Epson Expression Photo XP 960 printer review

Our Epson XP 960 printer review

Over the past few years, we’ve just about managed to get by without a printer at home. It hasn’t been the simplest way of doing things – with me emailing Sam documents I needed for him to print out at work, and more often than not him forgetting to bring them back home.

And now that Arlo is in school, every other week there is some homework request that would be ten times easier if we had a printer – “Bring in a photo of yourself as a baby!…by the way we need this tomorrow”.

There have been many times recently when Sam and I have admitted to each other that maybe it was about time to stop doing things the hard way and actually get a printer. So, you can imagine that I was pretty eager to be asked to test out the Epson Expression Photo XP 960.

Right from the installation process, we were impressed with the Epson XP 960. I have many not-so-fond memories of spending hours wrangling new gadgets, trying to get them to successfully connect to my computer. But the Epson XP 960 was about as plug and play as it gets. Within minutes of unboxing, we were holding in our hands a printed photo that we’d taken a minute ago with my phone and sent to the printer.

Connectivity

The Epson phone app is really useful, you can access photos and documents straight from your phone and send them to the printer. You can also scan items directly in the Epson app and send those to print. But the Epson XP 960 also works with Google Drive, iCloud and Dropbox – whatever your preferred file storage method, you can send items to your printer within a couple of clicks.

As the Epson XP 960 connects wirelessly, it doesn’t have to live near your computer. You can place it anywhere in your house. This works really well with our family life – our ‘office’ is also a storage room and a part-time bedroom for our baby boy. That room is frequently shuffled around and things often need to be temporarily displaced. So, I really like that I can move our Epson XP 960 from room to room whenever we need to. We have done this a fair bit already and it hasn’t had any trouble re-connecting to our wifi network when plugged back in.

The Epson XP 960 has the capability to print in A3 as well as A4 – a really nice bonus for the times when you need an A3 print (or multiple smaller prints on an A3 sheet). The Epson XP 960 also has a scanner and copier function, and does everything you would need in a home office situation.

Photo printing with the Epson XP 960

Since moving to our new house, I have been meaning to get some photos and artwork printed for our desperately bare walls. Now that we have the Epson XP 960, this task has become a whole lot easier. I’ve already printed a couple of my favourite photos from recent months.

We have been using the A3 Epson glossy photo paper, and have been really impressed with the quality. It’s as good as if I’d used a photo printing website, as I’ve frequently done in the past. I take so many photos, but rarely print them, they just stay on my hard drive. Now, I no longer have an excuse, and I’ve been reminded of the simple pleasure of holding a physical photo memory in my hands.

Sam also made a good point that a lot of artwork and poster sites these days sell the digital files of their prints at a discounted price compared to buying an actual print. Now that we have the Epson XP 960, we have the option to print our own A3 sized artwork at home.

If you need an office printer and scanner that can also print high quality photos in up to A3 size, the Epson Expression Photo XP 960 is a great option.

Our Epson XP 960 was provided for the purpose of this review.