Thumbs Up:

Five separate ink cartridges; all-inclusive control panel; inexpensive; good printing speeds

Thumbs Down:

Underwhelming picture quality; no auto-duplexer and Wi-Fi

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

The Epson WorkForce 310 is a multifunction printer that is based on Epson Micro Piezo inkjet technology. It uses the Epson DURABrite Ultra inks for printing. The color management features are Windows Image Color Management (ICM), Epson Vivid Color, and Adobe RGB. The minimum ink droplet size is 3 pl. The printer has five ink cartridges: two for black, and one each for cyan, magenta, and yellow.

The maximum printing speed is 20 pages per minute (PPM) for color and 36PPM. The maximum printing resolution is 5760×1440 dpi for both mono and color. The maximum copying speed is 12PPM for color and 36PPM for mono. The maximum document enlargement is 400% and maximum reduction is 25%. The copying features are fit to page and maximum 99 copies at a time.

The Epson WorkForce 310 uses CIS scan element. The color depth is 24 bit and internal is 48 bit. The optical resolution is 1200×2400 dpi and interpolated is 9600×9600 dpi. The inbuilt fax machine of the WorkForce 310 is compatible to Super G3. The maximum transmission speed is 33.6 Kbps and total memory capacity is 180 pages. The fax machine features are color faxing, remote fax retrieval (polling), and error correction mode (ECM).

The maximum paper size handled by the WorkForce 310 for printing and copying is legal (8.5×14 inches). The document feeder is capable to handle 30 sheets and standard media capacity is 100 sheets.

The PC connection options are Ethernet 10 Base-T/100 Base-TX and Hi-Speed USB. The software included inside the disc are Epson Easy Photo Print, Presto! PageManager, drivers & utilities, EPSON Web-to-Page and Epson Scan. The operational power consumption is 15 watt, and standby consumption is 3watt.

The sound emission is 39 dB while operating and humidity operating range is 20-80%. The maximum operating temperature is 95°F and minimum is 50°F.

Razzle Dazzle:

The Epson WorkForce 310 is 11.9 inches tall, 21.3 inches deep and 1.8 inches wide and weighs 16.8 lbs. Most of the printer has black matte finish, while there are few touches of black faux carbon plastic weaved throughout the external casing.

Inside Dope:

The Lexmark Impact S305 is an overall good printer with affordable cost of $99, but it is not a true all-in-one without Fax to impress us. Now, the Epson has released a true all-in-one printer – $120 priced Epson WorkForce 310 that can print, scan, copy, and fax with good speed in competition. Its design marries a graceful waveform with solid control panel in the center. The Impact S305 has barren control panel, whereas the 310 printer does not have such issues. The WorkForce 310 can store maximum 60 speed dial numbers for sending fax and has six customizable buttons for speed dialing. It lacks Wi-Fi and the printing quality is mediocre, but the Epson WorkForce 310 still retains our recommendation as a fully capable business printer.

The two-line LCD screen shows all print information, cartridge installation directions, individual job progress and detailed instruction for clearing a paper-jam. There is also standard buttons for print modes, menu, and large directional pad for scrolling on the printer’s screen. As already mentioned you can store up to 60 speed dial numbers and get six empty buttons. The 30-sheet automatic document feeder is located on the top and picks the individual sheets from the stack in a tray. In contrast, the ADF is not available on the Lexmark Impact S305. We like that when using Copy feature, you can store up to 100 plain sheets of 20 pound in the input tray, which folds out from the rear panel. The extendable arm at the bottom lip collects all the outbound prints.

The connectivity options for the Epson WorkForce 310 are limited with USB and Ethernet ports. We are disappointed that there is no Wi-Fi connection. If you are looking for a Wi-Fi connection then you have to look elsewhere. For compensating this, you can buy an additional wireless print server but it will increase the overall cost.

There are two hinged bays above the control panel that reveals 1200×2400 dpi scanner and ink cartridge repository respectively. The scanning functions allows saving the image in three different ways: as an attachment in outgoing email through default email client, as a PDF document in prescribed folder, and save in specified file folder. The provided NewSoft Presto Page Manager lets you to organize the scanned images. The Optical Character Recognition software needs improvement. It depicted character confusions and spelling mistakes while testing.

The Epson WorkForce 310 has five-ink cartridges bay: one for each cyan, magenta, and yellow, and two for black. You can use the extra black cartridges as backup. Please remember that the printer will only work when all five ink cartridges are installed.

We used the Epson XL $17 priced color and $20 priced black cartridges. The overall printing yields to 3.2 center per color page and 2.5 cents per black page. It clearly means that you are spending double to buy two black ink cartridges at a time.

The presentation printing speed is 3.3 pages per minute (PPM) for the Epson WorkForce 310, which is more than 2.36PPM of HP Officejet J6480 and 2.17PPM of Canon Pixma MX330. In contrast, the Lexmark Impact S305 has presentation printing speed of 4PPM.  The photo printing speed of the WorkForce 310 is 0.71 PPM and its color graphics speed is 2.32PPM. The color graphics printing speed is 4.49PPM for Lexmark, 2.17 for HP, 1.88 for Canon, and 2.13 for Kodak ESP5. The WorkForce 310 tops in text printing speed with 13.11PPM.

The overall printing quality of the Epson WorkForce 310 is better than that of a photo kiosk. The driver settings allows selecting the Best Photo or Photo mode, but the Best Photo mode will take more tie to print. There simple Text, complex Text and Image modes are also available. There is a noticeable difference between them. The printer reproduces satisfactory fine text and colors, but most of the colors blend with undersaturated haze and color blocks in our printed pictures. The colors are not looking pop-up as they should.

The Epson provides one-year limited warranty with the WorkForce 310 printer. The toll free phone support is available from 6AM to 6PM PT. The company has also published the document downloads, driver updates, email support, FAQs and online troubleshooting guide. We are disappointed that Epson does not provide three-year warranty with the WorkForce 310 as it provided with Aritsan series.

Nitty Gritty:

If you can work without Wi-Fi and auto-duplexer and need a fully capable office printer, then buy the Epson WorkForce 310 printer. For Wi-Fi, you can select the Lexmark Impact S305 but it lacks fax.

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