink maintenance tank. Cheaper models don't have it and stop working when the ink used in priming and cleaning the print head fills the unremovable tank.

[mikeng]

It’s 8/28/23 and this printer is still on sale at Costco. I bought one and set it up just as you did. Sadly, I had a problem. The printer would not recognize that I had loaded paper so the setup and calibration failed. When I skipped the calibration and tried to force a print the paper did get go through the machine but the leading edge had a small tear and mark indicating some sort of obstruction. I had to return it to Costco.

I like the idea of cheap ink and love the small form factor. I was going to replace it but after watching several videos I decided I wasn’t going to print often enough to keep the ink flowing. If I ever need to print a lot I’ll get this printer. In the mean time I’ve bought a new print head for my HP 8600 and gave it a new lease on life.

[lewiswashingtond]

I enjoyed your video. But I wanted to see you print a few pictures. I’m trying to decide on this printer. I was trying to see one of the smart features used.
-Debbie

[doctorrobert]

I have the cheaper ET-2800 and working OK. I do not do not print daily. With Inkjet printers if idle for some time can get clogging of print heads and the machines do a clean cycle periodically to fight this. The Eco tank printers have longer path for ink to travel to the print head so increased of clogging of this lines as well. They have a storage box for the waste ink that needs to be changed but related to how long one has the printer. When this needs maintenance I will likely recycle and buy another printer. Some reviews talk about the autofeed of documents malfunctioning. How has it worked for you? Thanks for the video!

[Tracer]

I recently purchased a new Epson Eco Tank 3850 printer at Costco for $325.00. The setup was relatively easy and I had it up and running in about 15 minutes after unboxing. However, I am extremely disappointed in the quality of the printing for both documents and photos.The edging in the photos were grainy and the colors were darker then the original photos. I reset the color management and it still produced a low quality image. The scanner is also cheap inefficient. After scanning a simple document I discovered the text had jagged edges and the tops of the fonts in some sentences were chopped off. The only way I could get nice sharp fonts in a document was to scan in Photo Mode.  The top automatic feeder which is used to scan multiple documents or make copies, pulls the entire stack of papers into the feeder all at once. I had to physically stagger each page individually to prevent the stack from jamming the feeder. All in all this printer is constructed of poor quality materials and is cheaply made. Thank God I saved the box. I'm packaging it back up and taking it back to Costco first thing tomorrow.

[buzzsah]

I have been noticing a lot of referbs for sale. This does not look good to me. Your thoughts?

[JoanneMatthews-bnjj]

Setting up my Epson 3850 I missed one step aligning on the first page is there away to go back

[pattilee]

Thank you for doing this video. I just purchased this printer fm Costco n on the fence whether to keep it. I'm planning to print mostly papers that are of 80% color coverage (sometimes) for scrapbooking purposes. I hv not seen anyone do that amount of printing using this machine. My concern is the "streaking" for the coverage of printing. What do u think? Have to just try it? The other question I have is whether this printer can handle 110 lb (heavy card stock) printing - not just reg paper weight. Costco hd the option for the ET-2850 which ws $100 less and will also b on sale (-$80 which brings it dwn to $199) soon. Your thoughts?

[Rovidanana]

Can you tell me please if I can print 250 gsm in this print? I’m struggling to know about this, please help me.

[shadow-wulf]

My pictures seem to come out quite dull. Not impressed after moving from a Canon Laser.

[youtubewatcher]

We bought this printer at Costco several months ago (also on sale) and are getting ready to set it up, though not with a smartphone app. I do wish you had printed at least one 4" by 6" photo for your YouTube channel, even though you normally use Walgreens. Are you able to tell how much a 4" by 6" photo on photo paper would be on the Epson? We also have a Canon MG 7100 series printer and just printed out a handful of 4" by 6" photos on photo paper and they came out excellent. Absolutely top quality. But it seems like we lost a lot of ink during the process. Here's for your pooch 🦴