Epson WorkForce WF-2950

Inkjet all-in-oneIndividual cartridgesEpson ReadyPrint

At around a hundred and thirty dollars this is one of the cheapest ways to get a document feeder, a fax modem and automatic duplex into a house, and for someone who prints twenty pages a month that may be the right trade. It runs the small Epson 232 cartridges, which are the reason it is cheap: Epson rates a standard colour cartridge at 140 ISO pages and the XL black at 380, so the printer effectively buys itself again every couple of refills. At list prices a page using all four inks costs nearly thirty cents — only the two DeskJets here cost more to feed, and both of those are cheaper printers to buy. Read that as a flag. If the printing is occasional the arithmetic still works; if it is not, an EcoTank at twice the purchase price is cheaper inside a year.

Approx. price: ~$129
Cost per mono page: 9.7¢
Cost per colour page: 30¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$815
Print speed, mono: 10 ISO ppm

Best for

Rare printing that still has to cover a fax, a stack to copy and the occasional two-sided page.

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 232XL black cartridge · 380 ISO pages · ~$36.99
Colour consumable: Epson 232 colour cartridges · 140 ISO pages · ~$9.29 each
Cost per mono page: 9.7¢
Cost per colour page: 30¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$815
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$1,117 (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 WorkForce WF-2950~$815
~$129 printer + ~$686 supplies
Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4820~$518
~$199 printer + ~$319 supplies
HP OfficeJet Pro 8135e~$686
~$179 printer + ~$507 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: ~$129
Cost per mono page: 9.7¢
Cost per colour page: 30¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$815
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$1,117
Technology: Piezo inkjet
Ink system: Individual cartridges
Inks: 4
Black consumable: Epson 232XL black cartridge · 380 pages
Colour consumable: Epson 232 colour cartridges · 140 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: Epson ReadyPrint
Print speed, mono: 10 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 5 ISO ppm
Functions: Print · Copy · Scan · Fax
Two-sided printing: Auto
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: 2.4" colour LCD
Dimensions: 14.8 × 13.9 × 9.0 in
Weight: 14.1 lb
Released: 2022

Features

30-sheet automatic document feeder with fax
Automatic two-sided printing
2.4-inch colour LCD
Borderless photo printing to 8×10
Individual cartridges, so one empty colour does not waste the rest
Scans at 1200 dpi optical on the flatbed

Document feeder Auto duplex No ink lock Borderless photo Fax

In its favour

Almost nothing else puts an ADF, fax and auto duplex in the box at this price
Individual cartridges mean a dead magenta does not bin the cyan and yellow with it
Small footprint for a four-function machine
Auto duplex is a genuine rarity in the sub-$150 tier

Against it

Nearly thirty cents for a four-ink colour page — small cartridges are where cheap inkjets get their money back
10 ISO ppm black is slow
No Ethernet, and the radio is 2.4 GHz only
The head can clog after a few idle weeks, which is exactly how this printer gets used

What owners say

No owner discussion has been collected for the Epson WorkForce WF-2950 yet. The specifications above are the manufacturer’s published figures and the cost per page is computed from them — but nothing on this page claims to know what living with it is like, because nobody here has read owners on it.