Epson EcoTank ET-2400  Printer Review

The Epson ET-2400's build is okay. It's entirely plastic, but it feels relatively sturdy, and there are no obvious gaps in the construction. The input port feels pretty solid, and the power cord is removable, making it easy to replace if damaged. Design-wise, there are a couple of things that could be better. For example, it doesn't have an input tray, only a manual feeder at the back of the printer. The scanner bed only opens partially, with a small plastic piece holding it open, so people with large hands may have trouble accessing the sheet rollers. Also, there's no dampener, so the scanner bed will slam down if you don't guide it down gently. Lastly, the scanner background is just a thin piece of plastic with no foam backing, and the lid hinges don't extend, making it hard to close the lid over thick items.

The Epson ET-2400 printer doesn't require much maintenance as it yields a remarkably large number of prints, meaning you won't need to refill the tank often. However, like most inkjet printers, the printheads can clog if you don't print for an extended period. There are a few maintenance functions that you can access through the software's printing preferences, like printhead cleaning, printhead nozzle check, power cleaning, and printhead alignment.

Refilling the tank is simple; you only need to open the cover at the top of the tank to fill it, and the printer doesn't need to be on for the process, though it can get messy if you aren't careful. There's no way to set the ink level in the printer's settings, so you need to keep an eye on the ink levels, as emptying the tank can introduce air bubbles into the tubes and damage the printer. The input tray holds 100 sheets of paper, so depending on how much you print, you may need to refill the tray regularly. As for paper jams, you can access the sheet rollers through the front of the printer, but there's very little space to maneuver because the printer only opens partially. There's no back panel, and you can't access the sheet rollers through the output tray.

You can see the manual here.

The Epson EcoTank ET-2400 doesn't have a display; it only has a few buttons and indicator lights along the top left corner of the printer. Although some of the icons and labels are easily recognizable, like the power and the Wi-Fi buttons, others aren't as obvious as to what they represent, so you'll need to refer to the manual to know what they mean. For example, the droplet icon doesn't indicate low ink levels; instead, it indicates that the maintenance box (used to collect surplus ink collected during printing or printhead cleaning) needs emptying. There's also no Start button, so if the printer runs out of paper, you need to press the Copy button to resume the print job. If you're looking for a printer with similar capabilities that does have a display, you should consider the Epson EcoTank ET-2980.

The Epson EcoTank ET-2400's ink tank yields a remarkably large number of prints, meaning you won't need to refill it often unless you print a lot. The printer can't detect the amount of ink in the tank; you only get occasional reminders to check the ink levels. It also doesn't stop printing when it's low on ink, so you need to keep an eye on it to avoid emptying the tank and damaging the printer. We performed the yield test until the ink levels reached the bottom line on the tank.

The Epson EcoTank ET-2400 has mediocre scanner features. It only has a flatbed, so scanning long, multi-page documents can be tedious and extremely time-consuming. Also, the scanner background is only a thin sheet of plastic with no foam backing, and the lid hinges don't extend, making it hard to close the lid over thicker items like textbooks. To use its OCR (optical character recognition) feature, you need to scan the document via the Epson Scan 2 software and save it as a 'Searchable PDF.' The OCR works well; it only makes mistakes when there are special characters.

If you're looking for a printer with similar overall performance that includes a more feature-rich scanner, consider the Epson EcoTank ET-3950.

The scan quality is outstanding. All elements are present, including fine details like the lines in the graph, and the text looks very sharp. The scanner boosts the contrast and saturation to make the scan look more vibrant, which you might not like if you're looking for accuracy, as some colors look overly saturated and almost neon.

• Epson 522 CMYK ink bottles:
• 1x Cyan
• 1x Magenta
• 1x Yellow
• 1x Black
• Power cord
• User guide

The print quality of black-and-white documents is great. Fine details are visible, like the lines in the graph, and except for the white text at the bottom of the frequency response chart, the rest of the text looks sharp. There are some visible vertical lines in the print; however, they aren't noticeable when printing in portrait mode or with the High-Quality setting. As mentioned in the maintenance section, the ink tank should never be empty, as it can damage the printer. As such, we consider color ink necessary for black-and-white printing.

Color documents look good. All elements are present; however, the colors look slightly washed out, and the text at the bottom of the frequency response chart is hard to read.

The cost-per-print is superb because the ink bottles are relatively cheap, and the printer yields a large number of prints, reducing the frequency you need to refill the tank.

This printer takes a while to get a single page out and doesn't get much faster with subsequent pages. It also can't perform automatic double-sided printing, meaning you'll have to flip the pages manually when prompted. You can only print a maximum of 30 pages at a time when printing double-sided documents. The output tray holds up to 30 sheets. If you want a similar printer with faster printing speed, check out the Epson EcoTank ET-4850; or, if you are specifically looking for faster photo printing, consider the Epson Expression Photo XP-8800.

You can only print on A5 paper using a custom user-defined size. The printer supports custom sizes from 2.2" x 3.4" to 8.5" x 47.2" (54 mm x 86 mm to 215.9 mm x 1,200 mm).

This printer's color gamut is excellent. It mainly only struggles with bright, saturated tones, as the zigzag line is only partially visible. There isn't any banding, but the color transitions look grainy.

The color accuracy is okay. Most colors are inaccurate, but not enough to make photos look unnatural or bad. That said, there's a lot of grain in the picture.

The Epson EcoTank ET-2400 is outstanding at producing small details. You can clearly see the Tokyo Tower's general structure and even the individual metal bars at the top, though there's some loss of detail due to the use of halftones (dots).

You can only print borderless on paper sizes up to 4" x 6". Also, the print quality may be worse in some areas when printing borderless, as indicated by this message.

Unfortunately, this printer doesn't support Apple AirPrint or Mopria Print Service; check out the Canon PIXMA G3270 if that's something you want. You need to use the Epson Smart Panel app to print from a mobile device.

Epson's Smart Panel mobile app lets you print, scan (with your phone's camera), and copy from your smartphone. You can also perform maintenance tasks, like cleaning the printheads, but you can't check the ink levels since the printer can't detect the amount of ink left. You can create a QR code to let guests connect to the printer, access the user manual, and watch how-to videos. It has Google Class integration, so you can quickly print your assignments from Google Classroom. It also includes links to Epson's Creative Print app and Epson's Gallery website. The Creative Print app lets you create collages with your photos, and the Gallery contains patterns you can use for crafts, like decorations, Christmas cards, and book covers.

You don't need to install any drivers to print and scan on macOS and Chrome OS, but you do on Windows devices. You can find the drivers here.