an ink-jet printer with lots of ink

Coming up with a simple characterization for the Epson WorkForce ET-4550 EcoTank All-in-One Printer ($499.99) is a challenge. On the one hand, it's a fairly typical office-centric multifunction printer (MFP), and a good fit for either personal use or light-duty shared use in a micro office. On the other, it's expensive for that sort of printer. But as part of the EcoTank family, it's Epson's answer to anyone who has ever complained about the marketing model that gives away the razors (read: printers) to sell the blades (read: ink). With the ET-4550$499.99 at Amazon, you pay full freight for the printer, and save lots of money on ink.

According to Epson, the ET-4550 is essentially identical to the Epson WorkForce WF-2650$78.88 at WalMart, except that it adds an Ethernet connector and—far more important—it doesn't use ink cartridges. Instead, it adds ink tanks on the side of the printer, and ships with bottles of ink, which you pour into the tanks.

Along with the nearly identical features, the two models offer similar performance. There's a big difference in price, with the ET-4550 costing about four times as much. But unless you hardly print at all, it will be a lot less expensive in the long run. The ET-4500 comes with enough ink for 11,000 monochrome pages (if you use it as a replacement for a monochrome laser), or 8,500 color pages, with both yields based on ISO/IEC standard test pages. To print the same number of pages with the Epson WF-2650, you'd have to buy more than $1,600 worth of ink cartridges. And that's not including the cost of the printer.