The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 is an all-in-one inkjet printer designed for a small or home office. This bulky model has two input trays which hold 500 pages in total, and there's also a feeder at the back. It's a wide-format printer, meaning it can print very large pages up to 13" x 19". It can even scan sheets up to tabloid size on its flatbed scanner and automatic document feeder, even if they're double-sided. Like many office printers, it can duplex print automatically, and it has many wireless connectivity options for various different devices.
Our Verdict
The Epson WF-7840 is good for family use. It has a fantastic scanner with a flatbed and an automatic document feeder that can scan double-sided sheets automatically. It has a low cost-per-print for both color and black documents, and it has great color accuracy for casual photos. Sadly, photo quality is only okay, but it should be fine for occasional photo printing.
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Easy access to paper jams and ink cartridges.
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Great color accuracy.
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Good printing speed.
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Outstanding scanner features.
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Terrible black page yield.
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No Bluetooth support.
The Epson WF-7840 is good for small or home offices. It feels well-built and has a fantastic scanner that can perform duplex scanning and faxes. It prints black-only text documents fairly quickly, although the first page takes a while to print. It's affordable to print in both black and color ink; however, the black page yield is very low so you may need to replace the cartridge often.
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Easy access to paper jams and ink cartridges.
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Good printing speed.
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Outstanding scanner features.
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Terrible black page yield.
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No Bluetooth support.
The Epson WF-7840 is great for students. Although you may need to replace the ink often if you print regularly, the black ink cartridge is relatively affordable, which helps keep the cost-per-print low. It has a fantastic scanner and outstanding wireless connectivity options. Unfortunately, it doesn't have Bluetooth, and the first page takes a while to print.
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Easy access to paper jams and ink cartridges.
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Good printing speed.
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Outstanding scanner features.
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Terrible black page yield.
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No Bluetooth support.
The Epson WF-7840 is good for black and white printing. Although the printer yields a low amount of black text pages, its cost-per-print is still fairly low. However, you may need to replace the black cartridge often if you print large documents often. Luckily, high yield cartridges are available and should last longer, but we haven't tested them. Also, it's fast at printing black-only text pages.
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Easy access to paper jams and ink cartridges.
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Good printing speed.
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Outstanding scanner features.
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Terrible black page yield.
The Epson WF-7840 is decent for casual photos. Although there's some graininess and banding present in photos, they're decently detailed and colors look impressively accurate. It supports most photo sizes except for 2" x 3", and it's fairly affordable to print photos and in color.
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Easy access to paper jams and ink cartridges.
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Great color accuracy.
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Good printing speed.
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Terrible black page yield.
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Can't print 2" x 3" photos.
- Family
- Small/Home Office
- Student
- Black & White
- Photo
- Updated Sep 09, 2022: Converted to Test Bench 1.1.
- Updated May 27, 2022: This printer was incorrectly listed as not supporting A5 sheets, but it can actually print on this size. We've corrected the results in the Printing Size test to say 'Yes'.
- Updated May 18, 2022: Since we updated this printer to the new test bench, we added text to the new tests. We also updated some of the older text to be more in line with our current guidelines.
- Updated Apr 07, 2022: Converted to Test Bench 1.0.
- Updated Aug 16, 2021: Retested duplex scanning and printing to confirm results. Updated Scanner and Printing Speed box.
- Updated Nov 27, 2020: Review published.
- Updated Nov 17, 2020: Early access published.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840, but there's also a variant called the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7820 that we expect to perform almost identically. While we haven't tested it, the biggest difference seems to be the number of input trays: the WF-7840 has three paper trays which hold a total of 550 pages, while the WF-7820 has only one, which holds 250 pages. You can see the label of our unit here.
Compared To Other Printers
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 is a versatile inkjet printer. Unlike some other printers we've tested in the WorkForce Pro lineup, this printer has three paper trays, which is great if you print many pages and in different paper sizes regularly. It has outstanding scanner features, including automatically processing multi-page documents, duplex scanning, and faxing. Sadly, its cartridge system isn't as good as other printers with much higher page yields.
Also check out our recommendations for the best home printers, the best office printers, and the best inkjet printers.
The HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 and the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 are both wide format printers. The HP is a better choice if scanning quickly is a priority for you. Its ADF can duplex scan double-sided documents in a single pass, which is faster than the Epson's ADF which requires two passes. However, the Epson has much better color accuracy and a physical keypad next to its display screen, making it easier to fax if needed.
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 and the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4830 are very similar all-in-one inkjet printers. The main difference is that the WF-7840's cartridge system has a higher page yield for color documents, and its flatbed scanner is bigger, supporting up to 11" x 17" sheets.
The Epson EcoTank Pro ET-5850 and the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 are all-in-one color inkjet printers. The WorkForce can print on wide tabloid-format paper and has a larger flatbed scanner. However, the EcoTank is a much better printer overall, with significantly better page yields at a much lower cost-per-print, a faster overall printing speed, and higher photo printing quality.
The Brother MFC-J6945DW and the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 are both capable of scanning and printing 11" x 17" tabloid-format sheets. The Brother is better for small or home offices, with significantly higher page yields at a much cheaper cost-per-print, and a faster color document printing speed. On the other hand, the Epson prints black text documents much faster.
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7310 is a print-only unit, while the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 is an all-in-one model. Both printers can print up to 13" x 19" sheets, with borderless printing support for up to 11" x 17" sheets. The WF-7840 is a better printer overall thanks to its much better page yields and significantly cheaper cost-per-print. Also, it has a flatbed scanner and duplex-scanning ADF to easily digitize different types of media. On the other hand, the WF-7310 prints documents faster, and it's better for photo printing as it produces much better-detailed photos.
The Brother MFC-J995DW is better than the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840. The Brother has a much better cartridge system that yields many more pages, resulting in a significantly lower cost-per-print. However, the Epson can perform duplex scanning, it prints faster, supports Mopria Print Service, and its three input trays hold more paper than the Brother's singular input tray.
Test Results
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.