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 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
- Updated Jul 02, 2026: We've updated this review to Test Bench 1.4, which adds new usages and performance usages, as well as reorganizes several other tests throughout the review. You can read more about the changes in detail in the 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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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-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 Canon PIXMA G7020 and the Epson EcoTank ET-3850 are both supertank printers that offer outstanding page yields and a low cost-per-print. The only differences are that the Epson prints faster and produces higher-quality scans. The Canon has better color accuracy, but not significantly.
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
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