Epson Expression Photo XP

Replacing the XP-8600 Small-in-One, Epson's Expression Photo XP-8700 Wireless All-in-One ($249.99) is an entry-level inkjet all-in-one (AIO) printer with solid photo printing chops and limited copying and scanning prowess. Like several photo-centric home and home-office multifunctions, the XP-8700 has a flatbed scanner without an automatic document feeder (ADF) for handling multipage documents. It also uses conventional ink cartridges instead of the refillable bulk-ink reservoirs of Epson's EcoTank, Canon's MegaTank, and HP's Smart Tank Plus printers, making it more expensive to use than many competitors. But if your primary concern is quality photo output, the six-ink Expression Photo XP-8700 delivers swiftly and nimbly.

While the XP-8700 doesn't carry the Small-in-One name, its size (7.2 by 20.7 by 13.7 inches) and weight (about 15 pounds) are identical to its predecessor's. That makes it about average in comparison to, or perhaps a little bigger than, many rivals in this ultra-competitive class such as the Canon Pixma TS9120 and TS8320 and the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8500.

There are numerous AIOs, including the HP Envy Inspire 7955e, the Epson Expression Premium XP-7100, and the Canon Pixma TR8620, that are slightly larger and heftier still. The difference is, of course, that they come with automatic document feeders. Without an ADF, the XP-8700 makes you place pages on the scanner glass one at a time when copying or scanning. That's time-consuming and tedious if your scan and copy volume is relatively heavy.

To turn inkjet AIOs into photo printers, manufacturers tweak them in several ways. One of the more common and effective tweaks is to increase the number of inks. Most inkjets use the standard four process colors—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). Adding hues expands the color gamut or range, which enhances color accuracy and detail.

Like the XP-8600, the XP-8700 has six inks, adding Light Magenta and Light Cyan to the familiar foursome. The other photo-friendly AIOs mentioned above also use six inks, except for the Epson XP-7100 (five) and HP 7955e (just four, split between black and tricolor cartridges). Different vendors use different colors; Canon's usual fifth and sixth cartridges are Pigment Black and Photo Blue.

Also handy on a photo-optimized all-in-one is a big, colorful touch screen for navigating features, monitoring ink levels, handling walk-up copying jobs, and scanning to and printing from the cloud. The new Epson's 4.3-inch color LCD with touch and gesture control is one of the biggest in its class, large enough to use comfortably even with fat fingers.

As for paper handling, the XP-8700 matches its predecessor by holding up to 120 sheets. The main drawer accommodates 100 sheets of plain paper or 10 envelopes, with a second tray inside that holds up to 20 sheets of premium, snapshot-size paper. Yet another tray that holds a few sheets of photo paper of various sizes pulls up from the back of the chassis. The front-mounted output tray holds up to 30 printed pages. For comparison's sake, the Pixma TS9120 holds up to 200 sheets of plain paper or 100 plain sheets plus 20 sheets of glossy photo stock.

If you don't mind setting aside your letter-size plain paper, you can also load up to 20 sheets of 4-by-6- or 5-by-7-inch photo paper in an insert inside the main paper tray. The XP-8700 can also print labels on suitably surfaced CD, CD-ROM, or DVD discs, and (like most of its competitors) it comes with software for creating and printing label artwork and jewel-case inserts. If you and your family archive your photos on optical discs instead of in the cloud, this is a handy feature.

A significant difference between this year's model and the Expression Photo XP-8600 is that the latter supported Ethernet wired networking, while the XP-8700 does not. The new AIO's only networking option is 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, though it has extensive support for smartphones and other handheld mobile devices, as well as for USB 2.0 and Wi-Fi Direct.

Wi-Fi Direct is, of course, a peer-to-peer protocol that allows Android smartphones and tablets to connect to the printer without either it or them belonging to the same network or connecting to the same router. Other mobile connectivity options include print to email, scan to and print from the cloud, Apple AirPrint, Mopria for Android devices, and Epson's Smart Panel app.

In addition to accessing local drives via Wi-Fi, you can also print from and scan to USB flash drives and several flavors of SD cards. The two ports are located on the left side of the chassis beside the output tray.

In addition to Smart Panel, Epson throws in Creative Print, a mobile app for creating and printing custom layouts such as greeting cards, business cards, and stationery. Other drivers and utilities include Epson Scan 2, Epson Smart Scan, and Epson Print Layout for iOS. With all this software, Epson provides everything you need to get the most from this little AIO, and then some.

Finally, like many modern consumer printers, the XP-8700 supports voice commands from both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Epson rates the XP-8700's monochrome print speed at 9.5 pages per minute (ppm). That's the same as the XP-8600, but at least 5.5ppm behind the other machines mentioned here. The Epson XP-7100 and ET-8500 are rated at 15.8ppm and 16ppm respectively.

Using a USB connection to our Intel Core i5-based Windows 10 Pro testbed, I began my testing by printing our 12-page Microsoft Word text document several times and averaging the results. The XP-8700 came in at 9.4ppm, while its rivals scored at least 15ppm (except for the Pixma TS9120, at 13.2ppm).

Next, I timed the XP-8700 as it churned out our collection of colorful and complex business documents, including Adobe Acrobat PDFs with intricate artwork and text in assorted fonts and colors; Microsoft Excel spreadsheets with charts and graphs; and Microsoft PowerPoint handouts. I combined those results with the Word score to come up with an overall rating of 6.7ppm for our suite of test documents. That was more like it, 2.7ppm quicker than the XP-8600 and much closer to its competitors, which managed around 8ppm except for the speedy Epson ET-8500 at 10.7ppm.

My final speed test entailed clocking the Expression Photo XP-8700 as it churned out several brightly colored and highly detailed 4-by-6-inch snapshots. The Epson averaged 12 seconds apiece, which is fast.

Like the XP-8600 before it, the XP-8700 delivered admirable output quality, especially for photos. Text was well-shaped and easy to read, with attractive tracking (spacing between characters) and leading (spacing between lines). I wouldn't call it laser quality, but it was certainly good enough for most applications. Our full-page spreadsheets and PowerPoint handouts also looked good, with no noticeable banding or streaking, but they drained the ink cartridges at a pretty good clip. You probably want a bulk-ink printer for high-volume duty.

The AIO excelled at snapshots, not only printing them in a hurry but offering bright and accurate colors. Skin tones looked great, as did sunsets, beach scenes, and giant redwoods. And like many of its Canon Pixma competitors, the XP-8700 supports borderless output on pages up to letter-size.

If its lack of an ADF doesn't sour you on the XP-8700 as a high-volume copier and scanner, its conventional cartridge design will do so in terms of operating costs. Depending on what you print, black-and-white pages will cost you between 4 to 6 cents each, with color pages running 15 to 17 cents. Photos with 100% ink coverage will cost still more.

Now, mind you: These figures are ambiguous because there's really no way to know when the Light Cyan and Light Magenta inks deploy and how much ink is dispensed when they do, but the Epson isn't the only sinner here. Canon's similarly priced photo printers such as the TS8320 cost about the same to use.

HP's four-ink printers, including the Envy Inspire 7955e, are eligible for the company's Instant Ink subscription program, which charges a monthly fee for a given number of pages and can cut operating costs to as little as 3.5 cents per page even for letter-size photos. Bulk-ink printers refilled from bottles, like Canon's MegaTank models or Epson's ET-8500, cost much more to buy but can drive your cost per page to under a penny.

As we said when reviewing the XP-8600, the Epson Expression Photo XP-8700 is a photo printer first and a document-oriented printing, scanning, and copying AIO second. If you see stacks of multipage documents in your future, an all-in-one with an ADF is a much better choice. If, on the other hand, printing perhaps 100 pages or photos each month is the extent of your output, the XP-8700—like many capable machines in its class—should serve you well.

Need excellent-quality borderless photos at sizes up to 8.5 by 11 inches? Epson's six-ink Expression Photo XP-8700 will get you those sharp prints, plus do some light-duty document handling.

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