This post is sponsored by Epson.
I’ve never had a photo printer at home before, so I was pretty excited when I got sent the new Epson expression photo XP-860 printer to trial. Whenever I’ve needed photos printed in the past I’ve always either ordered them online or driven to the shops and used those DIY machine things. Both of which are a complete pain in the butt and oh so time consuming, especially when you just need one or two quick prints.
I’m not sure who is more in love with this printer, me or Mr D (or the kids for that matter). I also think it looks petty neat in my office too. I don’t have the room for a big giant contraption, so this is just perfect. In the first few days of having it set up, it was put to use by all of us. I made some birthday invitations for Lexi-Rose in photoshop and it was so awesome being able to quickly print them out and hand them in to her Kindy teacher the very next day. I didn’t even have to leave my office chair to do it. Josh also had two school projects that needed photos printing and Hollie wanted to print a photo to take in for her ‘news’ at school.
All of these jobs would have requited a lot of time and effort on my part, but this fabulous little printer had it all done in a matter of minutes. Happy mummy and happy kids.
So these are the things we LOVE about the Epson XP-860
- The quality of the photos is AMAZING. It prints exactly as I would expect from a professional photo.
- It’s really quick.
- It has two paper trays, one for the photo paper and one normal paper so you don’t have to keep changing it – handy.
- The paper trays are tucked away out of sight, so it looks nice and neat.
- It has a touch screen display giving easy to understand instructions.
- You can plug in and print straight from a USB stick.
- You can set it up to print from ANY device, including ipads and iphones. We thought this feature was super cool.
- You can connect it to the cloud. This was the bit Mr D loved. It meant he could sent stuff to print at home from his office. We also tested this bit out by getting my sister to print one of her recent wedding photos. She pressed print from her laptop in England and it came out on our printer in Sydney. HOW COOL IS THAT??
- Another feature we loved was that it has an automatic paper feeder so if you are scanning large documents you don’t have to stand there and feed each page in one at a time.
The downside
The only negative we have about the Epson XP-860 is the cost of the ink cartridges. They are pretty expensive to replace. However I am happy to buy them as the amount of time and energy it saves me being able to print such incredible quality photos at home is worth it. I just need to keep the kids away from it otherwise they’ll be printing photos of Queen Else off the internet until the cows come home!
How do you print your photos?
*As always all opinions and photos on the review are my own.
Oh I would LOVE to have one – we used to own one but the cost of cartridges meant we stopped using it – enjoy! x
It is a real bummer that they are so expensive I agree but it sure is handy for a last minute homework project 🙂
I wondered about the cost of the cartridges but at the same time the time and petrol money I’d save would hopefully make up for it, a neat little gadget.
That’s how I justifying it too. In my house, time is money!!
I may or may not have fought with my printer just this morning! This looks much nicer and easier, haha
Mmmm, yes I am often fighting with a printer – usually because my laptop and said printer aways seem to have communication problems! So far so good with this one :))
Yep, the quality of printers these days is amazing, but I’m another who is put off by the cost of cartridges. This one looks very stylish though! Nice design.
It sure is clever but it is a shame about the cartridges.
I soooo need one of these!! Love the sound of the printing from any device – how perfect! xo
It’s pretty cool Wendy. I was very impressed :))
We actually need a new printer. It’s unusable and takes up a huge amount of space. Drives me bonkers! Will definitely look into Epson. I agree with you. The money you invest in buying the ink cartridges is the time and money you save in going out and getting your prints done somewhere else.
This is a good one honey. It does everything you would need from a printer as well as print amazing quality photos x
It was my husband’s dream a few years ago to have a printer that could print photos. We bought one, but the quality wasn’t that great. We still use it though for quick print offs of photos if the girls want to take to daycare etc to show off 🙂 It’s very handy.
Oh no that’s a shame. I think technology evolves so quickly these days that something a few years old become out of date very quickly. Not sure if that’s annoying or good?? This printer prints amazing quality photos – I was impressed :))
So glad to hear such great feedback on a printer! Do you know what is the heaviest card this will print on? Would love something that prints on 250gsm with ease.