I’ve been testing wireless printing from various Android phones to an Epson ET-M1120 (mono ink tank printer) for the last few weeks and have mostly been very impressed.
What I found worked best was printing PDF files via the Epson iPrint app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=epson.print&hl=en
If the source document wasn’t a PDF, I printed it to a PDF file first.
Depending on whether the PDF file I wanted to print was an email attachment, saved to my phone etc I used the applications “Send to”, “Open With” or “Share” menu option to send it to the Epson iPrint app. It’s also possible to open a PDF file directly from the iPrint app, but I found it’s user interface for finding files was not the best.
Once the printer settings had been adjusted, I pressed Print in the app and over 90% of the time the printer hummed into action and spitted out the printout.
My testing with the Epson ET-M1120 showed that while wireless printing from an Android phone has improved a lot in reliability, it’s still not as reliable as printing from a computer connected to a printer via cable.
When it does work it’s marvellous but when it doesn’t attempting to troubleshoot the cause of the problem can be tricky since a Wi-Fi network, Android device and Android app are involved.
As a former IT and printer tech support officer I know that most people don’t like printers to start with so they get frustrated easily with them.
My view is that setting up your home or office with only wireless printing would definitely result in user unhappiness.
It’s better to approach wireless printing from Android as a value add feature that “mostly” works, as long as you have the fallback option of printing via computer ready to use quickly instead.
What has your experience been of wireless printing from your Android phone or tablet?
Please share it with us as a comment.
