The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is an all-in-one supertank inkjet printer. Instead of traditional ink cartridges, it uses four ink tanks for black, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink that are compatible with Epson's T502 ink. It features an ADF-equipped scanner but lacks support for duplex scanning and fax functionality. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, USB, and Ethernet, as well as support for Apple AirPrint and Mopria Print Service. This printer is compatible with the Epson Smart Panel mobile app, which allows you to scan and print, check ink levels, and perform various maintenance tasks.
There are a couple of retailer-specific variants. See the Differences Between Variants section below for more details.
Our Verdict
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is great for home use. It offers numerous connectivity options, allowing everyone in your household to easily print documents from a tablet, smartphone, or desktop. It also doesn't cost much to maintain since its supertank system has a high page yield, and replacement ink is cheap. As for its print quality, documents look very sharp, and photos look detailed and colorful, albeit grainy and not particularly color-accurate. Unfortunately, it's slow to print color documents and photos.
- Produces high-quality documents.
- Produces very fine details and a wide range of colors.
- High page yield, low cost per print.
- Wide connectivity options.
- Decent print speed for black documents.
- Supports borderless printing an various paper sizes.
- Poor color accuracy.
- Photos look grainy.
- Slow to print color documents.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is very good for a small office. It produces high-quality documents, and its ink tank yields an incredible amount of black or color pages, which is great for offices that print a lot. It prints black documents fairly quickly, but sadly, it's slow with color documents. Also, it doesn't support duplex scanning, so you'll have to scan double-sided sheets manually.
- Produces high-quality documents.
- High page yield, low cost per print.
- Automatic document feeder.
- Wide connectivity options.
- Decent print speed for black documents.
- Automatic feeder is slow and doesn't support duplex scanning.
- Slow to print color documents.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is a reasonable choice if you want a printer that requires minimal maintenance. Since it's an inkjet printer, leaving it unused for long periods can cause the printheads to clog, so occasional printing helps prevent the ink from drying out. The high-capacity flushing system usually clears minor clogs and allows for multiple deep-cleaning cycles without refilling ink. However, if a clog proves to be too severe for flushing to resolve, your options are very limited, as the printheads aren't user-replaceable. Aside from this limitation, the large ink tanks offer excellent page yields, making refills rare, and the wide range of connectivity options makes it easy to print from almost any device.
- High page yield, low cost per print.
- Automatic document feeder.
- Wide connectivity options.
- Decent print speed for black documents.
- Automatic feeder is slow and doesn't support duplex scanning.
- Slow to print color documents.
Can clog if it's left unused.
Printheads aren't user-replaceable.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is good for photo printing. It produces very small details and a wide range of colors, but the photos look grainy, and color reproduction isn't very accurate. The main benefit of this printer is its low maintenance cost, as the ink tank yields a lot of prints, and the ink bottles are cheap. Unfortunately, it prints photos very slowly.
- Produces very fine details and a wide range of colors.
- High page yield, low cost per print.
- Supports borderless printing an various paper sizes.
- Poor color accuracy.
- Photos look grainy.
Like other Supertank printers, the Epson EcoTank ET-3850 offers incredible page yields. You'll be able to print thousands of pages before you have to refill your ink cartridges.
- High page yield, low cost per print.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 prints a respectable 15 black pages per minute, but it's slow for printing color documents and photos. It's also slow to initialize from an idle state and print a single page.
- Decent print speed for black documents.
- Slow to print color documents.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850's print quality for black and white documents is outstanding. Text looks sharp, and all fine elements are legible, like lines on a graph. However, colored areas look grainy, and there's some minor vertical banding.
- Produces high-quality documents.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 produces outstanding quality scans. The scanner captures everything well, including very fine details. The image processing boosts the contrast and color saturation, resulting in a vibrant final product; while this is good for text documents because it makes the text easier to read, it might not be ideal if you're looking to digitize photos and expect the scan to look as close to the original picture as possible. As for the scanner features, there's an ADF, although it can't perform duplex scanning. The flatbed scanner's hinges are slightly adjustable to accommodate thicker items, such as textbooks or magazines.
- Automatic document feeder.
Outstanding scan quality.
- Automatic feeder is slow and doesn't support duplex scanning.
Performance Usages
Changelog
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Updated Jan 08, 2026:
We've updated text throughout the review after converting to Test Bench 1.3.
- Updated Jan 05, 2026: We've updated the review to Test Bench 1.3, which adds a number of test boxes including Risk of Clogging and Ease of Unclogging. We also updated the Usage and Performance boxes at the top of the review to better integrate the new aspects covered. See the changelog.
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Updated Dec 01, 2025:
We changed the naming used for the cartridge from TS502 to Epson 502 Black to keep consistency with other Epson printers. We also retested the color accuracy of the printer to see if it had improved with a software update; however, the result remained unchanged.
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Updated Feb 18, 2025:
We've rewritten the Introduction, verdict boxes, and the 'Compared To Other Printers' box to bring them in line with our current standards for printer reviews.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the Epson EcoTank ET-3850 in white. It's also available in black in some regions. There's also a Walmart-exclusive variant, the Epson EcoTank ET-3843, and a Costco-exclusive variant, the Epson EcoTank ET-3850 SE. Both variants are identical in features and performance to the ET-3850. The only difference is that the Costco variant comes with two additional bottles of black ink.
See our unit's label.
Popular Printer Comparisons
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is a mid-range all-in-one supertank inkjet printer. Its stand-out feature compared to traditional inkjet printers that use cartridges is its page yield; its ink tank yields a very large number of prints, even compared to other supertanks in its class, making it one of the best options for high-volume document printing. While it also has a great color gamut, resulting in detailed prints, it produces photos that aren't color-accurate and that have a lot of grain. As a result, it's fine for casual photo printing but isn't well-suited for use in professional environments.
For more options, check out our recommendations for the best Epson printers, the best all-in-one printers, and the best inkjet printers.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 and the Epson EcoTank ET-4800 are very similar supertank printers, with a few differences. The ET-3850 has a larger display, much higher page yields, and faster printing speeds. Also, the ET-3850 can print double-sided automatically, whereas you need to flip over the sheets manually with the ET-4800. On the other hand, the ET-4800 has built-in fax and prints photos with better detail and color accuracy.
The Epson EcoTank ET-3850 is the step-up model of the Epson EcoTank ET-2850. They're very similar, but the ET-3850 has more helpful features for a small office, like a larger display, an automatic document feeder, and an Ethernet port. It also has higher page yields and faster printing speed.
The Epson EcoTank ET-4850 is almost identical to the Epson EcoTank ET-3850. There are a couple of minor yet important differences. Feature-wise, the ET-4850 offers fax capability whereas the ET-3850 does not, and design-wise, the ET-4850 has a touch-sensitive display and a dampener to prevent the scanner bed from slamming shut.
The ETEpson EcoTank-3950 and the Epson EcoTank ET-3850 share many of the same strengths, offering comparable print quality and both featuring an automatic document feeder. The ET-3950, however, expands its capabilities with dual-pass duplex scanning, which can come in handy for frequent duplex prints. Its color accuracy is noticeably better than that of the ET-3850, delivering more pleasing colors overall. The only drawback is that the ET-3950 produces scans with slightly less detail.
Test Results
This printer feels relatively well-built. The body feels sturdy, but the automatic document feeder on top feels a bit thin and flimsy, and it squeaks when moved. The main complaint is that the scanner's lid doesn't have a dampener, only a notched support to hold it open. As such, it'll slam shut if you don't raise it slowly and make sure it's in the locked position. Getting the lid to lock in that open position is also difficult.
The Epson ET-3850 has an okay display. It's easy to see whether you're sitting or standing, and you can also tilt the front panel to improve visibility. However, it's hard to see from the side. It isn't touch-sensitive, and there's no numeric keypad, so entering passwords to connect the printer to Wi-Fi can be tedious, as you must use the arrow keys to navigate the keyboard and enter each letter individually.
The Epson ET-3850 has four refillable ink tanks that yield a large number of prints, making it a great choice for high-volume printing. You can easily see the ink levels from the front of the printer, which is good because this printer doesn't have an ink level sensor. It only monitors ink usage internally to provide an estimate, which means you'll need to manually track your ink levels and reset them in the printer settings when you refill the tanks. As noted in the maintenance section, allowing the ink levels to run too low or emptying the tank can introduce air bubbles into the print tubes, potentially damaging the printer.
As for specific color yields, the cyan ink yields significantly more pages than either magenta or yellow.
Like most inkjet printers, the Epson's printheads can clog if you don't print for a long time. There are several built-in maintenance functions available to resolve any clogging or print quality issues, including printhead cleaning, power cleaning, printhead alignment, and nozzle check. There's also a paper guide cleaning, which helps remove the build-up of dust that could smear prints as they pass through the paper feeders. The printhead cleaning task usually resolves clogging issues; however, you may need to repeat it to achieve optimal results. There's a maintenance box that collects ink flushed during printhead cleanings, which you need to clean periodically. There's a feature in the menu that lets you see when the maintenance box is full.
You won't need to refill the ink tank often, as it yields a large number of prints at max capacity. You just need to keep an eye on the ink levels and avoid letting them get too low, as doing so can introduce air bubbles into the tubes and damage the printer. Refilling the tank is easy; simply lift the scanner to access the ink tank's cover. You can access the sheet rollers to clear paper jams through a panel on the back of the printer or by lifting the cover of the automatic feeder. The input tray holds 250 sheets of paper, so you likely won't need to refill it often.
You can see the user manual here.
This is an inkjet printer, which means it can clog if left unused for an extended period. Inkjet printers use liquid ink that flows through extremely fine printhead nozzles. During extended periods of inactivity, this ink can evaporate, thicken, or dry out, potentially blocking the ink flow. Environmental factors such as dry air, dust, temperature fluctuations, or direct sunlight can accelerate clog formation. Clogs may cause missing lines, faded colors, or complete print failures. To reduce the risk, we recommend printing periodically and storing the printer in a cool, stable environment. If clogs occur, most inkjet printers include built-in maintenance routines to help clear the printheads, which are detailed in the Expected Maintenance test box of this review.
If you don't want to deal with unclogging, laser printers use a different system with dry toner and a drum instead of ink and printheads, which avoids this issue.
This printer has non-replaceable printheads paired with a high ink volume, which helps resolve most clogging issues without needing a refill or a new cartridge. The large flushing volume partially compensates for the lack of replacement options for the printheads. However, if a clog exceeds what printhead cleaning tasks can handle, you will most likely need professional help to resolve the issue, which can be quite costly.
- Start Here Guide
- Set-Up CD
- Power cord
- Epson T502 ink bottles:
- 1x black
- 1x cyan
- 1x magenta
- 1x yellow
This is a corded printer, not a battery-powered one.
The cost-per-print is remarkably low. Thanks to the supertank ink system's high page yields, you won't have to buy ink refills frequently, and the replacement ink is cheap, keeping ownership costs low.
This printer prints decently fast. It outputs black documents fairly quickly, but is slow with color documents and photos. It's also slow to initialize from an idle state and get a single page out.
The print quality for black-and-white documents is outstanding. Text looks sharp, and all of the finer elements are present. However, colored areas look grainy, and there's some minor vertical banding.
The print quality of color documents is good. Text looks clear, and colors look good, albeit grainy. Finer elements come through, but not as well as when printing in black and white only. Also, there's a noticeably purple tint when printing with default settings.
This printer supports most standard paper sizes. You can also set custom paper sizes with a width of 3.5" to 8.5" and a length of 5" and 47.24".
This printer has a decent range of scanning features. Its scanner has an automatic feeder for processing multi-page documents. While it's on the slower side and doesn't support duplex scanning, it's still more convenient than scanning each page manually on the flatbed scanner. Its optical character recognition feature allows you to save your scans as PDFs for quick keyword searches. It works well, but it occasionally misspells words. If you need a printer with automatic duplex scanning, check out the HP OfficeJet Pro 9135e.
The scan quality is outstanding. The scanner captures everything well, including very fine details. It enhances the contrast and color saturation to make the scan appear more vibrant, which is beneficial for text documents as it makes the text easier to read. However, it may not be ideal if you're aiming to digitize photos and expect the scan to closely resemble the original picture.
The Epson ET-3850 has a great color gamut. It can reproduce a wide range of colors; however, it struggles with bright greens and purples and darker shades of green and yellow. Unfortunately, color transitions look very grainy.
This printer has bad color accuracy. It reproduces most colors inaccurately, especially blues and greens, and grays have a purplish tone. This level of accuracy is fine for printing the odd casual photo, as printed photos still look relatively natural; however, it isn't ideal for professional-level work that requires exact color reproduction.
This printer is excellent at reproducing small details. The main issue is the halftones (dot effect). They're very noticeable and make edges and distant objects look less defined.
This printer can connect with voice assistants, such as Apple's Siri or Amazon Alexa, allowing you to use voice commands to initiate printing or scanning and check the printer's status.
The Epson Smart Panel mobile app offers numerous features. You can use the app to print, copy, and scan (using a smartphone's camera or printer) and perform maintenance tasks, such as nozzle checking or printhead cleaning. You can also buy replacement ink through the app. Unfortunately, the iOS version of the app can't print Microsoft Office files directly, as it doesn't display the document properly and instead displays a mobile version of the print.
To achieve full functionality on Windows, you need to install the Epson Scan 2 application and the necessary drivers. You can also get the Epson Photo+ software for extra photo printing features. You don't need any drivers or additional programs on macOS and Chrome OS.