On Tuesday, printer giant Epson announced its new “EcoTank” models, starting at $400. Rather than forcing customers to buy highly profitable ink cartridges over and over again, this new offering comes with an ink reserve tank.

https://twitter.com/EpsonAmerica/status/628611399606898688

The new business model is to simply charge more for the printer up front, which comes with two years worth of ink. If you run out, Epson offers a set of replacements for $52.

As the Wall Street Journal calculated, spending for the same volume of XL cartridges would cost “more than 10 times as much.”

The newspaper continued:

I asked John Lang, president and CEO of Epson America, why his company was the only one that could do this. After all, it seems like an obvious strategy. The answer, he said, has to do with hardware: Epson’s advantage is its permanent mechanical print heads, as opposed to the disposable thermal ones used by its chief competitors. Because Epson’s print heads are always connected to the printer, ink can be piped to them from anywhere—a cartridge or a tank on the side of the printer. More important, because they’re mechanical and not thermal, they can operate for years without requiring replacement and are less likely to clog.

However forward-thinking Epson may be, these fancy new printers still don’t come with a USB cable.