Epson 220 magenta · standard

The Epson 220 magenta is the standard yield magenta for three Epson all in ones: the Expression Home XP-420 from 2015 and the WorkForce WF-2750 and WF-2760 from 2016. Each colour sits in its own cartridge on these machines, so magenta is bought and replaced on its own.

Whether the XL is worth it depends on which colour you are buying, which is unusual. The 220 magenta is rated at about 165 pages and lists near $11, about 6.67 cents a page, while the 220XL magenta prints about 450 pages for around $20, about 4.44 cents. That is a third off. The black barely moves: about 7.43 cents for the standard 220 at 175 pages and $13, against about 6.00 cents for the 220XL at 500 pages and $30. The XL is worth paying for on the colours and close to pointless on the black.

None of the three is firmware locked, so compatible and remanufactured 220 cartridges are fine here. Epson will show a non-genuine ink message the first time one goes in, and it can be dismissed. What tends to stop working properly is the ink level reading, so once you are off Epson cartridges treat the on screen gauge as a guess and keep a spare of whichever colour you use most.

Magenta that has faded or vanished is not always a magenta that has run out. These printers keep the print head permanently in the machine, and a colour that has not been asked for in a month or two dries in its channel while the cartridge is still half full. Print the nozzle check pattern and look at the magenta block. Gaps or a missing block point at a clog, which one cleaning cycle usually clears. An even but pale block is the cartridge genuinely running down.