Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 Printer Review

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 has great build quality and design, made of sturdy-feeling plastic. It has two paper trays at the front and a feeder at the back, with width sliders to accommodate different paper sizes. It provides good access to paper jams and ink cartridges, but the printer needs to be on to replace the cartridges. The scanner lid stays open on its own, and its hinges can be lifted high enough to scan thicker items. The maintenance box that stores flushed ink is easily accessible from inside the printer, but it needs to be replaced once it's full.

Unfortunately, our unit makes many creaking and squeaking noises while printing. Also, the cartridge bay lid damper isn't very good as the final inch slams down.

Note that there's a variant of this printer called the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7820 that we expect to perform similarly, but it only has a single paper tray with a capacity of 250 pages.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 is an inkjet printer, so there's a risk of ink drying up and printheads clogging. It requires some ink maintenance to keep it running smoothly, and there are tasks built-in for printhead cleaning, printhead nozzle check, printhead alignment, and paper guide cleaning. To replace the cartridges, you need to turn the printer on, select "Ink Cartridge Replacement" in the settings, then wait for the cartridge carrier to move into view. While it doesn't take very long to do, the extra step does make this process take a bit more time than other models. This is especially annoying since you need to do this somewhat frequently due to its fairly low page yields. On the bright side, you don't need to refill its paper tray as often since it has two large trays that hold up to 250 pages each, as well as a manual feeder that holds up to 50 pages. In the case of a paper jam, you can easily reach the sheet rollers by removing a panel in the back. You can also remove both the input tray and the output tray to access the front sheet rollers.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 has an LCD touchscreen that's easy to navigate and feels responsive. It has touch-sensitive buttons for Home and Help, and it has four shortcut buttons to interrupt or reset, and to view the paper settings or job status. It has great vertical visibility, but the viewing angle isn't as good from the side.

The Epson WF-7840's cartridge system is only okay. It doesn't yield many black ink pages, meaning you'll need to replace it quite often. However, it yields a higher number of color pages, so you shouldn't need to replace the color cartridges as often, though it depends on how frequently you print in color. There are also high-yield versions of the cartridges available that last longer. If any of the color cartridges are empty, you can't continue printing in color; likewise, you can't print in color if the black cartridge is empty. If you want a wide-format printer with higher page yields, have a look at the Brother MFC-J6945DW.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 has a flatbed scanner and an automatic document feeder that can print double-sided sheets automatically, up to tabloid size. The scanner lid stays open on its own, and its hinges can be lifted high enough to scan thicker items. Also, it has copy and fax capabilities.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840's default scanning resolution is 200 DPI, which is enough for text documents. However, if you need to resize your scans, you can increase the resolution up to 1200 DPI.

It can print on most common paper formats, except for 2" x 3". The two front paper trays can hold 250 pages each, and the rear tray can hold up to 50 pages. Both front trays can be extended to fit up to tabloid-sized sheets.

• Quick start guide
• Installation CD
• Detachable power cord
• Epson T812 starter cartridges
  • 1x T812 Black
  • 1x T812 Cyan
  • 1x T812 Magenta
  • 1x T812 Yellow

The cost-per-print is great. The costs remain relatively low over time, but it may quickly add up if you print in color often. If you want a much lower cost-per-print, check out the HP PageWide Pro 577dw.

Though it isn't the fastest we've tested, the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 prints monochrome documents fairly fast. It's a lot slower for color documents, though. Also, it takes time to print a single page once it's been idle for over an hour. On the bright side, it can automatically print double-sided sheets, whether it's letter-size or tabloid-size paper.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 has decent photo printing quality. Photos look a little grainy and there's some banding present in gray areas, but otherwise, it produces good detail. If you need a wide-format printer but want something that prints better-looking photos, check out the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7310.

The scanned images provided above are for reference only. They look worse than the physical photos due to the scanning and uploading process. The score is based on the actual physical photos.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 has okay color accuracy. Although the accuracy isn't good enough for professionals who need exact color reproduction, it's more than enough for casual color printing or photos. Blues tend to be the most inaccurate, though, but your photos of the ocean and the sky will still look nice.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840's color gamut is decent.

It has fantastic connectivity options. While it doesn't have Bluetooth support, you can print wirelessly via Wi-Fi, AirPrint, or Mopria Print, and you can also print directly off a USB drive from the input at the front.

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 is compatible with the Epson iPrint app. You can print, scan, and copy from your mobile device, as well as monitor the ink levels, order cartridges, and perform maintenance tasks.