Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 Printer Review

The Epson WF-3820 is well-designed. It's made of sturdy, durable-feeling plastic, and the scan lid and paper trays feel solid. The scan lid stays fully open on its own, although its hinges can't be raised enough to fit a textbook under the closed lid. The output tray can be lifted to see how much paper is left in the input tray without disturbing the print job. Paper jams can be reached by removing a cover at the back, and ink cartridges are easily accessed by lifting the flatbed scanner. Also, the right rear corner houses a removable maintenance box that stores ink flushed during the print head cleaning. Once the maintenance box is full, it needs to be replaced.

Unfortunately, there's only one input tray, and you can't have both regular paper and photo paper loaded at once. If you want to use a different type of paper, you need to manually unload and reload the tray with the right type of paper each time. Also, the printer needs to be on to replace the ink cartridges.

Update 02/23/2022: The In Use photo was reshot because the initial one didn't have the input tray fully extended.

The Epson WorkForce WF-3820 is fairly compact. Since it's a bit tall, you'll need some clearance above it to properly open the scanner lid. Otherwise, it should fit well in most spaces.

The Epson WF-3820 has a good LCD screen. Although it has good visibility whether you're sitting or standing, you can tilt the display panel vertically to help you see the screen better. It has a crisp background with touch-sensitive buttons around the display border. The touch screen is easy to navigate, and if you're confused about how to do something, how-to diagrams are available by pressing the Help button.

The Epson WF-3820 's inkjet cartridge system is only okay. The black page yield is pretty low, so you'll have to replace the black cartridge often. On the other hand, the color page yield is good and should last you longer. There are three different color cartridges, so you can change the empty ones without needing to replace them all at once. When the black ink runs out, it must be replaced to continue printing as you can't print with color cartridges only. On the upside, there are high-capacity versions that should last longer, although we didn't test these. We couldn't find any third-party ink available.

If you're looking for a similarly priced color inkjet printer with superior page yields, check out the Brother MFC-J4335DW.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 has great scanner features. The flatbed scanner has a good maximum scan resolution and color depth. It has a sheetfed scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF) for scanning multiple pages at a time. The scan lid can stay open on its own, although its hinges can't be lifted high enough to fit a thick document or textbook under the closed lid. Unfortunately, there's no duplex scanning, so you'll have to manually flip over every page if you're scanning a two-sided document.

• User manual
• Installation CD
• Power cable
• Epson T822 starter cartridges
• 1x T822-I Black
• 1x T822-I Cyan
• 1x T822-I Magenta
• 1x T822-I Yellow

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 has a great cost-per-print. While you have to buy three cartridges to replace all colors, this means that you use every drop of ink that you pay for, and you aren't throwing away half-full cartridges just because one color runs out.

The printing speed of the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 is very good. Although the first page takes some time to come out, the subsequent pages get faster after that, especially for black-only documents. Photos print out decently quickly. If you'd like a printer with a higher input tray capacity, check out the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 can print on most common paper formats. Along with the preset sizes, you can also set a custom size for paper between 3.5" to 47.2" in length. This also lets you print on A5-sized paper if you set the measurements manually. Unfortunately, the input tray can only hold one format of paper at a time, which is bothersome if you switch between regular paper and photo paper often.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 has decent color accuracy. It struggles most with blues, greens, and blacks, but all other colors look pretty good.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 has exceptional connectivity options. You can set it up with your home's Wi-Fi router either wirelessly or via Ethernet, or you can connect straight to the printer via Wi-Fi Direct. Although it doesn't support Bluetooth, mobile printing is still easy with Apple AirPrint and Mopria Print. You can also print directly off a USB flash drive.

The Epson Smart Panel app lets you print, scan, and copy directly from your mobile device. It also lets you check ink levels, perform maintenance tasks like firmware updates, nozzle checks, printhead cleaning, and order new cartridges right from the app. You can print most file types on both Android and iOS, but some don't work on iOS. When printing a Microsoft Office document from the app, the document's format isn't converted properly, meaning the result is a mobile version of the print. Also, TXT files aren't supported by the iOS version of the app. That said, you can still print both file types using Apple AirPrint.