Manufacturer: Epson
Product Name: Epson WorkForce 600 All-in-One Printer
Review Date: 09/19/08
Author:
In my time as a reviewer I’ve gotten many products for review and I’ve found that quite bit of them don’t live up to their marketing hype, it’s not that they’re bad products it’s more the expectations are very high with some. The product I’ve got for review today though lives up to and exceeds the hype, it’s an all around great product with virtually no flaws to be found.
On the review block today is the Epson WorkForce 600 All-in-One Printer, and as soon as you open the box you’ll be impressed by this printer. My wife, who normally couldn’t care about the stuff I get for review, was thoroughly impressed by this printer, so that’s saying something right there. Anyway, the WorkForce 600 just looks great, even without powering it on you can just see that this thing means business, but yet look stylish enough to fit in your home. After all, the WorkForce 600 is meant for small and home businesses, so it’s made to be a work horse and that it is. The 600 includes some great features like WiFi capabilities, laser quality printing, fast printing speeds, built-in memory card reader, and even an LCD to preview your pictures and operate the 600 easily.
It’s just an excellent choice if you’re in the market for an all-in-one printer, personally I like these types as then you don’t have to have separate devices for all the things you need to do…
The box is huge and heavy, when the FedEx guy delivered it I heard a big thump on my porch, and I was like ‘what was that?’. Of course there are several pictures along with specs and features listed on the box. The printer itself is packaged very well with styrofoam padding, wrapped in a plastic bag and more plastic covering the surface of the printer to protect it even more during shipping.
There’s a bit of stuff included with the WorkForce 600 including ethernet cable, power cable, driver/software disc, user manuals, sample paper, phone cable and of course the printer cartridges. No USB cable though, but that’s common nowadays for printers not to include one.. I’ve always wondered why they don’t include USB cables, I mean they’re cheap…
The housing of the WorkForce 600 is plastic as is expected, most of it shiny, and overall the look is classy but yet subtle, it should fit in with any decor.
The main interface of the WorkForce 600 in on the front panel, here you’ll find all of your function buttons and even a color LCD panel to make navigation, operation and even editing your photos easy. Off the the far left of the panel is the card reader and USB port as well, I found that the card reader doubles as a storage device for the printer as well. You can scan documents, save them to a memory card or USB drive and then just transfer them to your computer, no need to use any software to scan documents anymore, a very nice feature indeed.
The top is the automatic document feeder that can hold up to 30 pages for faxing or scanning multiple documents. Under that is a flat bed scanner that can be used for scanning or as a standard copier, under the scanner is where the ink cartridges go.
The paper goes into the back of the WorkForce 600, it can be adjusted to fit several sizes of paper and even envelopes.
The finished prints come out the front and land on the collapsible paper tray.
In the back of the untit we find the main power connection, ethernet jack, USB connection and telephone jack.
Specifications:
Epson WorkForce 600 All-in-One Printer Model: C11CA18201 MSRP: $199.99 Overview: * 5-in-1 — Print, Copy, Scan, Fax, Photo, Wi-Fi Show the world what your business is made of with WorkForce, Epson’s new line of printers and all-in-ones, engineered for the small business and home office. Get laser quality output at laser fast speeds for prints that make you look your best. Make your business look its best with brilliant color output from the Epson WorkForce 600 all-in-one. Why waste money on a laser printer when you can get so much more for less, including the ability to wirelessly print and archive critical documents, or fax stacks of originals in seconds. Because time is money, the WorkForce 600 races through every task. In fact, it’s about two times faster printing documents than leading competitive models. And, it uses up to three times less energy than a laser printer. Fast, affordable and built to grow with your business, the WorkForce 600 does it all, so you can focus on the business at hand. Features & Benefits: Above is just the basic specs and features listed, you can stop over HERE and visit the full listing on the Epson site.
* Draft speeds up to 38 ppm (black and color)
* Laser quality documents about 2x faster
* Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking built in
* Extra High-capacity Black ink
* 2-year limited warranty with registration
* Smudge, fade, water resistant, highlighter friendly
* Uses up to 3x less power than a laser printer
* Fax and 30-page ADF
* Built-in memory card slots and 2.5-inch LCD
* Boost your productivity — Fast draft and copy speeds — up to 38 ppm (black and color)
* Get speed without sacrificing quality — Laser quality documents at about 2x the speed of competitive ink jet printers1
* Easily network within your workgroup — Built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking
* Print more, change cartridges less often — High-capacity Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow ink cartridges; Extra High-capacity Black also available
* Protect important documents — Smudge, fade and water resistant, highlighter friendly documents rival those from a laser printer and photos rival those from the lab
* Send faxes fast, even in color — Fax in as fast as 3 sec per page; store up to 60 speed dials and receive up to 180 pages in memory; also faxes legal size
* Print photos without a computer — Built-in memory card slots, PictBridge and 2.5-inch LCD
* Make quick color copies and enlargements — One-touch copying with high quality scanning; reduce and enlarge 25 to 400 percent
* Do more with useful software included — OCR and creativity software to create flyers, brochures, calendars and more
* Save energy — Uses up to 3x less power than a laser printer
* Save paper — Built-in double-sided printing1
* Do more in less time — Copy, scan or fax stacks of documents with built-in, 30-page ADF
* Get product protection you can count on — Epson Preferred program with 2-year limited warranty and 2-year toll- free support, with registration, plus quick product exchange
Included with the printer is also ABBYY Fine Reader OCR, and ArcSoft Print Creations software, along with Epsons own utilities and programs.
The WorkForce 600 is very easy to setup, since I’ve got wireless I opted for the WiFi installation. You need to hook the ethernet cable up to your router, then follow the instructions to install everything, then you just unplug the ethernet cable and your wireless! Setup in total took about 30 minutes, which is about average for most printers. I also connected the printer to my wifes computer as well, when you put in the disk it gives you an option to start the install for a second computer, that setup is even faster and it’s easy as well.
Using the printer is very easy with the LCD screen and navigation buttons, there is a shortcut button on well located the left of the screen to easily access the most commonly used features quickly.
The menu choices are Fax, Copy, Photo, Scan, Backup Data, Print Ruled Papers, Setup and Problem Solver.
and yes you read that correctly there is a Data Backup function in the WorkForce 600, you can backup whatever is on your memory cards to a USB drive. Also you may have noticed the Print Ruled Papers choice, I think that’s rather cool, you can print lined or even graph paper in various sizes..
There’s also a very cool greeting card feature, you pick a picture, print a template, fill out the template and then re-scan it, the WorkForce 600 will understand your choices and print out your cards. Here’s the template, then filled out, then the actual cards, clicking on these picture will take you to hi-res views at 1587×2187 resolution.
Actual printing is just excellent, they were not exaggerating when they say laser quality, the print quality is truly laser quality. It just so happened that my wife had a project for school were she had to print up 15 booklets for the class for a presentation, in total it was about 90 pages. The quality was excellent all around, and they printed fast even with pictures on them.
Regular pictures printed very nice as well using photo paper, they look just like something you would get at a photo lab, my wife was very impressed by them, and it takes a bit to impress her… she still uses a film camera and send her pictures out to be developed because she doesn’t like how the pictures look when they are printed at home with our other ‘photo printers’, but with the Epson she was impressed by the quality of the pictures. One thing she said immediately was ‘no dots!’ which of course she means pixels, but with our HP Photosmart and Brother Photo printers if you look closely you can see the dots, with the Epson you can’t…
Faxing is fast, and it’s nice that you can put up to 30 pages in there, when you’re done you can even print out a report of the things that were faxed if need be.
This thing can do pretty much anything you want it to, it truly is an all-in-on printer.
The only possible gripe I could have is that there is no handset to talk through, my previous all-in-on had the handset and I guess I’m just very accustomed to using it as a phone, but of course you can hook up a phone to the WorkForce 600 and use it that way.
I could just go on and on about this printer, but trust me, it’s an excellent choice if this is the type of product that you need.
Honestly, try as I might I can’t really find any faults with this printer… for the price it’s perfect! I’ve done everything possible with this printer and it has done it all perfectly and flawlessly
For more information about the WorkForce 600 click here.
More Images:
Conclusion:
As I mentioned I tried to find something wrong with the Epson WorkForce 600, but I couldn’t, it does everything exactly the way it’s supposed to and it does it with quality and efficiency.
If you’re in the market for an All-in-one printer then be sure to check out the WorkForce 600, you’ll be very happy you did.
Coming in at around $200 it’s well worth it, I can easily see this thing costing more really, it performs and has the features of products much more expensive than itself.
Pros:
-Fast printing
-Excellent quality printing both text and pictures
-Wireless network capable
-Easy to use
-Easy to setup
-Numerous great features
-Low price
Cons:
-Large and heavy
-No handset
Grades:
Overall: 
Design:
Performance: 
Tags: 600, all in one, epson, force, printer, scanner, work, workforce
29/09 - 2008 at 22:18
I have an Epson Stylus Photo R260 printer which has a feature that lets you print on CD’s or DVD’s. I haven’t been able to find out if the Work Force 600 has this feature. Since I haven’t actually seen one in person, I was wondering what you found out about this feature as you were doing the testing for your review. Otherwise, this printer looks pretty nice.
3/10 - 2008 at 6:40
How is the noise level? Printing? Scanning? What about fax if someone faxes me? I have no idea if there is any sound and what type–if screeching high pitch or silent. Ringing? I’m deaf and I live in a high rise apartment in the City. I do my work during the night because it is quieter and distract-free but for my neighbors… am I driving them crazy with the noise I’m unaware of? They have no way of complaining to me because I do not have a door bell flasher nor a telephone. Could you enlighten me what you experienced with this machine?
Thank you!
13/10 - 2008 at 0:33
I will need to use this for both a Mac and a PC. Does the Ethernet work with a Mac? Good review. Thanks!
14/10 - 2008 at 22:36
Yes the Ethernet works with a Mac. I just got this printer today, was very easy to set up on a network using a PC and a Mac. So far I’m very impressed with this printer!
19/10 - 2008 at 2:38
I don’t like inkjets, I don’t like all in one printers, but due to circumstances (ahum, ca-ching), I had to buy an inkjet all in one. Luckily at BestBuy, the lady from Epson was there flogging these printers, so she talked me into one. This is a fantastic printer. It scans beautifully, it prints documents double-sided in BOOKLET format (you have to flip the paper over manually), it prints photos like a photo shop. My only regret was the lady was trying to get me to spend eight bucks extra on 24 pound paper and I opted for the cheapest paper available. It’s thin and the docs look crudy because of the paper. Get the 24 pound paper and you will be amazed with this printer. The print quality and speed of printing are great.
20/10 - 2008 at 0:08
Any experience with paper jams? This has been the deal-breaker, and printer-breaker, on almost every printer I’ve bought so far–
Complications from this inevitable snafu include the difficulty in extracting jammed paper ;the resulting damage to the internal alignment; the tiny bits of paper that tear off and that are unreachable from outside and that then make the printer inoperable.
A techie told me that it’s caused by the rollers getting worn and hardened with time so that they don’t grip the paper evenly. He said that this happens to rollers while just sitting in the months and years in warehouses, long before you purchase the printer.
So you want a printer that came out of the factory recently (or whose paper roller parts did :-)), and one that has an easy opening up of the innards to extract the paper when it does jam eventually.
20/10 - 2008 at 11:22
I’ve never had a problem yet with jamming and I’ve put a couple reams of paper though it since I got it.. so far so good!
7/11 - 2008 at 2:43
[...] tried printing with JetCet? I almost fell off my chair when I was able to connect to my Epson Workforce 600 & print emails, pictures & documents via WiFi. I simply typed in the IP address of my [...]
10/11 - 2008 at 18:46
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15/11 - 2008 at 20:46
i can not seem to get my mac to print to this printer–any suiggestions?
21/11 - 2008 at 2:07
Hi Anil,
Here’s what we did with the Mac in our house.
Head over to the Epson site, go to Drivers and Support, then type in ‘Workforce 600′ in the search box on the right. Drill down to the 600’s drivers section for Macs. You want the .dmg Driver file. Pull that down and run it on your Mac. After that, you should be able to go to Add a Printer and it should appear as long as your 600 has been set up on the network.
Good luck.
PS> Another positive review for the 600: http://tinyurl.com/5zkmbv
21/11 - 2008 at 6:57
Too bad you didn’t the fax capabilities. What I have found it that if you have an answering machine hooked up to another wall jack on the same line as the printer/fax, once the answering machine picks up (as it is supposed to do because it answers in fewer rings than does the fax) then the fax fails to receive the incoming fax. The only way you can get the two (answering machine and fax) to work properly is to plug the answering machine directly into the printer/fax device EXT jack/port. The manual leads one to believe that it will work either way (answering machine plugged into another wall jack on the same line or into the EXT jack on the fax/printer device). Not true, in order for the answering machine and the fax to work properly, the answering machine MUST be plugged into the fax/printer EXT jack.
Sounds like a step backward, as my 8-year old HP all-in-one worked fine with the answering machine plugged into a wall jack on the same line in another room. Seems silly to have to move my answering machine from the kitchen (where it is most convenient) into my home office where the new Epson Workforce 600 is located just to get the answering machine to work with the Epson.
23/11 - 2008 at 3:37
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29/11 - 2008 at 5:15
On the box, the Epson Workforce 600 says in fine print that some features, such as the double-sided printing, will not work with Macs. I want to know if anyone has had this problem or is there a solution to get a Mac to print double-sided on the printer.
4/12 - 2008 at 6:54
Great review! Lots of pertinent detail. I purchased this from Best Buy today and on my way out of the store stumbled upon the Canon MX850 display. I couldn’t wait to get home to see how that Canon compared to my Epson. After reading numerous reviews of both units I cannot wait to get the Epson out of the box. Thank you!
28/12 - 2008 at 1:56
I am happy with all features of my Workforce 600 that I bought at Best Buy for $149.00 except for receiving faxes. This printer does not recognize fax tones. It must be operated manually. To get it to answer automatically the answering machine has to be moved from another room and connected directly to the printer external port. I was able to receive a fax without connecting the answering machine to the Ext. port by turning the answering machine mode to “don’t answer” and leaving the answering machine in the kitchen. The good news is that I have three PCs (one in the garage) and a laptop and all have access to my printer.
30/12 - 2008 at 6:47
I just bought this printer today from Best Buy to replace my HP printer/copier/scanner because I hated the picture quality of the photos (visible pixels and always printed flat even though I used glossy photo paper.) Installation was easy and I immediately began printing photos. Much to my disappointment, it printed the photos just like my HP (visible pixels and flat…not glossy). I see no difference…maybe I’m doing something wrong?
1/01 - 2009 at 19:57
I’m considering this all-in-one for my home office. Anyone have experience with it’s PC Fax feature/software included? Specifically wondering what type of file the incoming fax could be saved as. PDF? I’d love to be able to receive the fax, save it and email it on as something very usable like a PDF file.
3/01 - 2009 at 15:17
Great Printer - I can not believe it was only $150!! I do have a question that I am hoping someone can assist with… Since the printer is located near my router, I set it up w/ the ethernet connection to the router. Printing thru the network is a bit slow - which is probably my network instead of the printer. Does anyone know if it would be even slower if I set it up w/ the wirless connection? My router is a D-Link xTreme N - so it should be pretty fast.
Thanks.
3/01 - 2009 at 16:45
Technically wireless is slower than wired, so you should be printing fast… I’ve got mine hooked up via wireless and it’s nice and fast… you may have some other networking issues going on if it’s slow…
4/01 - 2009 at 0:48
Windows Vista loads the printer driver only…you need the disc provided for the scanner and anything else.
You have to remember to delete your previous printer driver from Vista before installing because it will default to the old printer only. Also, with the ton of support programs from arcsoft you may find deleting them may take hours… if you tested them and find they’re not worth keeping, use Windows restore and just reinstall the Workforce drivers only. Restore is time sensitve…the longer you wait the less chance of cleaning up Quick.