Year 2024 Printers Epson ECO Tank VS Canon mainly for A3 sheet

[overvolt]

While Kiriakos he is examining the new Epson ECO Tank series of printers.
I thought to start a new topic, so this to collect feedback about both offerings from Canon and Epson.

I am also interested for models supporting A3 size of sheets, its ridicules idea about getting Epson ECO Tank that supports only A4.
But its also ridicules idea, getting Canon that it does A3 and accepts ink tank of 10ml for 13 Euro its one (five ink tank in total).

Canon offers a tad better build quality at the plastics.
Most Canon inject printer they come with an easy print-head removal system (not all).
Canon has poor distribution network in Greece and EU.
EU Canon website end up to be Canon.UK
In Greece they are complains about the availability of spare parts, for example waste ink collector box. 
Canon has sweeter pricing at printer hardware purchase.   

Its a very confusing situation, to select a printer in our days and not be cheated.
When printing in black, plain dye ink it should be avoided especially when you print schematics and circuits ( document that will kept for several years).

The most funny part is that even at Black Friday and other discount seasons, the truly attractive in hardware models they never get discounted. 

 

[Andrew-88]

Interesting topic ...

Let's summarize our printing needs first regarding printer hardware features.

1) A3 sheet support = schematics or electrical circuits. 
2) A4 automatic double side printing = User manuals / book style documents.
3) Black ink (not plain dye) for long lasting prints

Second features list:
USB & LAN support
Document feeder ?

We are not making any high volume of printing, but the printer it must be designed to survive for a decade at least.

I did notice that both Canon and Epson at models supporting WiFi, they both support only the 2.4G band.
2.4GHz band this is full of noise and or polluted due too many WiFi devices in every neighborhood.
Even so 5GHz band its not an option for these printers, they do not support it.

Therefore we need connectivity of USB and LAN.
Canon this better defining LAN connectivity speed at Fast Ethernet: 100 Mbps = 100BASE-TX = 5e UTP cable.
No clue if Epson support higher Gigabit Ethernet ?   

Onboard scanner or not this is also another choice to be made.

   

[liviu2004]

I can’t see why 1Gbps lan would be justified for speed, for a printer/scanner.

[Kiriakos GR]

First to confirm Epson WiFi at 2.4GHz with proofs. 
This is the module that all Epson printers using.

This tiny antenna it can not deliver much of coverage, but a WiFi extender next to the printer it will help.

[Kiriakos GR]

I can’t see why 1Gbps lan would be justified for speed, for a printer/scanner.

As far I am aware of from my experiences as digital photographer, when the PC communicates with printer/scanner, transferred data these are uncompressed.
The source of a photograph this is a digital camera with CCD at some size of Megapixels.
In theory for best A3 prints the camera should have 3MP CCD.

If you own a fresh workhorse camera with 12Mp CCD, the uncompressed image this is huge, and they use fastest internal storage solution.

The scanner with CIS sensor this has a resolution of their own at 1.200 DPI x 2.400 DPI. 
   
So my quick answer is, that if you use your scanner at it highest resolution, and or if you send to the printer a high resolution photograph, the faster data transfer it saves time.
Plain black and white prints does not require significant bandwidth, but color prints does.   

 

[Kiriakos GR]

This is first web based calculator that I came across, which analyzed a photograph of my 2MP Olympus C2100.
And calculated the necessary file size when a photograph this is converted to dpi.

https://pixelcalculator.com/en

Result
Pixel total    1600 x 1200 Pixel [ 1.9 Mpx]
Picture size    135.47 x 101.6 mm
dpi / ppi    300 dpi
24bit color
Disk space    46.08 MB
Pitch    84.67 μm
Pixel size    7168.44 μm

In the unit of time 100mbps this can transfer approximately 7 megabytes (of mixed file size of files).
The best bet at 1Gbps this is 70 megabytes (of mixed file size of files)  Personal computer A to personal computer B, and it depends if both computers using HDD or not.

Its also interesting that my C2100 2MP this deliver uncompressed TIFF at  5.540KB  and good quality Jped at 414 KB and store that at their memory card.
TIFF required 25 seconds to be stored at the memory card.
Jpeg this stored instantly.

If we think CCD size of modern mobile phones, we can simply imagine that numbers gets much larger.
Latest feature of latest printers, this is printing directly from mobile phone stored images, which these transferred due WiFi. 
 
So they are three printer connectivity speed, USB 2.0 or LAN or WiFi, but with out running any benchmarks I can not define the winner.
 

[overvolt]

Canon this better defining LAN connectivity speed at Fast Ethernet: 100 Mbps = 100BASE-TX = 5e UTP cable.
No clue if Epson support higher Gigabit Ethernet ?   

Epson hides this information at their user manuals.
They also support
IEEE802.3i (10BASE-T)*1
IEEE802.3u (100BASE-TX)
IEEE802.3az (Energy Efficient Ethernet)
IPv4/IPv6

And no support for USB 3.0 cables.

[overvolt]

Just took a look at Brother newer printing machines.
They also support IEEE802.3u (100BASE-TX) -> not Gigabit there either that kiriakos likes that much

But here is a new find...
Brother automatic print alignment:
Just print the alignment sheet then scan it, and the machine gets configured all by it self. 

[Kiriakos GR]

I did some in depth analysis over the internet about printer reviews and made a significant discovery.
They are very few about Epson EU products and all reviews are fake, two Greek websites never received a sample and they simply copy/paste marketing text in Greek.

Neither discovered REAL product reviews from Germany, France and or other major EU country.

With major difficulty, I did locate Epson SPA Italy this is considered as EU headquarters, and I did message them.
And also with major difficulty, I did succeed sending a message to Brother.UK

Personally I have past experiences from servicing photo copiers or RICOH, and worked also for two years at servicing Panasonic copiers.
It was a period of time that fax machines with thermal paper they were No1 communication solution.
Back then 30 years ago, I was young and I was searching to discover a good job opportunity,  but computers and internet started to become popular and printing machines lesser popular. 
Printing machines market significantly shrink.

Anyway, I have taken apart several hundreds of copier machines, and also it was a period of time servicing large HP plotters that civil engineer use.
I think that I am experienced enough to review recent made inject printers and scanner.   
   

[Andrew-88]

All these latest printers support USB 2.0 High speed and this is 60 Megabytes of bandwidth.

High Speed USB 2.0 remain the faster connectivity method for scanner / printer interface.
WiFi and or 100BASE-TX, both close equivalent to its other.
Connectivity Myth busting completed   
 

[Kiriakos GR]

I am bringing not the best news about Canon in Greece,  the one and only Canon partner Intersys S.A. this when bankrupt 45 days ago.
Currently everything is frozen, no products stock moving, no one can order spare parts, and there is no news of when a new partner will take over.

All Canon service center per city in Greece, they are currently unable to function and or serve their customers.

I will suggest us to exclude or pause any inquiry about Canon products (pricing/technical) until Greek market this find their path and normalize.

As side note, I did try to get in contact with marketing HQ of Epson and Brother in Europe.
But I am not optimistic as both seems to hide and not communicate with anyone.
I will set a deadline of me waiting for their response up to 10 of December.

[overvolt]

All these latest printers support USB 2.0 High speed and this is 60 Megabytes of bandwidth.

High Speed USB 2.0 remain the faster connectivity method for scanner / printer interface.
WiFi and or 100BASE-TX, both close equivalent to its other.
Connectivity Myth busting completed   
 

Thanks mate.

I have now started also a different research.
About separate scanner option for A4.
In this path USB 2.0 High speed this is enough for 2400dpi,  and USB 3.0 it might offer a small boost at 4800dpi.
 
I will hold my horses within holidays time about making any final selection. 
Neither shipping works well within holidays time.