The older Epson Expression Home XP-5100 has been replaced by the newer Epson Expression Home XP-5200, which is a color inkjet all-in-one printer for home use. It can connect via USB and Wi-Fi and works with Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print Service, and Epson’s Smart Panel mobile companion app. It has a scanner that can handle paper up to 8.5″ x 11″, but it doesn’t have an automatic document feeder or the ability to send faxes. It needs cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink cartridges, and Epson’s 222 ink cartridges work with it.
1. Design
The Epson Expression Home XP-5200 is made of plastic, but it doesn’t feel too flimsy. There aren’t any obvious weak spots or gaps in the construction. The input ports feel sturdy, and the power cord can be taken off, making it easy to replace if it breaks. But there are some problems with how it’s made. The background of the scanner is just a thin piece of plastic, and the lid hinges don’t move, so it’s hard to scan things like textbooks that are thicker. Even though there is a good damper to keep the printer open for maintenance, it is hard to get to the ink cartridges and paper jams because the printer only opens partially and there isn’t much room to move. The sheet rollers can also be reached through the back panel, but there isn’t much room.
Early on in our tests, we heard a cracking sound coming from the printer. Nothing broke, but the photo we were printing at the time had moved slightly to the right and was stuck in the middle of the sheet rollers, even though the rollers were still turning. We don’t know what caused the problem, but it never came up again.
A lot of work needs to be done on the Epson Expression XP-5200. Like most inkjet printers, if you don’t use it for a long time, the printheads can get clogged. There are built-in functions, like Printhead Cleaning and Printhead Nozzle Check, that can be used to fix problems with clogging. There are also other functions, like Printhead Alignment, Power Cleaning, and Paper Guide Cleaning, that can help you fix any printing problems you might have. You’ll probably have to change the ink cartridges often because they run out of ink pretty quickly. To change them, you have to lift the top of the printer and use the menu to choose “Ink Cartridge Replacement.” When you put new cartridges in the printer, it takes 4 minutes to set up. The input tray can hold up to 150 sheets of paper, so how often you need to refill it will depend on how much you print. You can get to paper jams through the back panel or by lifting the top of the printer, but there isn’t a lot of room to move around.
We had some problems with the print quality right out of the box, as you can see in this photo of a color document being printed. We don’t know what caused it, but the problem went away on its own after a few days of not using the printer. When we printed a black-and-white document, we also saw signs of clogged nozzles, which you can see in the Printing Speed test video. Again, the problem went away after we left the printer alone for a few days.
The scanner features on the Epson Expression Home XP-5200 aren’t very good. It only has a flatbed scanner, so scanning long documents with many pages can take a lot of time. Also, the hinges don’t extend, which makes it hard to close the lid over thicker items like textbooks. To use the optical character recognition (OCR) feature, you need to scan the documents with the Epson Scan 2 software and save the scan as a “Searchable PDF.” Most of the time, it works well. It mostly goes wrong when there are special characters.
2. Document
When printing in black and white, the Epson Expression Home XP-5200 does a great job. The text is clear, and all the small details are there. There’s a small alignment problem where the text says “Year 2” on the second page, but it’s hard to see and doesn’t matter if you print in High-Quality mode. As it says in the section about cartridges, if a color cartridge runs out, you can keep printing in black for a while. But this status is only temporary for printing on plain paper or envelopes. It doesn’t work for printing with no edges. Because of this, we think that black-and-white printing needs color ink.
The Epson Expression XP-5200 does a good job of printing in color. The text is clear, and most of the small parts can be seen. But the colors look a little washed out, and the table on the second page shows that there are some very small alignment problems.
3. Photo
The color gamut of the Epson Expression Home XP-5200 is pretty good. Most of the time, it has trouble with bright colors like purple, green, and yellow. It also has trouble with shades of green that are darker. There aren’t many stripes, but the changes in color look grainy.
The Epson Expression Home XP-5200 isn’t very good at getting colors right. The colors seem a little too bright, and the whole picture has a warm feel to it. Even though they aren’t very accurate, the pictures are still nice to look at.
4. Mobile apps and connectivity
The Epson Expression XP-5200 has a great mobile app that works with it. You can print, scan (using the camera on your phone), copy, and do maintenance like checking the ink level and cleaning the printheads. You can copy both sides of an ID card onto a single page, make a QR code for guests to use to connect to the printer, access the user manual, and watch how-to videos. It works with Google Classroom, so you can print your assignments quickly from there. It has links to the Creative Print app and the Gallery website from Epson. The first one lets you make collages with your photos, and the second one has patterns you can use to make decorations, Christmas cards, and book covers, among other things.
All View
The Epson Expression Home XP-5200 is a good printer for college students. It can connect to Wi-Fi and USB, and it works with Apple AirPrint and Mopria Print Service. This makes it easy to print from different devices. It makes high-quality black-and-white and color documents, and its overall printing speed is good, so you don’t have to wait too long to print a long paper or essay. Its ink cartridges only print a few pages, so you’ll have to replace them often. However, they’re not too expensive, which helps keep your maintenance costs low. It only has a flatbed scanner, and the lid hinges don’t extend, so it’s hard to close the lid over thick items like textbooks.
