Epson WorkForce 610 review – Fantastic printing and copying speeds

Thumbs Up:

Includes Ethernet and Wi-Fi networking; nice attractive design; very easy to setup and rapidly prints text and graphical documents.

Thumbs Down:

Slow while printing photos; does not have auto-duplexer; large footprint.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

Epson WorkForce 610 is a digital ink-jet printer that is based on Epson Micro Piezo Inkjet Technology. It has a media card reader slot that supports SDHC Memory card, Memory Stick Pro, xD-Picture card, SD card, MultiMediaCard, IBM Microdrive, Memory Stick and Compact Flash. The WorkForce 610 uses Epson DURABrite Ultra inks and it has four ink cartridges: black, cyan, magenta and yellow. Minimum ink droplet size is 2pl for the WorkForce 610.

Maximum printing resolution is 5760×1440 dpi for both color and mono. The maximum printing speed is 38 pages per minute (PPM) for both color and mono. In addition, maximum copying speed is 38 PPM for both mono and color. Maximum document enlargement is 400%, whereas maximum document reduction is 25%. Epson WorkForce 610 copies up to maximum 99 pages.

The color management features of Epson WorkForce 610 include Windows Image Color Management (WICM), Epson Vivid color and Adobe RGB. The WorkForce 610 uses the CIS scanning element for its scanner. Optical scanner resolution is 2400×2400 dpi and interpolated resolution is 9600×9600 dpi. Color depth is 24bit, whereas the internal color depth is 48bit.

Epson WorkForce 610 has inbuilt Super G3 compatible fax machine that delivers maximum transmission speed of 33.6Kbps. It has total memory capacity to store 180 pages. Fax machine has features of color faxing, remote fax retrieval (Polling) and error correction mode (ECM).

Epson WorkForce 610 has input tray that can store up to 100 paper sheets and auto-document feeder stores up to 100 paper sheets. The WorkForce 610 can take both plain paper sheets and envelopes for the print outs. The maximum printing and copying size is Legal (8.5×14 inches).

There are four PC connections available in Epson WorkForce 610: Ethernet 10 Base-T/100 Base-TX, USB Host, Hi-Speed USB and IEEE 802.11b/g/n (draft). The WorkForce 610 supports both PictBridge and DPOF for direct printing.

Software provided inside the included CDs are ArcSoft Print Creations, Presto! PageManager, drivers & utilities, EPSON Web-to-page and EPSON scan. Supported operating system are Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/64 bit XP Professional/Vista/Windows 7 and Apple Mac OS X 10.3.9/10.4.x/10.5.x.

Epson WorkForce 610 compliance the different standards including ENERGY STAR, CSA 22.2 No. 60950, CISPR 22 Class B, FCC Part 15B and UL 60950. Power required by the printer is AC 120V (50/60Hz). The operational power consumption is 20 watt and standby consumption is 2.0 watt.

Razzle Dazzle:

Epson WorkForce 610 has the similar physical design like the 610 except the help button located on left side of the display. You will find same mirrored finish surrounding the control panel that wraps all around the sides of printer. The rest of the body has matte black professional finish. The WorkForce 610 is 18 inches tall, 14 inches wide and 9.3 inches deep. It weighs around 18.3 pound and does not fit in limited space. The size is slightly big because auto-document feeder stands tall on the top of scanner. Extending the front paper-loading tray will increase the size.

Inside Dope:

Epson WorkForce 610 is the successor of the WorkForce 600 and has similar design and features except updated menu layout on its screen. The WorkForce 610 costs around $210 and offers a lot of features like auto-document feeder for hands-free faxing, scanning, copying up to 30 paper sheets; wired and wireless networking; and control panel for one-touch access to all settings. We really appreciate the company for regular improvement in fast printout speeds and easy printer wizard setup. However, we disappointed that the WorkForce 610 does not have auto-duplexer hardware to print on both sides of the paper-sheet. We were expecting this feature to come in a $200 printer.

On the bright side, Epson WorkForce 610 has four ink cartridges bay to provide high quality color and black-&-white printouts. It has various customizable buttons, onboard memory card reader and optional software for closing the loop between play and work.

Epson WorkForce 610 has more robust and better control panel than its cheap $120 siblings, the WorkForce 310. You will get 2.5-inch color-full LCD display that displays wireless and cartridge installation instructions, remaining ink level, print information, and more. You will also get same lot of instructions on screen through Epson drivers. The wired and wireless network users will also appreciate the onscreen display of instructions for connection establishment. In addition, you can also rotate the control panel display on various viewing angles.

You will find these buttons from right to left on the control panel: collection of telephonic function buttons and numeric keys for fax machine, directional pad, zoom and help button, four-way shortcut pad and power button. The controls are easy to use and comprehensive. We prefer the Epson for some user-customizable hot buttons. There is a media card reader at the front panel that supports SD, xD, MS and Compact Flash cards. PictBridge USB port sits underneath for saving and printing images directly from PictBridge compatible camera/camcorder or USB drive.

Two attached bays: one for 1200×2400 dpi scanner glass and another for ink cartridge repository, are located above control panel. The scanning functions allow saving the scanned images to send via attachment to outgoing email message, and to save as PDF file and to a folder. You can organize the scanned images using included NewSoft Presto Page Manager software. We disappointed that its Optical Character Recognition feature results into a lot of character confusions and spelling mistakes

Epson WorkForce 610 has 30-sheet automatic document feeder located at the top. It automatically feeds individual sheets from the stack. However, this automatic document feeder has increased the weight of printer, still it is a good and most liked feature. In the font panel, you can store maximum 10 envelopes of 100 plain paper sheets of 20-pound weight. There is an extendable lip located on the bottom of printer that collects all the printouts.

Epson WorkForce 610 has inbuilt IEEE 802.11 b/g wireless print-server that only needs 5 minutes for setup and print outs. Other printers do not provide the wireless connectivity in $200 price range. Also, most of the wireless printer requires the setup of proxy network. On the other hand, the WorkForce 610 helps you to establish direct wireless connection without any help of USB or Ethernet cable. You will also get an Ethernet port on the WorkForce 610 for wired network.

Epson WorkForce 610 comes with four different ink cartridges for black, cyan, magenta and yellow. We had used Epson XL color and black cartridges to get cost-efficient price per page, and both of them costs $17 and $20 respectively. We estimate a cost of 2.5 cents per black ink page and 3.2 cents per color ink page on Epson’s ink cartridges.

The text printing speed of Epson WorkForce 610 is 13.24 PPM (pages per minute), whereas the 600 was limited to 7.31PPM. The presentation printing speed is 5.55 PPM. The color graphics speed is 4.83 PPM and photo speed is 0.89 PPM. We hoped that the 610 will provide fantastic photo speed being a member of the WorkForce series. However, its photo printing speed is lesser than that of Lexmark Impact S305, Canon Pixma MP560, HP Officejet J6480 and Kodak ESP5.

Epson WorkForce 610 does not provide the printing quality matching the latest standards, but it is still better as compared to public photo kiosk. You can select Best Photo or Photo mode inside the driver settings. The Best Mode will provide the better quality than Photo mode, but takes more time to print out. It also has Text quality setting that offers selection between complex Image/Text mode and simple Text mode. There is a visible difference in printing quality of both the modes.

We appreciated the capability of Epson WorkForce 610 for reproducing fine text lines and colors. However, there are some color blends in our photo printouts and they suffer from under-saturated haze and color blocks. Like the usual case with business class printers, the bright colors do not look pop up.

Epson is providing one year limited warranty with Epson WorkForce 610 including toll-free phone support in weekdays from 6AM to 6PM PT. The company has also published the model specified drivers, their updates, troubleshooting guide and user manuals at it website. The email support is also available online. An additional coverage for one year in $20 and for two years in $30 is also available.

A question to ask – why Epson only provides one year of service with the WorkForce 610 because its other vendors like Artisan series  give two-year warranty. We were disappointed with this.

Nitty Gritty:

Epson WorkForce 610 satisfies all the needs of both home and business class users. The company has a cut above in the competition for all functions including scan, copy, fax and print-outs. If you can fit a large and a bit bulky printer at your desk, then we will recommend you to buy Epson WorkForce 610.

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