Epson WorkForce WF-7310DTW

Is the Epson WorkForce WF-7310DTW worth buying?

Yes, the Epson WorkForce WF-7310DTW is worth buying at £154.19 if you print A3+ documents and never need to scan or copy them. It is the cheapest A3+ printer in its group, and 108 owners rate it 4.0. Buy it for plans, spreadsheets, posters, proofs and price lists, and look elsewhere the moment A3 originals start arriving on paper.

Two paper trays plus a rear feed mean plain A4, A3 stock and thicker media can all stay loaded, so changing paper size is a menu choice rather than a shuffle of the drawer. Automatic double-sided printing runs up to A3, which halves the amount of paper a long report consumes.

How fast does the Epson WorkForce WF-7310DTW print?

It prints at 32 ppm mono, and that figure is the whole case for the machine. Divide the £154.19 price by 32 and it works out at £4.82 per page per minute, the lowest of any A3 printer in this group: a 100-sheet A3 run finishes in about three minutes, against the eight minutes the same job takes at 12 ppm.

Colour is the slower half of the job. Mixed A3 printing runs at 12 ppm, so a 100-sheet colour run takes around eight minutes, which is fine weekly and tiresome daily. The PrecisionCore print head reaches 4800 x 1200 dpi, so small text, thin lines and spreadsheet grids stay crisp on plain paper.

What comes in the box and how much room does it need?

The box contains the printer, individual ink cartridges, a power cord, a quick start guide and the warranty documents, so only paper is needed on day one. It weighs 16.5 kg, which puts it in two-person territory for stairs, and it wants a shelf that does not flex.

Three feeds handle the paper: two trays plus a rear feed for thick or special stock, with up to 250 sheets loaded at once. The 6.1 cm LCD covers printing and setup at the machine, while Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct and the Epson Smart Panel app take care of laptops, PCs, tablets and Android phones.

Where does the Epson WorkForce WF-7310DTW fall short?

It prints and nothing else. There is no scanner and no copier, so a signed A3 contract or a plan that arrives by post has to be photographed, posted on or taken to a copy shop, and an office that generates paperwork should treat that as a real gap rather than an afterthought.

The 6.1 cm screen is small enough that deeper settings are quicker through the Epson Smart Panel app than at the machine, and 16.5 kg means it stays where you first put it. Standard cartridges also empty quickly at 32 ppm, so budget for XL or XXL black, the top yield reaching 2,200 pages.

How does the Epson WorkForce WF-7310DTW compare with the Brother MFC-J5340DW and the Epson WorkForce WF-7840?

The Brother MFC-J5340DW costs £31.71 more at £185.90 and prints A3 at 28 ppm, which is £6.64 per page per minute against the £4.82 of the Epson. Those £31.71 buy scanning, copying and faxing, although only up to A4. Take the Brother when paperwork lands on your desk, and stay with the WF-7310DTW when it never does.

The Epson WorkForce WF-7840 costs £77.71 more at £231.90 and handles A3+ print, scan, copy and fax at the same 32 ppm mono. That is the upgrade for an office that needs wide originals digitised, while the WF-7310DTW remains the better buy for printing alone.