Epson Expression Home XP-235 All-in-One Inkjet Printer

I bought this printer for my Aunt and was dreading the process of installling and getting it working. Thankfully, the whole process is actually quite straightforward and the only problem I had was tracking down the rather short power lead that was stored deep inside the unit! The setting up takes about half an hour to do and I just followed the printer instructions first and then slotted in the disc and installed all the software. So far, I've used it to print text documents and the quality has been excellent. The scanner was also straightforward to use and I was able to send resulting images via email with no problem and no need to read any manuals. The wifi connection process was also very simple to achieve.As its fairly cheap, there are a couple of things to look out for. Firstly, the printer isn't the hardiest of items. The printer tray is fiddly and cries out to be broken when moved, whilst the actual control panel creaks with apparent pain whenever a button is touched. I would also suggest this isn't suitable for heavy, intensive use and is no match for any rampaging or inquisitive toddler that may chance upon it. The printer isn't too noisey, but can get a bit of time if there's graphics to print.My aunts will be in a corner ready for printing out text documents, printing reservations and all the other mundane but suddenly important reasons that a printer is needed. For this sort of price, that's ok by me. The printer does have bold predictions about photo production and remote printing through clever Smart Phone Apps but this is where I think me and the printer are likely to fall out of in the long term - particularly as I'm now the compulsorily-appointed Printer Technical Support for my Aunt!The cartridges use the 29XL Cartridge format so keep an eye on that because I guess other formats won't work. The Epson website shows how long each cartridge is estimated to last when used appropriately. Little tip, when loading paper, flick the paper to help the printer feed page by page.It's so useful that I'm going to order the same model for my house too, although not through Amazon. That isn't because of any bad thing on the part of the supplier, it was just a lot cheaper elsewhere.

Let's be honest, this printer costs less that £40 and for it's price it's gotta be worth 5 stars. Set up is so easy when you do it via the net(the exact web address is in the quick start up guide included) and I had mine up and running in 15 mins. You can also download an app from the google play store which allows you to print directly from your phone or tab again it took the time of downloading the app to get all sorted. Once the app was downloaded it took no time for it to acknowledge the printer and print stuff off. Print quality is fine but I wouldn't say it's ideal to print photos off but what do you expect for the price ? The only downside I can see is ink price if as some reviewers say none Epson ink doesn't work. Strange these days isn't it, it's cheaper to buy a brand new printer which comes with the ink than to buy replacement ink on it's own. In a nutshell my daughter started high school this year and a lot of her homework is set by her teachers online on a specialist school homework website with teachers asking if pupils can complete the homework online, print it off and hand it in and I wanted a WI FI printer for her to print her homework and things off and this is just the ticket.

Part of Epson's Small-In-One range, the Expression XP-235 is a basic yet capable wireless home printer ideal for quick print jobs and the odd heavier duty print task when called upon.Unboxing and plugging in is a quick process, although installation of drivers and Epson's printer management software is, as is customary for this sort of thing, pretty agonising. But it's worth doing for the utilities you get, and in order to set up the excellent Epson Connect feature. More on that later.Printing is speedy and accurate, if relatively noisy. Personally speaking that's not an issue, although I appreciate some people prefer quieter models. Print quality is average to good, with sharp results and adequate colour richness if using the native ink cartridges. On that subject, having separate CMYK cartridges is helpful such that only depleted ones need to be replaced but, as is almost universally the case, it can be a struggle to find reasonably priced replacements. I don't know if I'd go in for it if photo printing is your intention.The body of the printer feels a bit flimsy and in/out feed trays wobble alarmingly although again, this doesn't greatly detract from the experience of using it under normal conditions. It has a compact, no-frills chassis and fits snugly under the desk in my office.A special mention must go to the brilliant Epson Connect facility, which enables owners to wirelessly print documents without the need for a home server (although this is optionally available too). Standard filetypes such as MS Office documents, JPG, PDF, BMP, GIF and PNG can be printed with ease, even when sent as email attachments. I love this feature and have already made extensive use of it by forwarding documents to the device remotely, picking them straight up off the printer when I get home. The process also works in reverse: being capable of scanning a source image and uploading it straight away to your preferred cloud file storage service, something which can be set up on the Epson Connect website and changed at any time.Your Epson account can automatically generate response emails to ping back the status of the print or scan job, and while it's not an instantaneous round-trip from digital to hard copy to confirmation, it's normally just a few minutes before a standard document is ready for collection.Setting this service up can be a tiny bit fiddly - at least if you want to secure your printer and lock it to a handful of white-listed input email addresses - without being too intimidating. Following up the base software installation with Epson Connect setup is definitely the way to go, then it's all ready to use from then on.Even in 2016 one can seldom overestimate the importance of being able to produce hard copies of documents, vouchers, receipts and so on. For a quick and easy print solution which gives you good results without breaking the bank (depending on your choice when it comes to replenishing ink), the Expression XP-235 represents cracking value in a saturated market.