Epson is pretty big on ink tank system printers and the newest to roll out of its factory is the new L6160. This one is a Wi-Fi duplex all-in-one ink tank system printer that promises high printing speeds and borderless printing for up to A4 size.
In terms of looks and build quality, the L6160 comes with a more refined design. The printer is also the winner of the Red Dot design award. The L6160 comes with PrecisionCore printheads, which Epson says offers better print speeds and increased efficiency.
Setting up the printer is a walk in the park. All you need to do is fill up the ink in the tank, let the printer charge the ink and then it is all set. This time around, the new tank design is integrated into the printer, rather than being on the outside. This allows for the printer to have a small footprint on your desk, and it is safer from ink spills.
Since the printer supports wireless connectivity, you get easy access to shared printing and wireless printing. Wi-Fi Direct allows you to connect up to four devices to the printer without a router. The L6160 also comes enabled with Ethernet, thus allowing you to easily share the printer on your network to a specific workgroup.
The L6160 also supports a wide range of connectivity options through Epson Connect. This includes Epson iPrint, Epson Email Print, Remote Print Driver, and Scan to Cloud. In addition, the printer also supports third-party print services such as Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, and Mopria Print Service.
In order to test the real world performance of the printer, we printed a wide range of files including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, images and plain text. We clocked 30 ppm in draft mode when printing monochrome prints, and 18 ppm for colour prints. In standard print mode, we were able to clock around 12 ipm for monochrome prints and 6 ipm for colour prints.
In duplex mode, the L6160 was able to print 5 ipm in monochrome prints and 3 ipm in colour prints. The Epson L6160 is also capable of printing photos and we clocked around 72 secs per photo print. The maximum print resolution the printer can offer is 4800-by-1200 dpi.
When it came to its copy function, the Epson L6160 was able to offer 10 ipm for monochrome copies and 4 ipm for colour copies. The printer offers a maximum scan resolution of 1200-by-2400 dpi.
For a price of AED 1150, the Epson L6160 might seem a bit expensive. But since it is an ink tank system printer, your spends on ink cartridges will be lowered on a longer run. In addition, the printer is able to offer good print speeds and good print quality – both for monochrome and colour jobs.
Price: AED 1150
