Ecotank printers

[sudo]

Has anyone formed an opinion on the Ecotank printers?

http://www.epson.co.uk/ecotank

The purchase price seems quite high, but considering its not a modification and it includes the first fill, it's really got me intrigued whether this is something to consider for someone who is sick of paying for/filling cartridges and doesn't want to mess up installing their own CISS.
Granted its not the most feature rich printer in the market, but to me the overall value seems compelling
(especially with a family that is hungry to print out a large number of things)

A couple external reviews;
http://www.trustedreviews.com/epson-ecotank-l555-review
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/reviews/printing/3586353/epson-ecotank-l555-review/

 

[websnail]

This thread...
http://www.printerknowledge.com/thr...hit-original-ciss-system-ink-resistance.9398/
...might be of interest as you've pretty much asked the same question I did over the weekend.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Epson is offering a range of models with the ecotank feature, not all models are available in all parts of the world, not even within the EU. There is a L300, a plain and simple printer, with the printhead of the WF2010W in the case of the XP-30, there is a L1300, a A3+ model with 4 inks and without borderless printing, there are L800 and L1800 A4/A3+ photo printers with 6 inks, available in the eastern countries of the EU, and there are the L355 and L555 combi models offered as well. It's a kind of 'fill up and forget' approach, you don't need to do much with the inks and cartridges until an ink is reported as going empty. With a typical CISS with cartridge replacements you still need to go through the reset cycle once a cartridge chip is counted down and empty, you don't have that with the L series models, and you are saving a lot of ink which otherwise is pumped into the wast ink pad with every cartridge reset and a related cleaning cycle. Genuine Epson refill inks are available pretty cheap but those dye inks are not of the Claria type used in the regular photo printers like the 1500W, the L type dye inks have less UV resistance than the Claria inks as tested by the Wilhelm Research institute in US. Other 3rd party dye inks suitable for Epson printers can be used as well. So what are the benefits of these L-series models - more convenience - less refill hassle, no cartridge handling, no CISS installation problems