Holiday Gift Guide: Epson All-In-One Printers {Artisan 837 Review & Artisan 730 Giveaway}

{This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations, kathyluman!}

If you had asked me five years ago to talk about what a printer does, I would have started with the obvious (print black ink on a piece of paper) and ended up not too far from there (colored ink on paper, maybe? Probably with a graph or chart thrown in).

Anything more than that either wouldn't have crossed my mind or certainly wouldn't have been something that I would have remotely considered as a feature that a printer at home could accomplish. Print pictures? Those have to be sent online or brought in to the store. Use a scanner or send a fax? Those require a trip to the copy store.

All that is a thing of the past, of course, as Epson makes it possible to take care of all of your printing needs right from your desk thanks to the Epson Artisan 837 All-in-One Printer.

A leader in printing innovation, Epson America and their line of Artisan All-in-One printers are perfect for the personal, photo, and creative projects in our lives. With great print quality, fast photo printing times, and an innovative feature to fit every aspect, there is an Epson printer to meet all of your needs.

When it came to the Artisan 837, as soon as I had it out of the box I knew it was going to be exactly what I needed for all of my home as well as business (i.e. blog) needs. This 5-in-1 with Wi-Fi also has the ability to print, copy, scan, and fax - if Epson could have just programmed it to make pancakes as well, my whole family would be set!

Measuring 18.3" x 18.0" x 7.8", the Epson Artisan 837 is larger than a standard printer - but that makes sense, considering it does the job of five different machines! Right away I liked the sleek, modern midnight blue design and the contemporary look that this has and the fact that whether it was to sit in a home office or just right out on a shelf, it wouldn't detract from the decor.

After checking out the various items that came with the Artisan 837...

...I turned to the clear, easy to follow instructions and start-up guide to get things going. Everything from preparing and inserting the ink cartridges (individual colors so that you only have to replace the one that you need!) to using the touchscreen for the setup of the printer (date, time, etc) was simple and straightforward.

The main reason that it was so easy to get the Artisan 837 ready was the innovative smart 7.8" touch panel and 3.5" LCD, the combination of which makes it pretty much fool-proof to choose the setting you want and get the results you're looking for.

By simply lightly pulling on the screen, you can adjust it to the angle that works best for you and makes it possible for anyone (no matter if you are knowledgeable about gadgets or not) to use all of the features of this printer with a few taps of their finger.

Right underneath the screen, the flip-down door makes it easy to access the paper tray, memory card slot, and more.

Getting my paper loaded took only a minute, as the double-layer tray is well-labeled and designed to hold multiple types and sizes of paper at once. Stocking up on photo paper as well as traditional 8.5 x 11" was easy to do... and then it was time to start printing!

When it comes to printing photos, it is hard to believe that Epson has made it possible to have lab quality results that won't smudge, scratch or fade right at home... but they have!

But not only does the 837 print beautiful images in seconds, it gives you so many options as to what you'd like to do with them. View, edit (things like photo correction and red-eye removal as well as crop, rotate, etc) restore faded photos, print CDs, DVDs, photo IDs, personalized notepaper using a picture, photo greeting cards... the list goes on and on!

We've tried a few of the various projects and our favorites have easily been the high quality photos and the coloring pages. Both are so simple to do, yet the results are great! I can easily pop my camera's memory card right into the front...

...and I hardly have time to blink before the bright colors and brilliant hi-definition quality of the photos appear. And not just do they appear, they appear in seconds.

No longer do you have to sit and wait while an at-home photo printer chugs away at creating your image, the Epson Artisan 837 has some of the world's quickest 4 x 6" photo print speeds - spitting them out in as fast as 10 seconds!

I love that the photos really are dry to the touch when they are done being printed and I no longer have to worry about picking them up or needing to let them sit aside for an extended period of time. With printing this quick and easy, I can have a photo pulled up and printed out in no time!

But, as much as my daughters adore seeing the actual photographs of themselves, they were especially amazed when we were able to take a picture and, with a tap or two of the buttons...

...turn it right into a custom coloring sheet that would obviously not be found in any store-bought book.

The pages aren't extremely detailed, but they're still very cool! Even though they both typically enjoy any sort of coloring, they have never once gotten tired of coloring in a picture of themselves, their family, their friends, places we've been, and much more!

As well as all of the great features that the Epson Artisan 837 includes that have been convenient for my family, having an easily accessible scanner, copier, and fax at home is something that I have been thrilled about for myself. I often have to sign and send documents online, so not having to worry about sending something with my husband to work or getting the kids and I to a store or business that offers it has been a huge relief.

Even though I don't consider myself 100% technologically-savvy, once I had Epson's software installed on my laptop, I loved being able to use the intuitive controls and that great touch panel to get things done whenever I needed them. Just flip up the top (or use the automatic document feeder), make my selection, and done!

Overall, the Artisan 837 has proven itself to be an excellent choice for taking care of just about anything that I could have asked for. The fact that it has made it possible to print, scan, copy, fax, and print photos so quickly and easily is amazing and, due to the Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking capabilities, I can use this machine from any room of the house without problem.

Plus, due to this new All-in-One also coming equipped with Epson Connect, this portfolio of cloud and mobile services enables mobile users to print documents and photos directly to their Epson printers from a mobile device, so just pull out your phone or iPad and hit print!

No more hooking up cables and looking for power cords, Epson has taken an entire office worth of machines and gadgets and condensed them into this one convenient package. Retailing for $299.99 (or less on Amazon), the Artisan 837 All-in-One Printer would make an amazing holiday gift and will have your lucky recipient ready to do standard, traditional printing all the way up to creative, one-of-a-kind projects in no time.

But the Artisan 837 is far from being Epson's only great gift idea this year! Their large collection of printers, projectors, scanners, accessories and more would be perfect for quite a few people on your list. And, thanks to their generosity, one person will be able to fulfill one gift item this year, because...

One lucky person will win an Epson Artisan 730
All-in-One Printer (ARV $199.99)!

To enter to win: Visit Epson and tell me another of their high quality products that you would like to own.

Extra Entries (available after the mandatory entry above is completed; please leave a separate comment for each entry in order for them to be counted).

1 Extra Entry if you enter the Epson giveaway at A Nut in a Nutshell!
1 Extra Entry (per method) if you follow Epson on Twitter and/or Like them on Facebook.
1 Extra Entry (per giveaway entered) - Enter any (or all) of the giveaways running on Thanks, Mail Carrier for the duration of this giveaway.
1 Extra Entry if you follow me on Twitter and tweet about this giveaway by copying and pasting the tweet below and leaving me the link. Tweet daily for an extra entry every day!

WIN an Epson Artisan 730 All-in-One Printer (ARV $200)! Print, copy, scan, fax & more! http://bit.ly/vmY28B @thxmailcarrier #giveaway #win

1 Extra Entry (per follow method) if you follow me with Google Friend Connect, subscribe to my RSS feed, subscribe to Thanks, Mail Carrier by email, become a fan on Facebook or add Thanks, Mail Carrier to your blogroll.
2 Extra Entries if you put my cute button up on your blog. Please leave an address where it can be found.
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Giveaway will end on December 8th at 11:59pm CST. By entering this sweepstakes, you are agreeing to these official rules. No purchase necessary, void where prohibited by law. Do me the favor of leaving an email address or making absolutely sure it is visible in your profile, I have to have a way to contact the winner. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to contact me or respond to notification or a new winner will be chosen. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. This giveaway is open to residents of the U.S. only and must be 18 years of age or older.

A big thank you to Epson for providing an Epson Artisan 837 for me for review as well as an Epson Artisan 730 for one lucky giveaway winner. The opinions shared are my own and honest and if you really need to see more, click here to see how I roll.