The Epson Expression Premium XP-640 small-in-one printer comes from Epson’s Expression Premium range that consists of printers that are best suited for photo printing at home. The printer comes with two paper trays for loading letterhead paper & snapshot size photo paper separately, but unfortunately does not have an automatic document feeder. Even with that, the printer still rivals some of the best all in one printers you can buy.
Why We Like It – Epson Expression XP-640
The Epson Expression all-in-one printer is an exceptional choice especially if you’re going to be doing a lot of color printing. It’s able to do 4 x 6 inch photos in 20 seconds, as well as borderless photos that measure 8 x 10 inches. Printing speeds are also impressive at 13 pages per minute for text prints, and 10 pages per minute for color.
- Fast with Printing Photos
- Supports Auto Duplex printing
- CD/DVD Printing slot
- No Automatic Document Feeder
- Relatively slow printing speed
Performance
The Epson XP-640 achieves a print speed of between 10 and 13 pages per minute (text and color), but most critics argue that this is quite slow even for home use. It doesn’t even come close to the 30 pages per minute delivered by the Brother monochrome laser printer. With auto duplexing switched on however, the speed picks up just a bit to 5.5 pages per minute. If you have a mixed text and graphics document, the Inkjet printer averages about 5.1 pages per minute, and this improves when printing photos to 2.3 minutes per page.
Design
The Expression Premium XP-640’s design lends it a pleasantly small footprint. It’s almost as compact as the HP OfficeJet 3830 since it measures 5.6 by 15.4 by 19.8 inches, and comes with a slot to print CD/DVDs as well as a memory card slot for SD cards. The Epson Expression Premium printer is also quite capable of printing from mobile devices through WiFi AutoConnect or WiFi Direct, and it also connects to a home network through Ethernet or a WiFi connection.
Value
Compared to the HP Envy 5055, the Epson expression premium xp-640 printer does have a lot of value to offer especially if you’re going to use it a lot to print photos. With a 2400 dpi, users are assured of a very high print quality when printing text, and exceptional photo quality when printing pictures. The ink costs might be a bit high though, since the printer only works with Epson 410 cartridges, which tend to be quite expensive. In addition to that, the XP-640 printer relies on Epson 410 ink cartridges that come in photo black, cyan, magenta, yellow and black colors.
Epson Expression XP-640 Wrap Up
The Epson Expression printer can deliver excellent text quality when printing text documents, but that’s only possible if you’re not afraid of dealing with a high ink cost. Black ink for example costs $13, and the premium xp-640 small-in-one printer is capable of printing in black even when the color cartridge runs out. Also be warned that each ink cartridge only comes in the high-yield size. If these sound like maintenance costs that you can grapple with, then go right ahead and try out the Epson XP-640.
