Epson EcoTank ET-4800

Ink tankBottles

Think of this as an ET-2800 that grew a document feeder and a fax modem. The print engine, the ink and the paper path are unchanged — 522 bottles, 100 sheets in the rear, ten ISO pages a minute, no automatic duplex — but a 30-sheet ADF sits on the lid and a phone socket sits on the back. For anyone who still has to send a signed form somewhere that only accepts fax, or who scans stacks of receipts rather than single sheets, that is the whole decision made. Nothing else in Epson's tank range under three hundred dollars has both. The compromise is that the money went into the scanner assembly rather than the printer: no duplex, no cassette, no Ethernet, no touchscreen, and the same slow engine. Buy it for the feeder, not for the printing.

Approx. price: ~$299
Cost per mono page: 0.40¢
Cost per colour page: 1.1¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$326
Print speed, mono: 10 ISO ppm

Best for

Still faxing, or scanning enough multi-page documents that a flatbed alone has become a nuisance.

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 522 black bottle · 4,500 ISO pages · ~$17.99
Colour consumable: Epson 522 colour bottles · 7,500 ISO pages · ~$17.99 each
Cost per mono page: 0.40¢
Cost per colour page: 1.1¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$326
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$338 (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-4800~$326
~$299 printer + ~$27 supplies
Epson EcoTank ET-2850~$324
~$299 printer + ~$25 supplies
Epson EcoTank ET-2800~$276
~$249 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: ~$299
Cost per mono page: 0.40¢
Cost per colour page: 1.1¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$326
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$338
Technology: Piezo inkjet
Ink system: Bottles
Inks: 4
Black consumable: Epson 522 black bottle · 4,500 pages
Colour consumable: Epson 522 colour bottles · 7,500 pages
Ink in the box: 4,500 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: None offered
Print speed, mono: 10 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 5 ISO ppm
Functions: Print · Copy · Scan · Fax
Two-sided printing: Manual
Document feeder: 30 sheets
Two-sided scanning: No
Paper capacity: 100 sheets
Max paper size: Legal
Borderless photo: Yes
Resolution: 5760 × 1440 dpi
Connectivity: Wi-Fi
Mobile printing: AirPrint · Mopria
Display: 1.44" colour LCD
Dimensions: 14.8 × 13.7 × 8.7 in
Weight: 13 lb
Released: 2021

Features

30-sheet automatic document feeder
Fax modem with a standard phone line socket
Four refillable tanks on the Epson 522 bottle set
Borderless photo printing to 8×10
Copies and faxes standalone without a computer
No chip or firmware block on non-Epson ink

Document feeder No ink lock Borderless photo Fax

In its favour

The only tank printer here that pairs an ADF and a fax modem with a sub-$300 price
Running cost is identical to the ET-2800: roughly 0.4¢ a mono page
A 30-sheet feeder turns a stack of receipts into one button press
Two years of ink in the box for a typical household

Against it

No automatic two-sided printing, which the cheaper ET-2850 has
Same 10 ISO ppm engine as the entry model
The ADF is single-sided, so a two-sided original still needs turning over
Rear paper feed only, and just 100 sheets of it

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

A narrow machine for a narrow need. If you have to fax and you refuse to buy cartridges, the list of options is short and this is on it. Owners describe it as unremarkable in every other respect, which given how much printer discussion is complaint is close to praise.

The decision people agonise over is this against the ET-2850: a feeder and a fax modem, or automatic two-sided printing, for the same money. The answer depends entirely on whether your paperwork arrives in stacks or leaves in reports.

What owners like

Owners who need a fax line describe it as the cheapest workable option that is not a cartridge printer
The 30-sheet feeder turns scanning a stack of paperwork into one operation
Running cost is identical to the ET-2800, which is the point of buying a tank printer at all
Small for a machine with a feeder on top

Common complaints

No automatic duplex, which owners comparing it with the cheaper ET-2850 find hard to forgive
Same idle-clogging behaviour as the rest of the entry EcoTanks
The feeder scans one side only, so double-sided originals need two passes
Slow — the print engine is the entry-level one

Questions that keep coming up

ET-4800 or ET-2850 — they cost the same?

They do, and they trade different features. The ET-4800 has a 30-sheet document feeder and a fax modem; the ET-2850 has automatic two-sided printing and the longer-lasting 502 ink set. If you scan stacks or fax, take the ET-4800. If you print documents that should be double-sided, take the ET-2850. Nothing in the range under $400 gives you both.

Do people still need the fax?

Less every year, but the people who need it have no alternative. Medical offices, school districts, county clerks and some insurers still require a fax number, and owners who bought this one generally say so explicitly. If nothing in your life demands a fax line, there is no reason to pay for the modem.

Does it print on both sides?

Not automatically. The driver will walk you through flipping the stack, which is fine for the occasional two-sided page and tedious for anything longer. If duplex matters, the ET-2850 at the same price or the ET-4850 above it are the models to look at.

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.