Printers are strange creatures.
Most of the time, they sit in a corner, quietly printing documents, making copies, or digitizing your repository. Like your trusty Corolla, you fire up its engines every single day, and it takes you wherever you need to go. It’s one of the many cogs that keep your home business turning. Your employees need it. Your kids need it. You need it.
Until that Tuesday morning when the fresh, crisp print-outs stop coming.
Maybe it’s a contract that needs to be signed and submitted before a deadline. Maybe it’s your thesis paper, due in less than twelve hours. Maybe your child hands you a last-minute homework assignment that *must* be printed before class.
Or maybe, just maybe, you want to print out a meme because some things deserve to be appreciated in hard copy.
So, you hit print. You step away for coffee, fully expecting to return to a crisp, freshly printed document.
But instead, you return to find … nothing.
Weird. You’re pretty sure you hit the button. You check the queue: “printing.” But nothing is happening. Did it run out of ink? Is there a paper jam? Has the printer simply decided that today is the day it will no longer function?
You turn it off and on again.
Five hours later, after checking every setting, reinstalling drivers, and muttering a few words you wouldn’t want your child to hear, you decide: it’s time for a new printer.
A real one. One that prints when you ask it to print.
A printer-scanner-copier as reliable as a trusty old car: something that just works. No surprises, no breakdowns, and no hidden costs.
Armed with a list of must-haves: affordable ink, wireless connectivity, and an ADF (automatic document feeder) that supports standard paper sizes from short to legal – you walk into the nearest Cyberzone.
And then, sitting among a sea of overpriced, overcomplicated printers, you spot the Epson EcoTank L5290.
Setup: Plug, play, print – Driver’s License optional
Straight out of the box, the Epson EcoTank L5290 feels different. It’s compact enough to fit in a small home office, measuring 375 x 347 x 237 mm and weighing just 5 kg. That’s seriously compact for a printer-scanner-copier with ADF. But don’t let the size fool you – this thing means business.
It’s the Toyota Corolla of printers: efficient, practical, and built to last.
Setup? Surprisingly smooth. No frustrating software installations, no complicated menus: just plug, connect, and print.
The built-in Wi-Fi Direct allows you to print from your laptop, phone, or tablet without needing to fumble with network configurations. It also supports Epson iPrint, email printing, and remote printer driver installation, making printing from virtually anywhere a breeze.
And then there’s the ink system.
Fuel Efficiency: The EcoTank Ink System
If you’ve ever experienced the slow, soul-draining realization that your ink cartridge is empty right when you need it most, this part is where things get interesting.
The Epson EcoTank L5290 doesn’t use standard cartridges – instead, it comes with an EcoTank system, featuring large, refillable, economical ink “tanks” (get it?!?). In fact, it can print up to 7,500 color pages and 4,500 black-and-white pages before you need a refill.
That’s the printer equivalent of driving a full year on a full tank of gas.
No more overpriced cartridges. No more emergency ink runs. No more watching your printer stubbornly refuse to function because it insists you’ve run out of cyan, even though you’re only printing in black and white.
It’s built for endurance, like how the Corolla that refuses to quit even after years on the road.
Features: All-around driver for work, school, and fun!
Owning a printer should not feel like a battle. It should quietly do its job, allowing you to focus on yours.
The real test will be when you start using the Epson EcoTank L5290 for everything from work to school to the occasional personal project.
Office work? Effortless. Legal-sized documents, contracts, and reports come out cruising at 40km/h so smooth, you could enjoy a cup of coffee without spilling. The Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) makes scanning multi-page documents effortless. The ADF supports up to 30 sheets of A4 paper or 10 sheets of legal-size paper for bulk scanning and copying.
No more changing pages and aligning them by hand. Automation! You’re in the big leagues now, baby!
School projects? Professional quality. 5760 x 1440 dpi resolution ensures crisp, vibrant prints – good enough to rival professional-grade prints, and among the best that your 10 to 15 thousand peso budget can buy. Your child will definitely get an A when they hand in their assignment tomorrow, especially after they volunteer to print flyers for the upcoming school fair.
Last-minute print jobs? No stress. Printing from your phone through the Epson Smart Panel app is seamless. Cables? What are those? Mobility! You’re in the big leagues now, baby!
Bulk copying? No problem. The L5290 can make up to 99 copies in one go, with reduction and enlargement settings from 25% to 400%. Not a biggie for home users, but in a business or home-office setting where every second counts, the efficiency that it provides delivers immeasurable value to the overall operations.
And unlike your previous printer, there’s no need to turn it off and on again. Uptime!
Value for money: A printer that pays for itself
A few months in, and here’s what stands out.
Ink costs? Practically nonexistent. The refillable system lasts so long that you’ve stopped thinking about ink entirely.
Setup? Effortless. The 1.44-inch color LCD screen makes navigating and operating the printer simple: All of the information that you need is presented to you at a glance. No need to fiddle with that clunky print spooler on your PC.
Reliability? Unmatched. No weird error messages. No mysterious paper jams. No passive-aggressive blinking lights that mean absolutely nothing.
Speed? Faster than expected. The L5290 delivers up to 33 pages per minute in draft mode and up to 10 pages per minute for standard black prints.
It does what a printer should do: it prints.
Beyond printing
The built-in fax function might seem outdated, but many industries (legal, medical, corporate offices) still rely on it. The Epson EcoTank L5290 supports both black-and-white and color faxing at 3 seconds per page, with memory storage for up to 100 pages.
Then there’s scanning functionality, offering an optical resolution of 1200 x 2400 dpi for sharp, detailed scans. The ADF handles bulk scanning effortlessly at 4.5 images per minute in both color and black-and-white.
Power consumption? Energy-efficient. The L5290 runs at just 12W while printing, 4.5W in standby mode, but there’s a sleep mode that operates at only 0.7W. So you can just leave it plugged in without worrying about your electricity bill. Energy savings!
The printer also does well with various paper types and sizes. It supports standard formats like A4, Letter, Legal, and 8.5 x 13-inch paper, but also accommodates photo printing with sizes including 4 x 6 inches, 5 x 7 inches, and 5 x 8 inches. Envelopes? No problem—it can handle #10, DL, and C6 envelope sizes as well. The maximum paper size extends to 215.9 x 1200 mm, allowing for long-format prints if needed.
Should you get the Epson EcoTank L5290?
If you want a printer that won’t let you down, the Epson EcoTank L5290 is the Toyota Corolla of printers: affordable, efficient, and built for the long haul.
It offers unmatched value for business professionals, home office warriors, students, and anyone who’s tired of unreliable, ink-guzzling printers.
No complicated maintenance. No hidden costs. Just reliable, worry-free printing. In the off chance that you do need to send it in for repair, Epson has an expansive, nationwide support network in the Philippines – they have a 25 year-long reputation to uphold, after all.
The Epson EcoTank L5290 is available at authorized retailers nationwide. Visit Epson Philippines Website for pricing, promos, and where to buy. Follow Epson Philippines on social media for updates and promotions.
