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The Epson L655 ink tank printer offers high print quality and low cost per page at the same time

By Ng Chong Seng - on 15 Jul 2015, 3:38pm

The Epson L655 ink tank printer offers high print quality and low cost per page at the same time

Epson has today launched the L655, the company’s top-of-the-line ink tank system printer. For those unaware, since its inception, the Epson ink tank system printer series has always been designed to offer high-capacity printing at an affordable cost. For these L series printers, the company often cites ultra-low-cost printing, high-volume ink bottles, reliable operation, and Epson-quality results as the key benefits.

Today’s L655 is no different. Its new black ink bottle costs S$18.90 and prints up to 6,000 black-and-white pages. This translates to just S$0.0032 per page. Each of the color inks costs S$9.90; and combined, they’re able to print up to 6,500 pages, which amounts to S$0.004 per colored page. As such, Epson claims that the L655, which also happens to be the company’s first auto duplex ink tank printer, now offers the world’s lowest duplex printing cost.

To ensure print quality isn’t sacrificed, the L655 is equipped with the company’s new Precision Core printhead, a thin film piezo printhead tech that “merges advances in materials science and MEMS fabrication with Epson’s deep portfolio of inkjet technologies”. And in the L series, it’s the only one at the moment to get this tech. This caught me by surprise because Precision Core is usually only found on Epson’s non-L series premium business inkjet models and industrial printers. For users, this can only be good news as Precision Core brings about benefits such as faster print speeds and higher output quality (up to 4,800 x 1,200 dpi for the L655). This is also a key reason why the L655 is able to use pigment black ink, which means water and smudge-resistant black-and-white prints and lab-quality photos on photo papers.

Versus the L series models before it, the ink tank contraption on the L655 has been redesigned to integrate better with the main unit. It's also more secured now.

For some numbers, the L655 is capable of ISO print speeds of up to 13.7ipm for black-and-white and 7.3ipm for color (simplex). And in draft mode, it can go up to 33ppm and 20ppm respectively. An all-in-one device, it also does copy, scan, and fax, with an automatic document feeder that accepts up to 30 sheets. It also supports Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity (including Wi-Fi Direct), and you can easily print wirelessly from mobile devices and the cloud.

In a nutshell, the new L655 is worth a look if you’re shopping for a business printer, and especially if you print a lot. The ink bottles are very reasonably priced, and since they hold quite a good volume of ink (vs. cartridges), you won’t be changing them as often. And sample printouts that I saw looked pretty good too.

The Epson L655 ink tank printer is priced at S$539 and will go on sale starting July 23, 2015. It comes with 2 years of carry-in warranty (or 50,000 pages; whichever comes first). The company will also be running a trade-in promo, in which you can get S$50 off if you trade in an inkjet printer or S$100 off if you trade in a laser printer.

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