Review: Epson Artisan 810 All-in-One

In late 2008, I reviewed one of Epson’s newest (at the time) all-in-one printers – the Artisan 700. And after a year, we were still just as happy with the quality of printing, the ease of use and the overall functions of the printer – especially the built-in wi-fi that lets me sit out here in the living room on my laptop and wirelessly print from the Artisan in our home office across the house. The only issue I really had was the time or two when it definitely would’ve been convenient to have had a fax machine here in the house, but that really was minor, I thought.

When Epson contacted me again last December about the possibility of reviewing their newest all-in-one – the premium Artisan 810, I took one look at the added features and jumped at the chance. Along with the addition of faxing capability, the idea of being able to print directly from my iPhone had me totally intrigued and ready to try it out. And wow, I certainly haven’t been disappointed!

What it is:

The Epson Artisan 810 is an all-in-one that includes high-quality printing, high-speed fax, high-resolution scanning and copying capabilities – along with tools allowing you to produce unique projects like coloring book pages, personalized notepaper, custom CDs/DVDs, graph paper and more. Using Epson’s Ultra Hi-Definition Claria ink, the Artisan 810 prints photos up to 8.5”x11” and also offers the ability to print directly from an Apple iPhone, along with built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet, for multiple users in the house. With a 30-page Automatic Document Feeder, scanning or copying a multiple page document is simple.

Here are some of the additional features that the Artisan 810 offers, as compared to the Artisan 700 from the previous generation:

• Smart 7.8” touch panel that lights up only the buttons needed
• 3.5” tilt LCD to easily select, copy, enlarge, rotate, crop, restore, and print photos without a computer
• Higher scanning resolution – 4800 dpi resolution vs. the Artisan 700’s 2400 dpi resolution
• Full-featured faxing
• 30-page Automatic Document Feeder to quickly copy, fax and scan stacks of documents
• New, easy, four-step wireless set-up process – no USB connection required
• Built-in automatic duplex printing to reduce the amount of paper used by 50%
• Easily turns photos or drawings into one-of-a-kind coloring book pages from a memory card or from the scanner
• Capability to easily charge mobile devices, such as cell phones or MP3 players, using the front USB port to avoid tying up an additional power outlet
• Prints several applications wirelessly from an Apple iPhone, including business documents, PDF files, amazing photos, photo calendars, and more through e-Print and Print and Share applications available on the iTunes App store
• New textured lid to enhance the sleek design

And some features of the Artisan 810 in general:

• Maximum print and copy speeds of 38 ppm for black and color
• Laser-quality print speeds of 9.5 ppm black and 9.1 ppm color
• Prints 4”x6” photos in as fast as 10 seconds and an 8”x10” in as fast as 50 seconds
• Bluetooth photo printing with optional adapter
• Prints borderless in popular sizes – 4”x6,” 5”x7,” 8”x10,” letter, 16:9 wide
• Sends and receives high-speed (33.6 Kbps fax) color and black and white faxes, including photos
• Stores speed dial numbers (up to 60 numbers) and receives up to 180 pages in memory
• Copies up to 99 pages – no computer required
• Reduces and enlarges copies (25 to 400 percent)
• Scans to a computer, memory card, USB flash drive, and directly into PDF format
• Photo reprints and enlargements
• Fit-to-Page feature adjusts a variety of documents and photos to preferred media size
• Estimated power consumption for one year is less than two dollars
• Designed to be recycled
• ENERGY STAR qualified
• RoHS compliant

Courtesy of Epson and Walt & Company, I received an Epson Artisan 810 to try out and review with my family.

Here’s my our take on it:

The very first thing that I noticed about the Artisan 810 when I took it out of the box is that even with the added Document Reader and fax capability, it doesn’t really take up any additional space than the Artisan 700. I was able to move the 700 and put the Artisan 810 right in its place with no problem (the Artisan 700 will be connected to our kids’ computer and dedicated for their use). The second thing that I noticed was the large, bright, easy-to-read touchscreen display that absolutely blew me away. The buttons on the 700 were simple enough to use and navigate through the various menus with, but the lit, color display of the 810 is – well, beautiful is the word that comes to the mind of this self-admitted techie geek.

One improvement over the Artisan 700 is how you set up the printer on your wireless network. Where with the 700 you had to first use a USB connection, those steps are no longer necessary and it was easy for us to set the 810 up to run wirelessly. The printer itself detects available Wi-Fi networks that are within range, and once you connect the 810, your computer then detects and connects to it. In our case, it worked very easily, but I suppose that will depend on how you have your own network set up.

Like the Artisan 700, the 810 has dual trays so you can keep your 4”x6” photo paper right in the printer along with your 8.5”x11” paper for printing documents. It also has USB and card storage slots so that you can print directly from a flash drive or SD card. Or you can scan a document directly to one if you want to completely bypass your computer. I’ve found that it’s actually a lot easier to simply stick a flash drive into the 810 and scan directly to that and then move the files later to where I need them to go. My husband has actually discovered too, that you can use the 810 to copy files from a flash drive to SD card and vice versa – since the SD card slot on our desktop doesn’t seem to be working, that’s been a huge help for him. According to the 810 specs, you can also use the USB port to charge electronic devices, which I think is great, because we don’t have many (if any) electrical outlets left in our home office that aren’t being used, and I like the idea of being able to not have to tie up one of the USB ports on the computer for hours at a time.

My husband’s deep in the process of researching his family tree and has been collecting information and data from family members for years. Up until now he’s simply hung onto what are usually hand-written pages because the process of scanning each individual sheet is extremely time-consuming. I think the word ‘overjoyed’ describes his reaction when he found out that the 810 has a document feeder and he immediately tried it out. Since then he’s been able to easily scan the majority of the pages he’s been given, and used the OCR software that came with the 810 to recognize the text so that he could pull it directly into his family tree software. His Christmas gift to his mother this year was a full copy of her family tree that he printed with the 810 from all of the information that he’d used it to scan in.

When it comes to printing, the 810 has done an impeccable job for us so far, printing quickly and with good quality. My only complaint is that it sometimes will grab more than one sheet of paper at a time, but that may have to do with the (cheap) copy paper that we’re using as much as the printer. I’d say that it’s only been an issue maybe 20% of the time – usually it works just fine. And I’ve never had trouble with the photo paper tray – it’s always grabbed only one sheet at at time. The print quality is exceptional, in my opinion. I’ve also used the 810 to print graph paper for a project of my daughter’s and to try out the coloring book pages. I took the girls’ Christmas photo and made a coloring book page of it:

Now while this may not have been the best photo choice (a simpler photo with more contrast and less subtle color changes would probably work better), still this is incredibly cool. And I can think of a lot of different pictures that I can make coloring pages of for the girls, without having to search online for existing ones.

So of course, I have to talk about the ability to print directly from an iPhone. All I did was add Epson’s iPrint app on my phone (for free), and I can now print pictures wirelessly, right off of my iPhone. You can choose the print size as well as whether you want your photo or document to print with or without a border. So far I’ve only used it to print pictures, but I like the idea of being able to print a document too – like maybe a coupon or PDF file I’ve been e-mailed. I’ll have to look further into the other printing apps available.

So is there anything that I don’t love about the Artisan 810? Well, the black finish definitely shows dust like crazy. But other than that and the annoying little problem of sometimes grabbing more than one sheet of copy paper, we’ve been extremely impressed and happy with it.

The bottom line:

The Epson Artisan 810 has truly taken the already impressive features of the previous generation and added new ones that make this printer truly an all-in-one device. For most functions you don’t even need a computer – you can scan, edit, import and print your photos directly on the 810 itself. With the ability to fax and copy, it’s a viable option for a small business as well as your home office, especially since you can also use it to charge your portable electronic devices and even print wirelessly directly from your iPhone. The scan and print qualities are amazing, and so far we haven’t even come close to running out of any ink colors with typical home usage. As much as I still like the Artisan 700 – especially as a great option if your budget is limited, the Artisan 810 is truly everything I think I could ask for. Although I don’t put it past Epson to come up with future features that I can’t even imagine right now.

Where can you find it?:

You can purchase the Artisan 810 at major computer, office and electronic superstores, a variety of retail stores nationwide, mail order, PC manufacturers, the Internet, and Epson’s own retail site, www.epsonstore.com. It is also available on Amazon (affiliate link). The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $299.99, but I see at the moment Epson is offering a $120 rebate plus free shipping if you purchase from their site!

This post courtesy of: Epson and Walt & Company, who provided the product for review. No payment or compensation, other than product samples as described above, was received for this post. All opinions given here are solely my own or those of my family.