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The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-M5194 ($209.99) is one of the rare monochrome inkjet printers in a market dominated by lasers. Thanks to Epson’s PrecisionCore print-head technology, which is designed to improve both speed and output quality, the WF-M5194 can compete with lasers. Although it can’t print in as high a volume as the Editors’ Choice Dell Smart Printer S2830dn , its lower sticker price and slightly lower running costs may make it a better choice for relatively light-duty work.
Design and Features
The off-white WF-M5194 is compact for a workhorse office printer, measuring 11.2 by 18.1 by 16.6 inches (HWD) when closed, and you probably can find room for it on your desk. It weighs 25 pounds, and one person should be able to move it easily into place. The front panel, set at an angle for easy viewing, includes a 2.2-inch monochrome display for setup and maintenance functions.
The WF-M5194 is capable of medium-duty printing, with a 45,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle and a recommended monthly print volume of up to 2,500 pages. It has an auto-duplexer for two-sided printing. Its 330-sheet standard paper capacity is split between a 250-sheet main tray and an 80-sheet bypass feeder. You can add a second 250-sheet tray for a maximum capacity of 580 sheets. The Dell S2830dn has a 250-sheet main tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray for a slightly larger 350-sheet capacity, which can be expanded to 900 sheets with the addition of an optional 550-sheet tray. The S2830dn is also built for heavier-duty printing, with a maximum monthly duty cycle of 100,000 pages.
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Connectivity
The WF-M5194 has a good set of connection choices, both wired and wireless. It can connect to a computer via USB 2.0, or to a LAN via Ethernet or 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. It also supports Wi-Fi Direct, which lets you make a direct peer-to-peer connection to a computer or mobile device. It supports printing from the Epson iPrint mobile app (for iOS or Android), Google Cloud Print, Epson Creative Print, Epson Scan to Cloud, Epson Email Print, and Epson Remote Print.
You get a good selection of printer drivers, including a universal driver plus PCL and PostScript drivers. I tested the WF-M5194 over an Ethernet connection, with its drivers installed on a computer running Windows 10 Professional.
Printing Speed
I timed the WF-M5194 at 18.9 pages per minute (ppm) in printing the text-only (Word) portion of our new business applications suite, just short of Epson’s 20ppm rated speed. Its first-page-out time averaged 8 seconds. In printing our full business suite, which includes PDF, PowerPoint, and Excel files in addition to the aforementioned Word document, the WF-M5194 averaged 14ppm. These speeds are a hair faster than those turned in by the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-M5694 , the WF-M5194’s all-in-one counterpart. Although the Dell S2830dn had a similar speed for the full suite (14.9ppm), it was much faster (37.5ppm) printing text in simplex mode.
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Output Quality
Overall output quality for the WF-M5194 was average for an inkjet, with good text, average graphics, and slightly subpar photos. Text should be fine for any business use, except those requiring very small fonts. With graphics, I saw slight banding in a few backgrounds, and the printer did poorly with gradients and in differentiating between areas of similar tone. Photo quality is fine for printing webpages and the like but nothing more rigorous than that.
Running Costs
Based on Epson’s prices and yields for its highest-yield ink cartridges, the WF-M5194’s running costs are 1.6 cents per page, a bit lower than the Dell S2830dn’s 2 cents per page.
Conclusion
Because the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-M5194 takes advantage of the company’s PrecisionCore technology, it’s an inkjet that has the chops to compete with mono lasers in areas such as speed, running cost, and even text quality. It lacks the paper capacity and the durability—as reflected in its maximum monthly duty cycle—of the Editors’ Choice Dell Smart Printer S2830dn, but can save you some money over that model in both initial price and lower running costs.
4.0
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The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-M5194 is a monochrome inkjet printer designed to go head to head with mono lasers, and it fares quite well.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/epson-workforce-pro-wf-m5194
