I have never used the Epson, but we have 3 1050s. One of the really nice things about the 1050 is the ink resevoirs. We dont have to change ink that often with the big containers. Do you use alot of ink? I would compare the replacement costs for ink containers. The HP recommends changing the print heads every other ink change. We typically do it every 3-4, so I dont know if its really required.