Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4740 - Review 2022

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4740 ($299.99) is a more robust version of the Editors' Choice WF-4720, a business-centric inkjet all-in-one (AIO) printer. For the difference in price (virtually $100), you get twice the paper input capacity, a larger automatic certificate feeder (ADF) that supports 2-sided scanning, and a bigger color impact screen. Like its less-expensive sibling, it prints well and quickly, and comes with a wide range of connectivity options.

The WF-4740 is more expensive than our current Editors' Choice, the Canon Maxify MB2720 Wireless Home Office All-in-1 Printer, but information technology'due south faster, prints a little better, and comes with several additional useful features, making it our new kickoff choice for low-to-moderate print book in a small workgroup or micro office.

Lean and Hateful

At 13 by 16.7 by 19.8 inches (HWD) and 26 pounds, the WF-4740 is significantly taller and longer from front to back than the WF-4720 and weighs near 6 pounds more than the WF-4720. Information technology should withal fit comfortably on about large desktops. It'due south also close in size and weight to the Canon MB2720 and its more expensive sibling, the MB5420, merely much smaller and lighter than the HP OfficeJet Pro 7740, a comparably priced and rated AIO that prints, scans, and faxes tabloid-size (11 by 17 inches) pages.

The WF-4720's paper capacity is 500 sheets, separate between ii cassettes, the same as the other machines mentioned hither, except the WF-4720, which comes with just 1 250-sail drawer. In improver, the WF-4740's maximum monthly duty wheel is 30,000 pages (with a recommended monthly volume of 1,500 pages), which is on par with almost of its competition.

Y'all configure the WF-4740, print from or scan to the cloud or a USB thumb drive (the port is located on the left-front side of the chassis, below a protective cover), and perform other walkup tasks, such every bit making copies and sending faxes, from a 4.three-inch color affect screen. Bated from the Power push button, that screen comprises the unabridged control panel.

All Connection Options Covered

Connectivity features consist of Wi-Fi, Ethernet, connecting to a single PC via USB, Wi-Fi Directly, and NFC (virtually-field advice). Those last ii are peer-to-peer connections that allow you to access the printer without either it or your mobile device being part of a network. Neither the Canon MB2720 nor the MB5420 support either Wi-Fi Straight or NFC, and the HP 7740 supports only Wi-Fi Straight. The smaller WorkForce AIO, the WF-4720, supports both.

Other mobile connectivity features include: Android printing, Apple tree AirPrint, Epson Email Print, Creative Impress App, Epson iPrint, Epson Remote Print, Burn OS press, Google Deject Print, Mopria, and Scan to Cloud.

Powered to Perform

The WF-4740 is powered past Epson'southward PrecisionCore 4S printhead, where 4S means that the printhead deploys 4 PrecisionCore ink nozzle chips. A relatively new printhead technology, PrecisionCore—depending on the number of chips on the printhead—is faster than traditional inkjet printheads. In this instance, significantly faster. Epson rates the WF-4740 at 24 pages per infinitesimal (ppm) for monochrome pages and 22ppm for color pages.

When printing our 12-page blackness-text Microsoft Discussion text document, it churned at the rate of 27.3ppm (and a commencement-page-out time of nine seconds), notably faster than Epson'southward rating. It is too considerably faster than the WF-4720's 20ppm, every bit well every bit the Canon MB2720's 20.6ppm, the MB5420'south 20ppm, and the HP 7740's 23.6ppm.

As almost printers practice, when we combined the score from printing the higher up text certificate with the results from printing our more than complex PDFs, Excel, and PowerPoint files containing color, graphics, and photos, the WF-4720's score plunged to 15.1ppm. That's 1ppm faster than its smaller sibling, but also significantly faster (by at least 5ppm) than the other models discussed here.

The WF-4740 printed our test snapshots at an average of 12 seconds each. Here, the WF-4720 outpaced it by four seconds, but the other AIOs discussed in this section were more than 20 seconds slower.

Performance Beyond Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation

Epson's latest slogan, "Performance Beyond Light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation" for WorkForce Pro AIOs, isn't (as we've already seen from how fast the WF-4740 prints) far off. And it'due south also not an exaggeration when describing impress quality. (All the printers discussed here print quite well, with relatively insignificant or hardly noticeable occasional flaws.) As most PrecisionCore printers practice, this one prints well-shaped and highly legible text on par with many of its laser counterparts, making its text output suitable for most business scenarios, except, perchance, for documents containing very small type.

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Graphics quality, too, is also exceptional: Color hairlines (rules 1 bespeak and under) come up out fifty-fifty and unbroken; dark fills are solid, with no show of banding; and gradients, fifty-fifty the darker ones, flow smoothly with no noticeable stepping from i color to the side by side. Nosotros did run across some very minor banding in some of our darker test gradients, only they required scrutiny to find information technology. Colors and tints were authentic and well delineated, likewise.

The WF-4740 also printed photographs well, with good particular, accurate and vibrant colors, and no noticeable graininess. We saw some minor loss of particular in vivid areas, but not plenty to mar the quality of the prototype.

Reasonable Running Costs

The WF-4740's running costs of i.nine cents per black page and 8.ii cents per color page aren't bad, but among the AIOs discussed so far, the HP 7740 has, at 8.one cents, a lower color cost per page, and the Canon MB5420, at 1.v cents per blackness page and seven.1 cents per colour page, are lower all the same.

Since, however, the recommended monthly volume for nearly of these machines is under 2,000 pages, a .04-cent deviation in per-page costs shouldn't pause the bank. If y'all printed about 1,500 pages each month, it would run you nigh $half dozen per month, which doesn't seem similar besides much to pay for the exceptional output quality, faster press, and potent feature-set of the WF-4640.

More for the Coin

With the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4740, you get fast printing, reasonable running costs, a unmarried-pass auto-duplexing ADF, and a wealth of mobile connectivity features. Compared with other AIOs like the Canon MB5420 and the HP 7740, the WF-4740 delivers a wider range of features and functionality for the price. (If you need wide-format printing, scanning, and copying, however, you should consider the HP model.) This makes it an easy pick as our new Editors' Option for low-to-mid-volume AIOs in small or micro offices and workgroups.