Epson’s WorkForce EC-C7000 Wide-Format Color Multifunction Printer ($299.99) is an oversize all-in-one (AIO) designed for use in small offices. It goes head to head with three of our past Editors’ Choice recipients—HP’s OfficeJet Pro 7740 ($249.99), Brother’s MFC-J6945DW ($349.99), and Canon’s Pixma TS9520 ($249.99)—on features, capacity, and print quality, and is the only one capable of handling the 13-by-19-inch (supertabloid) media format; the rest max out at 11 by 17 inches (tabloid). The one significant drawback to the EC-C7000 is that it’s somewhat expensive to use. For that reason, the MFC-J6945DW remains our top pick for wide-format printing business printing, but the EC-C7000 gives it some real competition.
Functionality and Features for Days
Not that long ago, finding a wide-format printer, especially one that did all that you needed it to without bleeding your budget dry in running costs, was not easy. Nowadays, all the major inkjet printer makers have come out with AIOs that print tabloid pages and scan, copy, and fax legal-size or tabloid-size pages. The EC-C7000 stands out with its capacity to handle oversize pages for every function, printing one- or two-sided supertabloid pages and handling input up to tabloid size.
This Epson AIO has two scanning sensors, allowing the EC-C7000 to capture both sides of a two-sided original simultaneously—no flipping needed. Its automatic document feeder (ADF) holds up to 50 pages.
Brother’s MFC-J6945DW comes with a single-pass auto-duplexing 50-sheet ADF that holds tabloid-size paper. The HP OfficeJet Pro 7740’s ADF holds only 35 pages, and only up to legal size. The Pixma TS9520 is Canon’s closest wide-format AIO to the EC-C7000, and it’s more of a family photo printer than a business-oriented model. Its ADF holds only 20 sheets up to legal-size.
Epson also makes an EcoTank (bulk-ink) wide-format AIO, the EcoTank Pro ET-16650, that’s very similar in features to the EC-C7000. It costs three to four times more than the other machines mentioned here, but in some scenarios, it’s worth the extra expense. Like the EC-C7000, the ET-16650 comes with a single-pass auto-duplexing ADF that holds 50 pages up to tabloid size.
At 13.8 by 20.3 by 17.7 inches (HWD) and weighing 45.4 pounds, the EC-C7000 is similar in size and girth to both the ET-16650 and the OfficeJet Pro 7740. It’s a bit smaller and lighter than the MFC-J6945DW, and somewhat larger and heavier than the Pixma TS9520.
Overall input capacity and paper handling on the EC-C7000 are impressive. It holds up to 550 sheets divided among two 250-sheet cassettes in front and a 50-sheet multipurpose tray that pulls up and out from the back. The Epson ET-16650’s input capacity is the same, and Brother’s MFC-J6945DW has a larger multipurpose tray that holds 50 sheets more. The OfficeJet 7740 holds 500 pages, and the Pixma TS9520 brings up the rear with a 200-page capacity.
The EC-C7000’s maximum monthly duty cycle is 50,000 pages, and its suggested monthly volume is 2,500. That’s 20,000 and 1,000 prints more, respectively, than the MFC-J6945DW and the OfficeJet Pro 7740. The ET-16650’s ratings are 66,000 pages maximum and 3,300 recommended. Canon no longer publishes duty cycle or recommended volume ratings for its Pixma TS series AIOs.
Effortless Connectivity and Operation
Just about any device can talk to the EC-C7000. The hardware interfaces are Ethernet (up to 100Mbps) and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/a/ac for networking, USB 2.0 for connecting with an individual computer, and Wi-Fi Direct for connecting with a mobile device.
It’s easy to print from or scan to your phone or tablet with Apple AirPrint, Mopria, Epson Connect, and the Epson iPrint Mobile App. Other bundled software includes Epson Fax Utility, Epson ScanSmart (a scanner interface and document management utility), and Epson Event Manager (which allows you to activate the Epson Scan Utility from the printer’s control panel).
The EC-C7000 comes with a spacious and comprehensive set of onboard controls. From here, you can configure the machine, monitor consumables, generate usage and other reports, make copies, print from or scan to the cloud, set up and monitor security features, and much more. You can also automate tasks by saving them in workflow profiles that Epson calls Actions. The EC-C7000 comes with several preconfigured Actions, which are simple scripts that you can use as-is or edit as needed.
A number pad and a handful of task-specific buttons, such as Job Status and Paper Setting, are anchored by a spacious 4.3-inch color touch screen. An onboard web portal provides access to all operational and configuration tasks from any device with a web browser.
Fast and Precise Printing
Epson rates the EC-C7000 at 25 letter-size monochrome pages per minute (ppm), which is about right for a midrange business-oriented AIO like this one. I tested it over an Ethernet connection from our standard Intel Core i5 testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional. To start, I clocked it as it churned out several copies of our 12-page Microsoft Word text document and then averaged the results.
The EC-C7000 churned out the 12-page text document at an impressive speed of 30ppm, or 5ppm over Epson’s rating. That outpaces the Canon’s TS9520 by 16.6ppm, Brother’s MFC-J6945DW by 9.5ppm, HP’s OfficeJet Pro 7740 by 6.4ppm, and Epson’s ET-16650 by 2.5ppm.
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I then timed the EC-C7000 as it printed our collection of colorful and intricate graphics-laden test business documents. This suite includes PDFs with different fonts at varying sizes, weights, and colors; Microsoft Excel spreadsheets with associated charts and graphs; and PowerPoint handouts full of business-related artwork, gradient backgrounds, and a few other intricate design features intended to push color printers beyond their limits.
After combining these scores with the results from printing the previous 12-page text document, I came up with 12.1ppm for printing our entire collection of 26 test document pages. This score was about average among this group; the ET-16650 beat it by a respectable 5.8ppm, and, at 4.7ppm, the TS9520 ate everybody’s dust.
As a WorkForce model intended for office use, the EC-C7000 is not a photo printer, but its PrecisionCore printheads capably reproduce most images. I printed our two standard brilliantly colored and highly detailed 4-by-6-inch snapshots several times; the EC-C7000 averaged 25 seconds per image. Inkjet machines turn in a wide range of scores on this test, from as fast as 7 seconds to sometimes well over a minute. We consider any score under 60 seconds reasonable.
Epson’s PrecisionCore Heat-Free printheads contain ink chips with small, dense, and tightly clustered nozzles that produce above-average detail and color accuracy. Most modern inkjet printers render decent-looking output, but few outdo PrecisionCore.
The EC-C7000’s text is well-shaped, highly legible, and near-typesetter quality down to the smallest font we test (4 points), which is well above satisfactory for most business office output. Also, the full-page graphics and handout pages came out with no readily noticeable ink-distribution flaws. Colors were accurate with no unattractive color shifts, and fine details, such as hairlines thinner than 1 point, reproduced unbroken and well-delineated from end to end. Photographs, whether printed standalone or embedded in larger documents, looked good too.
The Catch: Running Costs
Not long ago, all wide-format printers were expensive to use, but these days you have options. Unfortunately, as capable a machine as the EC-C7000 is, it offers no method for holding down ink costs. Its cost per page is about 3.3 cents for letter-size monochrome pages and 11.4 cents for letter-size color pages.
If you think that those numbers don’t sound like much, consider this: The ET-16650, which is virtually the same machine except for its refillable ink tanks, prints both monochrome and color pages for about 2 cents each. If you go up to the EC-C7000’s recommended maximum volume of 2,500 pages per month, primarily printing monochrome pages, that 1.3-cent difference will run you approximately an additional $30 per month. That doesn’t sound so bad, you say? Let’s say that you use the printer for five years. That 1.2-cent difference will cost you $1,800, or about six times the cost of the printer.
If you print 2,500 color pages per month, that 9.4-cent difference will cost you about $235 monthly, $2,820 yearly, and after five years, $14,100! And I almost forgot to mention that with the ET-16650, Epson throws in the first two years of unlimited ink for free. Depending on how much you print, that could save you a few thousand dollars.
Granted, the ET-16650 costs about four times more than the EC-C7000, but if you’re printing upwards of about 700 or 800 pages per month, it pays for itself.
If you don’t need supertabloid printing, the Brother MFC-J6945DW is your best bet for value. As an INKvestment Tank printer, its running costs are about 0.9 cent for monochrome pages and just under 5 cents for color prints.
The OfficeJet Pro 7740 runs about 2.1 cents for monochrome and 8.1 cents for color, and the Pixma TS9520, a five-ink photo-optimized AIO, costs almost twice that amount to use. Like the EC-C7000, they print well but are best suited to lower-volume operations.
Light Duty for the Long Haul
The EC-C7000 is a competent printer capable of churning out a few thousand pages each month. Unfortunately, its volume and capacity ratings don’t match its running costs. If you need to print and copy several hundred or thousands of pages every month, the per-page cost is prohibitive, and you should check out Epson’s ET-16650 or Brother’s MFC-J6945DW; if you care most about photo quality, Canon’s Pixma TS9520 is your best bet. But for moderate monthly volume and the ability to scan tabloid pages and print to supertabloid size, the EC-C7000 should serve you well for several years.
