Epson launches Epson WorkForce Pro WF-R8591 and WF- R5691 printers

New Delhi, India, September 10, 2014: Epson today announced the successful completion of 25 years of its operations in India. Speaking to the press on this occasion Mr. Minoru Usui – President of Seiko Epson Corporation, Japan announced the company’s entry into the copier segment with the launch of the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-R8591 and WF- R5691.

Mr. Usui said that Epson’s  research a few years ago had indicated that  consumers wanted the freedom to print, without having to worry about high ink costs, the inconvenience of replacing cartridges and the environmental impact of laser printers. Consumers around the world, including India, had been limiting their printing requirements to cut costs. Epson felt printers  therefore, had to address these issues to be truly accepted. Because of Epson’s unique Micro Piezo printing technology, Epson was able to tackle this issue and were able to create InkTank printers a few years ago. Based on this technology, Epson have succeeded in eliminating the expense and inconvenience of ink cartridges for consumers.

Launched in 2011, Epson’s refillable InkTank printers have been a runaway success. They have challenged the perception that laser printers offer the most economic printing solution. A continuous focus on creating customer value has helped Epson gain huge market acceptance within a short period. In FY2014-15, Epson’s value market share for inkjet printers in India was 51%, making it the No. 1 Inkjet printer brand in India.  Since the launch of InkTank Printers in 2011, Epson has sold close to one million printers in India.

Now, according to Epson, the new Workforce RIPS printers represent yet another breakthrough business model.  One that is going to completely disrupt the world of office printing. The Epson WorkForce Pro RIPS series utilize high capacity Replaceable Ink Pack Systems (RIPS) that can hold a far higher volume of ink compared to traditional ink cartridges. The system provides the ease-of-use of a cartridge-based system, combined with the high volume printing of an ink tank system. This new series of Epson printers exploit the reliability and extreme performance of the printer’s proprietary new PrecisionCore printhead.

The Workforce RIPS printers can provide enough ink to print up to 75,000 A4 pages of Black and Color. That is enough for years of uninterrupted printing in a business environment without having to change cartridges. In addition, Workforce RIPS printers offer the lowest print cost in this category of 30 Paise for B&W and 75 Paise for Colour, and an amazingly low energy consumption of just 40Watts.

Epson claims this new system gives business owners and corporates the freedom to print without worrying about the cost or physical waste, but while retaining the quality, speed, versatile paper handling capability and more importantly the reliability for which Epson has become famous.

Speaking on the occasion Mr. Minoru Usui said  “At Epson we are focused on creating products that exceed the expectations of our customers. Our aim in India and around the world is to become a company that is truly indispensable to our customers and I believe RIPS is one way in which we will achieve that. Our unique technology offers significant benefits to office and professional customers in terms of cost, productivity and the environment. Based on our industrial grade PrecisionCore technology, I believe we have the potential to shift office printing from laser to inkjet, and this is one step in that direction. Ultimately when it comes to printing, my overall aim is simply “everything printed by Epson.”

While the WF-R8591 is priced at Rs.193,999 (Desktop Model) and Rs.262,996 (Pedestal Model) respectively, the WF-R5691 is priced at Rs.98,999.

Key Features

Epson Replaceable Ink Pack System (RIPS) – The WorkForce Pro WF-R8591 is the very first printer in Southeast Asia to feature the Replaceable Ink Pack System (RIPS) which instead of ink cartridges, supplies ink to the printer in the form of ink packs. RIPS provides users up to 75,000 pages of uninterrupted printing in both black and colour.  These high page yields provide incredibly low cost per page that translates to significantly reduced running costs. For instance, the four ink packs of the WF-R8591 can print the rough equivalent volume of 52 standard toner cartridges and generate a far lower environmental impact as a result. Furthermore, utilising inkjet technology, it only requires ink supplies and a waste ink box which further lowers printing cost by eliminating the use of additional consumables such as a drum, transfer unit and a fuser unit.

Epson PrecisionCore Printhead – Making the RIPS possible is the PrecisionCore technology found in the WorkForce Pro series of printers. PrecisionCore printheads are a new generation of Epson’s proprietary Micro Piezo high-performance piezoelectric printheads. Micro Piezo printheads are found in every Epson inkjet printer and use electro-pulses instead of heat to propel ink out of the print nozzles, making them extremely durable and is able to eject ink droplets in variable dot sizes for the greatest detail and smooth gradations in documents or photographs. Epson PrecisionCore Printhead allows high-speed printing of up to 24ipm for WF-R8591’s & to 20ipm for WF- R5691 both at a default resolution of 600 x 600 dpi.

Flexible, expandable paper handing – The WF-R8591 can be upgraded with additional paper cassettes to support up to 1,831 sheets input capacity. Papers of different sizes and types can be placed in the different cassettes for automatic selection based on document size or copy originals. In addition, a cabinet can be added for convenient storage of additional paper and spare consumables.

DURABrite Pro Pigment Inks – These new printers use a new pigment ink set known as DURABrite Pro that was specially developed for business use. Compared to conventional pigment inks, this new ink set has greater pigment concentration, achieving vivid black and colour prints and allowing graphs and images to be clearly expressed even on ordinary plain paper. The ink also has a curl inhibiting ingredient that prevents curling of paper. Like DURABrite Ultra ink, this new ink set is water, smudge and fade-resistant. 

Comprehensive Connectivity – As a business printer, the WorkForce Pro series printers have comprehensive connectivity options that include USB 2.0, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, as well as Wi-Fi Direct that allows up to four devices to connect directly to the printer at a time without the need for a router. It also allows its network settings to be remotely changed using the EpsonNet Config web based management interface.

Epson Connect – While connected to a network, the WF-R8591 and WF-R5691 support Epson Connect, a suite of mobile printing solutions that includes Epson iPrint, Epson Email Print, Remote Print Driver, and Scan to Cloud. It also supports third party mobile printing solutions, Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print. Epson iPrint, which is part of Epson Connect, allows users to print and scan directly with their smart devices or online cloud storage services.

Other productivity-boosting features – The WF-R8591 and WF-R5691 are also integrated with a host of other features that help boost productivity and security for its users. These include:

• One-pass duplex ADF scanner (Only WF-R8591) – The scanner has a 50-sheet ADF and is equipped with dual CIS sensors for scanning of double-sided documents with a single pass.  This significantly improves the efficiency to scan, copy or fax double-sided documents.
• 5-inch LCD touchscreen (Only WF-R8591) – A large, user-friendly 5-inch LCD touchscreen allows users to easily setup, maintain and operate the printer as a stand-alone machine.
• USB Host – Equipped with a USB host port, users can print or scan directly with the printer using flash drives without a PC.
• Fax – With a 33.6Kbps fax, users can send faxes at speeds of up to 3 sec/page with a 6MB memory for an approximate 550 pages to ensure faxes will be received even if the printer runs out of paper. For further savings, faxes in memory can be saved digitally as PDF files to a computer or USB flash drive.
• Security features – Secure your printer and documents with a range of features.  Prevent unauthorised usage of the printer with IP address filtering or up to 10 user accounts with Limit Access Function. Prevent confidential documents from being accessed by unauthorised personnel by setting a PIN with Secured PIN Release.  Leakage of confidential documents can be prevented by using the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Address Book to send to a correct email address.
• Print job management – Print Job Arranger Lite allows users to merge multiple print jobs and change print settings such as double-sided printing, orientation, colour mode and multi-page layout up to 4-up. Print Job Interruption allows users to interrupt the print queue when there is an urgent print job. Interrupted jobs can be paused and resumed later. It also allows print jobs to be cancelled straight from the control panel even when the printer is in the process of printing. In addition, with Page Recovery, downtime is reduced as the printer will automatically restart itself when a printer error is rectified.

© Technuter.com News Service