Epson XP-6000 has to standalone: card reader, USB-A, wireless interface; but sorting through the menu items with the help of four arrow buttons and the central “OK” – by modern standards, this is no good. But this is the only thing for which our hero is worth scolding. Someone will say that, in addition to the touch screen, it lacks external beauties: the design is too plain. In our opinion, practicality (read the lack of gloss) and compactness compensate for all this.
Positioning and Price
If everything is clear with the purpose of this model: a domestic “both a Swiss and a reaper …”, equally successfully coping with documents and photos, it is not so easy to understand its pedigree. Including because so far it is the only representative of the updated Expression Premium series.
The revolution did not happen: “under the hood” of the recruit – with some reservations – everything is the same as that of the founders of this model family, which were already released in 2012. But a different, more compact body and a special set of functions confuse the cards: did this harvester replace the top-end XP-720 (24,500 rubles) or the compromise XP-640 (9,600 rubles) without five minutes?
The recommended European cost (the Russian one is unknown, since we have not yet officially presented the device), equal to 140 euros (9,870 rubles), speaks in favor of the second option. But our hero is somewhere in the middle. It has a motorized control panel and a receiving tray, like the “seven hundred”, but what is located on this panel refers more to budget solutions.
A non-touch display with a diagonal of 6.1 cm surrounded by mechanical buttons – even the youngest of the possible ancestors had touch keys, and the screen diagonal was 6.8 cm. The older one sported a touch screen with a diagonal of 10.9 cm.
Another important difference concerned the maximum resolution of the scanner. For the younger one, it was 1200×2400 dpi, and for the older one it was 2400×4800 dpi. The recruit is capable of 1200×4800 dpi at the most. Initially, in the days of the XP-600 and XP-700, the 700th family could boast of Ethernet in addition, but the updated models lost it – apparently, so that the 800ths (equipped with fax and ADF not very popular at home) got more trump cards at their disposal . Our hero’s wired network is also unavailable.
Shortly before it, a six-color Expression Photo XP-8500 was announced – and again not yet in Russia – for $ 250 (14,270 rubles). Expressively photographic and by no means universal (ink of all colors is water-soluble), this combine plays in a different league – and yet, what are we offered to pay 4,400 rubles for, in addition to the “lights” of cyan and magenta? Just something for the touch screen with a diagonal of 6.9 cm and an additional (but designed for only 1 sheet) feeder on the back of the case.
The Hewlett-Packard company, alas, disowned the sophisticated home station wagons (we remember and mourn the Photosmart series), and it is not serious to compare this model with devices without autonomous PG. But Canon is still in the ranks. The flagship of the PIXMA model family – TS9140(14,260 rubles) is, in fact, the golden mean between representatives of the Expression Premium and Photo series.
Two black cartridges (with water-soluble and pigment inks) are supplemented in it not only with the usual CMY set, but also with blue (not to be confused with cyan). It certainly lacks a USB-A connector, but unlike our piezo hero, this fuser has Ethernet, Bluetooth and an adult-size touchscreen (10.9 cm diagonal) and a maximum scan resolution of 2400×4800 dpi (versus 1200×4800 dpi). It’s just that its print limit is lower (4800 × 1200 dpi versus 5760 × 1440 dpi), but you can still find the TS9040 (17,000 rubles) on sale, which is ahead of the hero of our review even in this (9600 × 2400 dpi), instead of blue wields gray, and instead of Bluetooth – NFC.
Appearance – Epson Expression Premium XP-6000
Epson boasts that this model is the most compact in the Premium family. There really is something to be proud of: to fit a full-fledged MFP with a lot of useful and not very “chips” into a case of size 349 × 340 × 142 mm (W × D × H) – what is not an achievement? But the seal was not in vain: to get to the SD card reader (located on the front left, like the USB-A connector), you need to lift the rotary control panel. It also covers the receiving tray (consisting of only one section), but it doesn’t matter, because both the panel and the tray itself are motorized: as soon as you send something to print, the combine will automatically come to “combat readiness”.
This modern feature shamelessly coexists with such an atavism as a push-button control panel. A small (diagonal of only 2.4 inches, or 6.1 cm) color display is complemented by as many as 13 mechanical keys. Apparently, sticks in the wheels of autonomy are inserted in order to distance this model from the updated Expression Photo. Not the most convenient control (customers are already spoiled with touchscreen displays of smartphone sizes) is combined with general practicality: there is no easily soiled gloss anywhere, even the scanner cover is not mirrored, but covered with fine corrugation (like the old Stylus Photo).
Epson honors unification, not design refinements, so more than a dozen models will be released in this case. An uncomplicated parallelepiped with rounded corners, cassettes hidden behind a wide door, and a slightly recessed area for the screen and buttons – this is now the brand’s idea of beauty. Simplicity compensates for the right to choose. The hero of this review is black, but the same combine is also available in white – called the Epson Expression Premium XP-6005.
Access to the cartridges is the old fashioned way: you need to, holding the recesses on the sidewalls, lift the scanning module. The consumables themselves are now located not across the body, as before, but along (so more compact) – but the tight layout did not affect convenience: replacing ink tanks is still easy, as well as installing CISS instead.
They didn’t save on trays: along with a universal cassette (holding 80 sheets of office or 20 sheets of photographic paper up to A4), an additional one is provided – only for photo paper up to 13 × 18 cm (with a capacity of 20 sheets). For CDs – they can also be printed on – a special holder is provided. But there is no multi-purpose tray on the back of the case, so envelopes will have to be loaded into the universal cassette instead of plain paper. Output tray one – designed for 30 prints.
Epson Expression Premium XP-6000 – Features
The four-digit model index – and it seems to hint at a fundamentally new stage in the development of the series – did not save our hero from corporate conservatism. Looking forward to moving to PrecisionCore? Maybe new ink or more nozzles in the name of speed? Wait further. While Canon is not afraid to experiment (alas, not very successfully) even with a palette – it would seem that from the holy of holies of any printer – Epson bends its line: four colors, five cartridges, the old Micro Piezo and permanent 5760 × 1440 dpi as the maximum resolution .
And there is logic in this: what is boring for enthusiasts who compare generations and do not find serious differences between them will appeal to ordinary users (namely, they are the target audience). After all, if one of the industry leaders has been producing almost identical devices for years (at least as far as the printing system is concerned) and still has not lost this honorary title, then everything is definitely in order with the technical side of the matter.
Each of the color (including photographic black) channels has 180 nozzles, and document black has twice as many. That’s why the speed of monochrome printing is higher – 15.8 pages per minute versus 11.3 in color. Along with more or less honest, that is, obtained in accordance with ISO / IEC 24734, indicators flaunt another agility – 32 pages per minute, regardless of color. Of course, this optimistic forecast should not be taken on faith.
The popularity of the hybrid ink system did not arise from scratch: the combination of black pigment and color “dropsy” really guarantees little versatility (high-quality photos and at the same time resistant to abrasion and moisture monochrome documentation). And in our case, there are two blacks, so everything that can be squeezed out of the standard CMYK typographic palette, the developers just squeezed out.
In addition to additional black, the quality of photo printing is affected by the minimum amount of ink drop – 1.5 pl (as in truly photographic Expression Photo). And the “fuel” itself – in this case it is Claria Premium – also plays an important role (but, describing it, the manufacturer limited himself to promises about quality higher than in the laboratory, no technical details). Although the speed is indicated – 15 seconds for a 10 × 15 cm image.
Little is known about the scanner, as usual, even the speed was left behind the scenes. The resolution is limited to 1200×4800 dpi, the tablet active area (ADF not provided) is 216x297mm (corresponding to A4 and Letter), and the color reproduction is 8 bits per color (RGB), i.e. 256 shades of gray.
