Epson EcoTank M3180 all-in-one printer, mono, A4, fax, Wi-Fi

Print an invoice, scan a contract, copy a manual and fax a confirmation: the M3180 handles all of these jobs without four separate machines on the desk. Printing and copying run in black ink, while scanning and fax work in colour. That split matches what a typical office needs: text on paper, every shade in the file.

Mono print speed under ISO/IEC 24734 is 20 ipm, meaning 20 images per minute on a standard test document. A standardised measurement like this allows printers to be compared fairly. Two-sided printing is available, so longer documents use half the paper, folders stay thinner and the shelves keep more free space.

The 250-sheet input tray takes a whole ream of paper, and the output tray accepts 100 sheets. The printer can therefore run for a long time without anyone adding paper or collecting finished pages. In the EcoTank series ink is poured from a bottle into a built-in tank rather than swapped as a cartridge; which ink bottle this model uses is not stated in the manufacturer data here.

Scanning resolution reaches 1200 × 2400 dpi, which suits both a document archive and the digitising of photos and hand-drawn diagrams. The fax is listed as colour in the manufacturer data, so a colour original can be sent on without losing its shades. Fax is still used by many institutions, clinics and accounting offices.

Wi-Fi lets every computer and phone on the network print, and Wi-Fi Direct allows printing straight from a smartphone even when there is no router. The interface list also includes a wired network and Hi-Speed USB compatible with the USB 2.0 specification. The grey housing blends in at the office or at home.

Small offices where one device has to cope with printing, scanning, copying and fax; accounting and insurance offices that print many black-and-white documents; clinics and lawyers for whom fax remains a working tool; and entrepreneurs with a home office who want a roomy tray and two-sided printing. It is also a sensible fit for property managers and small associations that still exchange documents by fax.