Sometimes manufacturers chose to give their products a better design and manage to offer good functionality too. This kind of product is rare however, and generally what looks pretty might mean to fool you and hide away a disadvantage of some sort.




There’s hardly any reason for an office printer to have a glamorous design, and as long as it is small and takes up as little desk space as possible, and everything you need is where you want it to be (paper tray, navigation buttons as examples) then everything is just fine and no one will mind. Epson understands this and didn’t put much work into the design of their multifunctional color printer that was created to fit best in a small office or home office.

The Epson B300 and B500DN printers were created for users who require a workhorse printer that provides good quality mono as well as color prints all for a low ink cost per page. Specifically designed for education institutions and business that requires cost cutting, the B300 has an easy to understand and straight forward exterior. The printer comes with four cartridges that last for a large number of pages before you have to replace them. Both as weight and size it resembles a mono laser printer than it would a multifunctional color printer.

The monthly duty cycle is of 10000 pages which is satisfactory and the printer offers a maximum paper capacity of 650 sheets through two big cassetes that hold paper. The front paper tray holds 500 sheets whereas the rear sheet feeder with a 150 sheet capacity is primarily meant for specialty media like card stock or envelopes.

Apart from cost efficient and easy to use this printer also seems to be extremely fast in actual printing as well as first page out time according to the manufacturer who claims printing speeds of 44 pages per minute (maximum) and 8 seconds for the first page out. In reality, this printer seems average as speed and doesn’t seem to measure up to what Epson claims. It’s a good and reliable printer nonetheless.

Several types of media are supported for printing, in various sizes including envelopes and photo paper. The ink used has a lot of heritage as far as Epson products go. We’re talking about the Epson Durabrite Ultra ink that is made with pigment which dries very fast on paper. Prints printed with this ink are also more resistant to humidity. On the down side the fast drying process also means that they dry out and clog pretty quickly and you’ll need to use the printer quite often to keep the cartridges unclogged.

But the advanced nozzle check system might save the day as it’s meant to reduce nozzle clogging. The printer comes with standard capacity ink cartridges that will last for about 3000 pages in black and 3500 pages for color. An optional duplexer will offer double sided printing and end up saving a lot of paper.

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