Epson XP-7100 review

The Epson XP-7100 is capable of printing on glossy photo paper and printing on plain office sheets. It can also turn its hand to printing greeting cards, CD covers, colouring books, photo collages, and other fun, creative things.

To suit its multi-purpose nature, Epson has built the XP-7100 with a multi-ink cartridge system which features two discrete black ink cartridges for printing photos and text, respectively. As well as meaning you shouldn’t have to change cartridges quite as often as you would with all the blank ink coming from one source, photos promise to benefit from richer contrast, while ink used for text has been designed to be more resistant to highlighters.

As for how cheap the Epson XP-7100 is to run and how well it prints, read on for our full review.

Jump to:

• Epson XP-7100 review: summary
• What is the Epson XP-7100?
• How much is the Epson XP-7100?
• How fast is the Epson XP-7100?
• Epson XP-7100 print quality
• Epson XP-7100 running costs
• Epson XP-7100 ease of use
• Verdict
• Where to buy

Epson XP-7100 review: summary

Price: £149.99

Key features:

• Works with 33 Claria and 33XL Claira cartridges
• All-in-one colour printer, scanner and copier
• Prints on plain and glossy paper
• Auto-duplexing (automatic double-sided printing)
• Up to A4 size paper
• Works with Wi-Fi

Pros:

• Prints, scans, and copies quickly
• Compact, space-saving design
• Economical to run

Cons:

• A rather noisy customer
• Very heavy for its size
• Replacing five cartridges could get pricey

What is the Epson XP-7100?

The Epson XP-7100 is a colour all-in-one printer/scanner/copier for the home with an RRP of £149.99.

As well as being able to take print instructions from a variety of desktop and mobile devices over Wi-Fi, USB and Ethernet ports mean you can connect to the Epson XP-7100 directly or on the network using a dedicated wired connection. You can also print files directly via an SD card or a USB flash drive, thanks to ports mounted on the front of the device.

In addition to featuring a 1200 x 4800 dpi A4 scanner, there’s also a built-in automatic document feeder (ADF), so you can quickly run off copies of multi-page documents. Auto duplexing – aka automatic double-sided printing – is also supported.

What does the Epson XP-7100 do?

The main specifications and features of the Epson XP-7100 are as follows:

• Ink type: Cartridge (33 Claria, Pigment Black, Photo Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow)
• Cost per page: 2-5p
• Print resolution: Up to 5760 x 1440 DPI
• Scanner resolution: Up to 1200 x 2400 dpi
• Print speed: 16.18ppm
• Paper tray capacity: 100 plain A4 / 20 glossy A4
• OS: Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android
• Dimensions: 183 x 390‎ x 339mm
• Weight: 8.2kg

How much is the Epson XP-7100?

Epson prices the XP-7100 at £149.99.

Jessops has the best price for the XP-7100 at the time of writing – it’s currently selling it for a bit less, at £139.99.

After that, Amazon is selling the Epson XP-7100 for a bit more, £177.59.

Other places, including Currys PC World, list the Epson XP-7100 at £149.99.

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How fast is the Epson XP-7100?

The Epson XP-7100 is one of the fastest printers we’ve tested, kicking out single pages of text in under three seconds. That’s ever so slightly faster than the already speedy HP DeskJet Plus 4120 and Brother MFC-L3710CW. When it comes to larger, 20-page print runs, things do slow down a bit, as expected, but it still prints off text documents at a high rate.

It’s as quick at producing images, too, with photos on A4 glossy paper being printed off in under a minute, which is really good going. Scanning and copying speeds are also fast.

The only thing that’s slow is double-sided printing. In our tests, it took nearly 17 seconds to print two pages’ worth of text, one sheet of A4 and over four minutes to print on both sides of 10 sheets.

Epson XP-7100 speed test – text and graphics

Epson XP-7100 speed test – photos

Epson XP-7100 speed test – scanning and copying, double-sided printing

Epson XP-7100 print quality

Print quality of documents, presentations, and photos produced by the Epson XP-7100 are all very high, although as is often the case with home office printers, photos look their best when printed on high-quality glossy photo paper.

That’s not to say that photos printed on plain A4 look terrible, but pictures are noticeably less well-defined, and colours a lot more muted compared with results on photo paper.

The quality of text is commendable when printed on the normal setting, with fonts looking crisp and distinct. Perhaps not quite as good as what you get from the Canon Pixma TS7450 on normal, or the Epson EcoTank ET-2750, but if you’re printing letters and documents to impress, then crank up the quality.

Graphics, too, look perfectly presentable in normal, but if you really want those colours to pop out from the page, you’ll need to increase the quality.

Upping the quality naturally increases the printing time, but as you can see from the speed test results, the Epson XP-7100 is very fast indeed, so you can probably afford to sacrifice a bit of speed for an increase in quality. As for how much ink you’ll burn through, we performed all of the above tests without having to worry about running out – and that was just with the standard-sized Epson 33 Claria cartridges.

Epson XP-7100 running costs

The Epson XP-7100 is very economical to run, but the cost of replacing a full set of cartridges is high. The five cartridge system means it’s easy to only replace what you need, so depending on your usage, it probably won’t break the bank.

While most home printers typically use two cartridges, the Epson XP-7100 uses five Claria Premium ink cartridges – two black and three colour (i.e. cyan, magenta, yellow).

The pigment black cartridge is used exclusively for printing text, while the photo black ink cartridge is only used for printing photos. As well as allowing for a deeper range of contrasts in photo prints this system means that, in theory, you won’t have to replace one if you’re mainly using the Epson XP-7100 for printing documents or photos.

In addition to this, the 33 Claria and 33XL Claira cartridges the Epson XP-7100 uses also give you more miles to the gallon, so to speak, than typical home printer cartridges.

Here’s how those costs per page work out:

The XP-7100 is also covered by Epson’s ReadyPrint Go subscriptions, which start at £1.29/month. Like HP Instant Ink, this service will see you able to automatically order new cartridges whenever your printer detects that ink levels are low. ReadyPrint Go prices work out as follows: as always, the bigger cartridges work out better value for money, but replacing the full whack all in one go could hurt your wallet. Luckily, third-party retailers regularly have good bundle deals on 33 Claria cartridges, so you should be able to save a bit of money here.

Epson XP-7100 ease of use

The Epson XP-7100 benefits from having a big 4.2-inch colour touchscreen in its control panel. This makes setting up and getting acquainted with the Epson XP-7100 very easy going. On top of that, if you ever run into any issues, the printer will flash up a list of possible solutions on the control panel, along with animated instructions.

Setting up the Epson XP-7100 takes between 5-15 minutes, depending on the strength of your Wi-Fi network. Snapping the ink cartridges in is easy, thanks to spring-loaded mechanisms and a clever cut-out within the hood, ensuring that the cartridges can’t be removed until the cradle has been moved into the correct position. The printer needs five sheets of A4 to perform an initial nozzle check and an alignment test, after which you’ll be free to input your Wi-Fi password, which you’ll need to do to send print jobs to the XP-7100 from your phones and tablets.

Windows users will need to download drivers from Epson’s site if their system doesn’t have an optical drive – otherwise, you can use the supplied CD-ROM. Mac users won’t have to install any drivers because the Epson XP-7100 is Apple AirPrint-compatible – just connect to your Wi-Fi network, and add the XP-7100 to your list of devices in System Preferences.

The Epson iPrint apps for iOS and Android are a little basic in their design, but they’re also super easy to use. As well as letting you print files stored on your phones and tablets, these let you print files stored in cloud lockers like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Evernote, Box, and Dropbox.

A clever feature of the XP-7100 is that there are two levels to the paper in-tray, a top deck for photo paper and a lower deck for plain paper. These hold up to 20 and 100 sheets of A4-sized paper, respectively. The advantage of this is, you don’t have to re-load the printer every time you want to switch between printing a document and a photo.

A drawback of the XP-7100’s design is that the scanner roof isn’t supported by a slow-close mechanism, so if you don’t push this all the way back, it will come slamming down. Luckily, a slow-close is built into the main hood, so changing the ink cartridges is less of a hassle.

It’s also quite a heavy device, weighing 8.2kg. While it measures 183 x 390‎ x 339mm, and so isn’t a massive desk space hog, you won’t be able to move it around as easily as other home printers. It’s also pretty noisy, both when preparing to print and when it’s actually printing. If your house has thin walls, your neighbours should perhaps invest in some ear defenders.

Our verdict: Should you buy the Epson XP-7100?

The Epson XP-7100 boasts high print, scanning, and copying speeds and produces good quality prints. It’s cheaper to run than your average cartridge-based printer, and there are several ways to keep you topped up with ink. On top of that, there are multiple ways to print, good app support, and it’s got a low profile. On the downside, it’s heavy, loud, and if you need to replace all five cartridges at once, that could hurt your wallet.

Rating:

Speed: 5/5

Print quality: 4.5/5

Cost to run: 4/5

Ease of use: 4.5/5

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Where to buy the Epson XP-7100:

• Buy from Amazon
• Buy from Cartridge People
• Buy from Currys PC World
• Buy from Jessops

Still undecided? Check out our best printers guide. Looking for printers on sale? Check out our best printer deals page. For a more affordable option, take a look at our Canon Pixma TS7450 review.