Epson EcoTank ET-3850

Ink tankBottles

Where the two-digit EcoTanks are household printers with an office feature bolted on, the ET-3850 is built the other way round. It has a real 250-sheet enclosed cassette instead of a rear feed, Ethernet as well as Wi-Fi, a 2.4-inch touchscreen, and a print engine rated 15.5 ISO pages a minute in black — half again faster than the ET-2850 for a hundred dollars more. The ink is the same 502 set, so the running cost does not change: a third of a cent a mono page, a little over a cent for a page using all four inks. What is still missing is a document feeder, which is the one thing that separates it from the ET-4850 above it and the reason many buyers step up. If you print rather than copy, that omission costs nothing and the ET-3850 is the better value of the two.

Approx. price: ~$399
Cost per mono page: 0.33¢
Cost per colour page: 1.2¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$424
Print speed, mono: 15.5 ISO ppm

Best for

Daily printing, from a machine that keeps its paper in a cassette instead of fanned out of a rear tray.

marks an estimate. Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Purchase price plus ink or toner over the pages shown, assuming four mono pages for every colour page. Price is an approximate snapshot from our last catalogue update.

What it costs to own

Black consumable: Epson 502 black bottle · 7,500 ISO pages · ~$24.99
Colour consumable: Epson 502 colour bottles · 6,000 ISO pages · ~$16.99 each
Cost per mono page: 0.33¢
Cost per colour page: 1.2¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$424
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$435 (7,200 pages)

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. How this is worked out

Cost to own · 5,000 pages

Epson EcoTank ET-3850~$424
~$399 printer + ~$25 supplies
Epson EcoTank ET-2850~$324
~$299 printer + ~$25 supplies
Epson EcoTank ET-4800~$326
~$299 printer + ~$27 supplies

purchase priceink or toner. An estimate: purchase price plus 5,000 pages at each printer’s computed cost per page, assuming 4 mono pages for every colour page. Printers whose consumable price we could not source are left out.

Specifications

Manufacturer-published figures. Cost lines are computed from the consumable figures above and are estimates.

Approx. price: ~$399
Cost per mono page: 0.33¢
Cost per colour page: 1.2¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$424
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$435
Technology: Piezo inkjet
Ink system: Bottles
Inks: 4
Black consumable: Epson 502 black bottle · 7,500 pages
Colour consumable: Epson 502 colour bottles · 6,000 pages
Ink in the box: 7,500 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: None offered
Print speed, mono: 15.5 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 8.5 ISO ppm
Functions: Print · Copy · Scan
Two-sided printing: Auto
Document feeder: None
Paper capacity: 250 sheets
Max paper size: Legal
Borderless photo: Yes
Resolution: 4800 × 1200 dpi
Connectivity: Wi-Fi · Ethernet
Mobile printing: AirPrint · Mopria
Display: 2.4" colour touchscreen
Dimensions: 14.8 × 16.7 × 9.1 in
Weight: 14.6 lb
Released: 2021

Features

250-sheet front-loading enclosed paper cassette
Automatic two-sided printing
Gigabit-free wired Ethernet alongside dual-band Wi-Fi
2.4-inch colour touchscreen
Borderless photo printing to 8×10
Four refillable tanks on the 502 ink set

Auto duplex No ink lock Borderless photo Ethernet

In its favour

An enclosed cassette keeps 250 sheets flat and dust-free, which the rear-feed models cannot do
15.5 ISO ppm black makes a long document bearable
Wired Ethernet, which most printers at this price dropped years ago
Same third-of-a-cent mono page as the cheaper 502-based models
Touchscreen is responsive enough to drive copies without a phone

Against it

No automatic document feeder — the gap the ET-4850 exists to fill
No fax, if that still matters to you
Taller and deeper than the two-digit models; it needs real desk space
Photo output is good for a four-ink printer but not close to the six-ink ET-8500

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

The step where an EcoTank starts behaving like office equipment. The enclosed cassette is the part owners mention first: paper stays flat and dust-free instead of fanning out of a rear tray, and 250 sheets means the tray is refilled monthly rather than weekly.

The common regret is the missing document feeder. People who bought this and then found themselves scanning stacks describe wishing they had spent the extra hundred on the ET-4850. People who mostly print rather than scan describe it as the sweet spot of the range — the speed and the cassette without paying for hardware they do not use.

One consumable surprise worth knowing: every Epson tank printer has a maintenance box that collects waste ink from cleaning cycles, and it eventually fills and needs replacing. It is cheap, but owners are frequently unaware it exists until the printer stops.

What owners like

The enclosed 250-sheet cassette is the upgrade owners notice daily — paper stays flat, clean and out of the way
Noticeably faster than the two-digit EcoTanks, and owners printing long documents say the difference is real
Wired Ethernet gets specifically praised by owners who had given up on the wireless reliability of cheaper printers
Same low running cost as the rest of the 502-based line
Owners report it handles heavier paper stock better than the rear-feed models

Common complaints

No document feeder, and owners who scan regularly say this is the reason they should have bought the ET-4850
Still an inkjet, so the idle-clogging behaviour of the whole line applies
Takes up considerably more desk space than the two-digit EcoTanks
Epson's maintenance box is an extra consumable that catches owners out when it first needs replacing

Questions that keep coming up

ET-3850 or ET-4850?

The only meaningful difference is the 30-sheet document feeder and fax on the ET-4850, for about a hundred dollars. Owners split cleanly on this: people who scan multi-page documents say the feeder paid for itself quickly; people who mostly print say they were glad not to pay for it. The print engine, ink, cassette, duplexer and speed are identical.

What is the maintenance box and when does it need replacing?

It is an absorbent pad that catches waste ink from head-cleaning cycles. It is cheap and user-replaceable, but it does fill, and when it does the printer stops until it is changed. Owners are often surprised by it. Printers that run frequent cleaning cycles — typically because they sit idle between uses — fill theirs faster.

Is the Ethernet port worth anything at home?

Owners who moved to it from a Wi-Fi-only printer are often emphatic that it is. A wired connection removes the whole category of complaints about a printer showing up offline, dropping off after a router reboot, or refusing to reconnect after a firmware update — which is the single most common frustration reported about home printers of every brand.

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Owner notes are a summary of what people who own the machine report, not a test result — there is no lab behind this site.