Epson EcoTank ET-4800 Review (2026): Honest Pros, Cons & Who It's Really For

Last updated: November 10, 2026.

Heads up: this post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through them, Castle Ink may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Castle Ink also sells compatible Epson 522 ink bottles for this printer. Pricing and availability change frequently — always check the current price before buying.

Looking for more options? Check out our full roundup: Best Ink Tank Printers (2026): EcoTank vs MegaTank vs Smart Tank Compared.

Quick Verdict

The Epson EcoTank ET-4800 is the cheapest way to get a 30-page document feeder, a fax and an Ethernet port on a refillable ink tank printer. It runs on the same Epson 522 bottles as Epson's entry EcoTanks, so ink costs well under a penny a page, and a set of bottles lasts most households a year or more.

What it does not do is print two-sided by itself. Duplex is manual only, the screen is a 1.44-inch LCD, the paper tray holds 100 sheets, and it is slow — Epson rates it at 10 pages a minute black and 5 color. It is also a 2021 design that Epson now lists as out of stock, though it is still widely sold new at Amazon and Walmart for roughly $200 to $300. If you need the feeder and fax and print a few hundred pages a month, it is good value. If you print a lot of multi-page documents, pay more for a model with automatic duplex.

CastleScore: 78/100. Excellent running costs and office features for the money, held back by manual duplex, slow speeds and a dated control panel.

→ Check the current price of the Epson EcoTank ET-4800 on Amazon

Epson EcoTank ET-4800 Specifications

Type	Color ink tank all-in-one (print, copy, scan, fax)
Print speed	10 ppm black, 5 ppm color (ISO); first page in about 10 seconds black, 16 seconds color
Resolution	Up to 5760 x 1440 dpi
Auto duplex printing	No — manual two-sided only
Document feeder	30 pages, single-sided
Fax	Yes, up to 33.6 Kbps, with memory for up to 100 pages
Paper handling	100-sheet rear tray, up to legal size
Display	1.44" color LCD with buttons (not a touchscreen)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), Wi-Fi Direct, Ethernet, USB — no cables in the box
Mobile printing	Epson Smart Panel, Apple AirPrint, Mopria
Recommended volume	Epson's spec sheet suggests up to about 500 pages a month
Ink	Epson 522 bottles: T522120-S black, T522220-S cyan, T522320-S magenta, T522420-S yellow
Size	About 14.7" W x 13.6" D x 9.3" H
Typical price	$200–$300 new (Epson list $299.99; launched in 2021 at $259.99)

Who This Printer Is For

• Home offices that still fax. Very few ink tank printers at this price include a fax modem. If you send signed forms to doctors, schools or insurers, this is one of the least expensive ways to do it.
• Anyone who scans or copies multi-page documents. The 30-page feeder is the reason to choose this over the cheaper ET-2800, which uses the same ink but has a flatbed only.
• Households that print color regularly and are tired of replacing cartridges every few weeks. A full set of 522 bottles covers thousands of pages.
• Setups where Wi-Fi is unreliable. The Ethernet port is a genuine fix for the dropouts that come up in owner reviews.

Who Should Skip It

• Anyone who prints long double-sided documents. You flip and reload the paper yourself. For automatic duplex on an EcoTank, look at the ET-4850 or the ET-3850.
• People who need speed. At 10 ppm black and 5 ppm color it is slow even by inkjet standards. A mono laser is several times faster for text.
• Photo enthusiasts. Photos are fine for the fridge, but borderless printing only works on some paper sizes and the four-ink system is not built for gallery work. The EcoTank Photo ET-8550 is the photo pick.
• Anyone who prints a handful of pages a year. An ink tank printer pays back its higher price through cheap ink. If you barely print, a $100 cartridge printer costs less overall.
• Offices that need a big paper tray. 100 sheets means frequent reloading at higher volumes.

What Owners Say

The ET-4800 averages around 4 out of 5 stars across several thousand Amazon ratings. Independent testers broadly agree on where it stands: RTINGS rates its page yield as outstanding, while Consumer Reports found its text quality below most printers it tested.

What people love:

• Ink that lasts. The most common praise by far. Owners routinely report going many months between refills.
• Office features at a home-printer price. Feeder, fax and Ethernet in one box is unusual for the money.
• No cartridge chips. The bottles are just ink, so there is nothing for a firmware update to block.
• Easy refilling. Each bottle is keyed to its own tank and stops automatically when the tank is full.

The legitimate complaints:

• No automatic duplex. The most frequent surprise in negative reviews. Some buyers assume a printer with a feeder and fax must print two-sided on its own. It does not.
• Slow output. In RTINGS' testing a plain text document came out at about 8 pages a minute, color documents at about 4, and a single photo took over a minute and a half.
• Wi-Fi dropouts. A recurring complaint in Epson's own reviews. The radio is 2.4 GHz only. Ethernet avoids the problem.
• A small, fiddly control panel. The 1.44-inch screen and button menus make settings like fax setup tedious.
• Single-sided feeder. Two-sided originals must be scanned in two passes.
• Long-term reliability questions. Some owners report problems after the first year or two, and every EcoTank eventually reports a full waste-ink pad (more on that below).

How It Compares

	Epson ET-2800	Epson ET-4800	Epson ET-4850
Functions	Print, copy, scan	Print, copy, scan, fax	Print, copy, scan, fax
Document feeder	None	30 pages	30 pages
Auto duplex printing	No	No	Yes
Ethernet	No	Yes	Yes
Paper tray	100 sheets	100 sheets	250 sheets
Ink	Epson 522	Epson 522	Epson 502
Status	Current	Still sold, aging	Discontinued; replaced by ET-4950

The ET-4800 sits in an odd spot: it has the office features of the ET-4850 but the basic print engine, tray and ink of the ET-2800. That is fine if the feeder and fax are what you need. If what you really want is less hassle with long documents, the automatic duplex and bigger tray on the 4850-class models matter more than the fax.

Cheaper Alternative: Epson EcoTank ET-2800

If you never fax and only occasionally scan a single page, our Epson EcoTank ET-2800 review covers the same 522-ink engine without the feeder, fax or Ethernet, for noticeably less money. For print-only use, the ET-2400 is cheaper still on the same bottles.

Upgrade Pick: Epson EcoTank ET-4850

If you want automatic two-sided printing, a 250-sheet tray and faster output, our Epson EcoTank ET-4850 review covers the step-up model. It uses Epson 502 bottles rather than 522, and Epson has since replaced it with the ET-4950, so check what is actually in stock before you buy.

Ink Costs: What the ET-4800 Really Costs Per Page

The ET-4800 uses four Epson 522 bottles. There is no XL version; genuine Epson bottles hold 65 mL each and are rated at about 4,500 pages for black and 7,500 pages for each color. The bottles in the box print noticeably fewer pages, because part of the first fill is used to charge the print head.

Here is the math using rated yields and November 2026 prices (genuine prices from Staples and Epson's U.S. list; Castle Ink's from our product pages):

Supply	Price	Rated yield	Cost per page
Epson 522 black, genuine (65 mL)	$17.99	4,500	0.40¢
Epson 522 cyan, magenta or yellow, genuine (65 mL each)	$17.99 each	7,500	0.72¢ for all three colors
Castle Ink 522 black, compatible (140 mL)	$15.99	4,500+ (more than twice the ink)	0.36¢ at the rated yield; about 0.17¢ if yield scales with volume
Castle Ink 522 cyan, magenta or yellow, compatible (70 mL each)	$13.99 each	7,500	0.56¢ for all three colors
Castle Ink 522 four-pack, compatible (70 mL each)	$29.95	4,500 black / 7,500 color	about 0.17¢ black, 0.30¢ for all three colors

What that means in practice: a typical color page costs about 1.1¢ on genuine Epson ink and about 0.5¢ on the Castle Ink four-pack. At 300 pages a month, two-thirds black text and one-third color, that is roughly $23 a year on genuine bottles and about $10 a year on compatibles. Real color pages with photos or heavy graphics use more ink than the rated yields assume, so treat these as floors, not promises.

Either way, ink is not the expensive part of owning this printer — the printer itself is. That is the whole point of an ink tank, and why it only makes sense if you print often.

522 Is Not 502

Epson 522 and 502 bottles look almost identical in listings, and they are the most common mix-up we see for this printer. Epson keys the bottle necks, so a 502 bottle will not fit the ET-4800's tanks. The ET-4800 takes 522 only. Our What Ink Does the Epson EcoTank ET-4800 Use? guide covers the bottle numbers in detail.

The Waste Ink Pad

Every EcoTank collects purged ink in an internal pad that is not user-replaceable. When its counter fills, the printer stops and asks for service. On a light-use printer that can be many years away; on a heavy one it arrives sooner. It is worth knowing about before you buy, because it is the one maintenance cost no ink-cost chart shows.

Setup Tips That Prevent the Most Common Complaints

• Plug in Ethernet if you can. It sidesteps the Wi-Fi dropouts, and you will need to buy the cable — none comes in the box.
• On Wi-Fi, give the printer a fixed IP address in your router so it does not vanish after a router restart.
• Confirm each refill on the control panel. The bottles have no chip, so the printer tracks ink by estimate and asks you to reset the level after filling.
• Print something every week or two. Regular use keeps the nozzles from drying and avoids ink-wasting head cleanings.
• Set up manual duplex in the driver so it prompts you to flip the stack, rather than printing everything single-sided.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Epson ET-4800 print double-sided automatically?

No. Two-sided printing is manual only; the printer prints one side, then you turn the pages over and reload them.

What ink does the Epson EcoTank ET-4800 use?

Epson 522 bottles: T522120-S black, T522220-S cyan, T522320-S magenta and T522420-S yellow. Not 502.

Does it have a fax?

Yes. It faxes at up to 33.6 Kbps and can hold up to 100 pages in memory, and the 30-page feeder handles multi-page faxes.

Can I use compatible ink bottles?

Yes. EcoTank bottles carry no chip, so there is nothing for the printer to authenticate. Use bottles made for 522 so the keyed neck fits the tanks.

Is the ET-4800 discontinued?

Epson still lists it but shows it out of stock, and it is a 2021 model. New units remain widely available at Amazon and Walmart. If you are buying new in 2026, it makes sense mainly when it is on sale near $200.

What is the difference between the ET-4800 and the ET-4850?

The ET-4850 adds automatic two-sided printing, a 250-sheet tray, faster printing and a larger screen, and it uses 502 bottles instead of 522. Both have a 30-page feeder, fax and Ethernet.

Is the ET-4800 good for photos?

It prints acceptable snapshots, but borderless printing is limited to some paper sizes and it is slow. For regular photo printing, a six-color EcoTank Photo model is the better buy.

Bottom Line

The Epson EcoTank ET-4800 does one thing very well: it puts a document feeder, fax and Ethernet on a printer that costs pennies a month to feed. If that combination is what you need, and you print often enough for an ink tank to pay off, it is a sensible buy, especially near $200. Go in knowing it is slow, prints two-sided only by hand, and has a tiny screen. If those trade-offs bother you, the ET-4850 class is worth the extra money; if you do not need the feeder or fax, the ET-2800 saves you some.

→ Check the current price of the Epson EcoTank ET-4800 on Amazon

Shop Compatible Ink at Castle Ink

Save on refills for the ET-4800: Epson 522 Four-Pack, 70 mL each ($29.95) · Epson 522 Four-Pack with 140 mL Black ($37.99) · Epson 522 Black, 140 mL ($15.99) · All Epson 522 ink

See Also

• What Ink Does the Epson EcoTank ET-4800 Use?
• Epson EcoTank ET-4850 Review (2026)
• Epson EcoTank ET-2800 Review (2026)
• Epson EcoTank ET-2400 Review (2026)
• Best Ink Tank Printers (2026)
• PrinterIQ Finder — find your next printer in about 60 seconds

This review is part of our Best Printers Buying Guide, covering top picks for every use case and budget.

By Lauren Elward for Castle Ink, helping people solve printer and ink problems since 2005. Last updated November 10, 2026.