The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 is an inkjet printer that can do a lot of different things. It has great ways to connect, and it works with the Epson Smart Center app, which lets you print, scan, and do maintenance tasks right from your phone or tablet. It has some great scanner features, like a flatbed and an automatic document feeder, but it can’t scan on both sides at once, which is a shame. The page yield for black documents is low, so you’ll probably need to replace the ink cartridge often. However, ink cartridges aren’t too expensive, so the cost-per-print is pretty low. Also, you can buy high-capacity cartridges if you want to change them out less often.
1. Design
The Epson WF-3820 is made in a good way. It is made of plastic that feels strong and durable, and both the scan lid and the paper trays are solid. The scan lid stays fully open on its own, but its hinges can’t be raised enough to fit a textbook under the closed lid. Without stopping the print job, you can lift the output tray to see how much paper is still in the input tray. You can get to paper jams by taking off a cover on the back, and it’s easy to get to the ink cartridges by lifting the flatbed scanner. Also, in the right back corner is a maintenance box that can be taken off and used to store ink that was flushed out when the print head was cleaned. When the maintenance box is full, it needs to be changed.
There is only one tray for paper, so you can’t load both regular paper and photo paper at the same time. If you want to use a different kind of paper, you have to take the paper out of the tray and put it back in by hand. Also, the printer has to be turned on for the ink cartridges to be changed.
The LCD screen on the Epson WF-3820 is good. Even though you can see it well whether you’re sitting or standing, the display panel can be tilted vertically to help you see it better. It has a clear background and buttons that can be touched all the way around the screen. The touch screen is easy to use, and if you’re not sure how to do something, you can press the Help button to see a picture of how to do it.
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 is an excellent scanner. The maximum scan resolution and color depth of the flatbed scanner are both good. It has a sheetfed scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF) for scanning multiple pages at once. The scan lid can stay open on its own, but its hinges can’t be lifted high enough to fit a thick document or textbook under the closed lid. There is no duplex scanning, so if you want to scan a two-sided document, you will have to flip each page over by hand.
2. Document
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820’s cost per print is great. Even though you have to buy three cartridges to replace all colors, this way you use every drop of ink you pay for and don’t waste half-full cartridges because one color runs out.
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 has a very good print speed. Even though the first page takes a while to print, each page after that comes out faster, especially if it’s just black and white. Photos print in a reasonable amount of time.
Most types of paper can be printed on with the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820. In addition to the standard sizes, you can set a custom size for paper between 3.5″ and 47.2″ long. If you set the measurements by hand, you can also print on A5-sized paper. Unfortunately, the input tray can only hold one type of paper at a time, which is annoying if you often switch between regular paper and photo paper.
3. Photo
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 is pretty good at getting colors right. Blues, greens, and blacks look the worst, but all the other colors look pretty good.
4. Mobile apps and connectivity
The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3820 has a wide range of ways to connect. You can connect it to your home Wi-Fi router wirelessly or through Ethernet, or you can use Wi-Fi Direct to connect directly to the printer. Even though it doesn’t have Bluetooth, Apple AirPrint and Mopria Print make it easy to print from a mobile device. You can also print straight from a USB stick.
With the Epson Smart Panel app, you can print, scan, and make copies right from your phone. It also lets you check the ink level, do maintenance tasks like updating the firmware, checking the nozzles, and cleaning the printhead, and order new cartridges right from the app. Most file types can be printed on both Android and iOS, but some can’t be printed on iOS. When you print a Microsoft Office document from the app, the format isn’t changed correctly, so you get a print that looks like it was made on a phone. Also, the iOS version of the app doesn’t work with TXT files. Apple AirPrint can still be used to print both file types.
All View
The Epson WF-3820 is a good printer for a small office or home. It is well-designed so that paper jams and ink cartridges are easy to get to, and it prints black-only documents very quickly. Even though its cost-per-print for black documents is good, it doesn’t print many black pages, which isn’t great for jobs that need to be printed often and in large quantities.
