"Don't buy ink jet printers from Epson"

[MacFan25]

Last night on The Screen Savers, a guy called in asking if ink cartridges really are empty when they say they are empty. Leo got all worked up, because of it. I guess he doesn't want to get screwed out of some ink either. Pretty funny.

I thought it was ironic that someone called in about it when I had just read this thread.

 

[Groovsonic]

I MUST AGREE...

When we got our Epson 820 when we bought out FP iMac, It was on one of those "free with rebate" deals, so we figured, How could we not buy it? Well, I wish we hadn't.
This thing has been almost nothing but trouble since the day we got it. Sure, it prints photos out nicely on the shiny paper, but, it wont feed paper properly, so when you have 20 sheets in the tray, it tries to pull them all down, and they get stuck inside the printer. It goes through ink like crazy. We don't print very much at all, but this thing is rediculous.

I am (probably) getting an iBook for college, and I was in wal-mart a few days ago, and I saw this HP PSC1210 sitting there, and it looks like it was designed to sit next to a consumer mac. It is a printer/scanned/copier thing, but it looks like it is actually smaller than our epson. It was only $99. I think I'll get it.

Has anyone here tried this printer? Any thoughts/warnings?

 

[Wardofsky]

Well Epson do have some good printers and ink consumption is large and putting in chips to cut down print outs seems a bit dodgy.

Oh well.

 

[morlium]

i have the Epson Stylus Photo 2200, which I mainly use for final proofing at a small publishing company, and I would recommend it to anyone.

 

[dynamicd]

I have the Epson 820 and also got it free with my imac last year. It has troubles loading paper and leaves streaks of ink when it prints. I've tried all the printint utilites and still have no luck with it. I guess I can't complain too much since it was free.

 

[rainman::|:|]

i bloody hate epson printers. when my 740i finally kicked the bucket, i got a $50 HP Deskjet 3320, and the damn thing is twice the printer the epson was, for less than half the original price.

HP has never let me down before. Epson has done nothing but. Screw ink levels...

pnw

 

[mactastic]

I got a C82 when I bought my powerbook in November, it prints great, but I do sorta wonder about ink consumption. Seems to go through cartridges faster than I would like, but then again, I do print photos occasionally. I'm waiting till my dad does a bunch of his professional photography prints on the epson Stylus Photo 2200 to see how much ink that uses. It will be all large-area coverage at the highest quality settings, so I am very interested to see how much he spends on ink. Quality-wise, I have no complaints so I'm not too upset about ink costs. Would be nice to get a cheap-o laser printer for all the text stuff though...

 

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I've had 2 Epson printers, one from 8 years ago, and one from last year. They both suc|<ed arse. They were both loud, slow(I timed last years model at one page in 70 secs), full of problems, and would run out of color ink every three months even when I didn't use color ink more than once a month. I bought a Lexmark this year. It's fast, quiet, and cuts off the edges of all my text. Only HP seems to be able to make good printers.

 

[scem0]

Originally posted by wdlove
I'm shocked by that price scem0. The last laser printer price I saw was for $999. What kind of output do you get for $130?

grrrrrrrrrreat text output.

****ty picture output.

That's good for me because i never print pics.

scem0

 

[Zero]

Don't support Epson ever again.

Epson printer technology has not improved since I last bought Epson Stylus in 1995. The printhead keeps clogging every now and then. The only difference I can see with their current printers is in speed. Otherwise it is the same old technology and hack with some serious disadvantages for the user.

Apart from the unethical use of a microchip on the catridge to lock up the printer when one of the 2 catridges run out, there is also another equally serious problem with them.

Epson printers guzzles up the ink like anything. Everytime you switch an Epson printer on, it cleans the printhead. Do you hear the sound of money going the drain. That's exactly the sound of printhead cleaning.

I bought this C61 few months back and had to get rid of it because it finished off the whole tank of color ink just by head cleaning. And you know how expensive that is. I only printed a few small graphics measuring 1 X 1 inches and all the ink ran out.

You can see on the software the ink level sinking everytime you switch on the printer even though you use only black ink. My calculation tells me that such small color graphic costs me around US$10 each. But really it was not the printing of color graphics. It's the printhead cleaning that did the dirty job for Epson.

Therefore if you are facing the same ink-guzzling problem, try not to switch off the printer because everytime you on it, it will happily at the expense of your misery go through the motion of printhead cleaning. Not switching will reduce printhead cleaning but not entirely because the bloody Epson technology is so backward it has to keep on cleaning the printhead every now and then even when nothing is amiss.

Not satisfied with this robbery by Epson, I called up their service center and was told that IF my printer uses more than 70% of ink for head cleaning it is not normal, so please send it in for repair.

I put down the phone and then suddenly it hit me: What up to 70% of ink usage just for printhead cleaning is NORMAL !

I quickly got rid of the Epson printer and settled for a new laser printer. I can live without color.

Don't buy Epson printers unless you want a hole in your pocket and becoming a frustrated user with clogged printheads every now and then.

Inkjet printers like that have less than 3 years to survive in the market because laser printers prices are dipping like anything and soon their color ones will be close to those of inkjet printers.

Let these inkjet manufacturers die, they deserve to because they are commercial robbers of the hard earned money of users.

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[big]

Epson bites the big one, none of their products are ment to last longer than say 3 years.

they are cheap throw away products. After my 2nd Epson, I broke down and spent $600 on a canon that I am very very very pleased with

(and happy not to have another epson)

 

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by King Cobra
Ink cartridge prices also depend on which model printer (of one particular company) you have.

Epson 740i ink catridges can cost $20.

Down at the bottom of this page lists Epson 880 ink cartridges for about $8 to $12.

Different companies also like to charge more...

I looked at what was available for the SC900 and the prices were a couple of dollars off what the office supply stores charge. I even saw some claiming to be brand new Epson cartridges for $2.99 and $4.99 which is $30 off each.

In the meantime, I got an Epson CX5200 all-in-one and found that it's about as economical as the SC900 (3 picolitre vs 2 picolitre for the SC900) but the ink is longer-lasting and costs less. Of course, the enhanced resolution 1440x5760 vs. 720x1440 is sure to use more ink.

 

[andrewh]

Canon i9100

Someone in here was commenting about the Canon i9100. I picked mine up a couple of weeks ago. It does 13"x19" Borderless photos at 4800x1200. The printer is excellent.

I also like Epson printers. But one thing that frustrated me was that they can't seem to create a driver for OSX that can print to the edges. Even with the most expensive model (for consumers), the Stylus 2200 you can't use all the features like the paper roll and borderless printing. Epson blames OSX but Canon figured out how to do it. Maybe Apple fixed something in 10.2, but even so it has been out for a long time. No excuse Epson!

I'm very happy with this Canon. Highly recommended. Not cheap at $500 though.

 

[Gus]

Originally posted by big
Epson bites the big one, none of their products are ment to last longer than say 3 years.

they are cheap throw away products. After my 2nd Epson, I broke down and spent $600 on a canon that I am very very very pleased with

(and happy not to have another epson)

I owned an Epson 740 that worked like a horse for 5 years. The only reason I sold it was because the wife wanted something that would print borderless photos. It still worked when I sold it.

Regards,
Gus

P.S. I bought another Epson, by the way, and I love it. No problems in OS X, and the ink lasts forever in it. I really don't know about the problems everyone is reporting. Sorry yours isn't as nice of an experience.

 

[MrMacMan]

Omg... I've had such a damn problem with my Epson Printers...

So much damn problems that I gave them my number at Mac World Expo This year and they have

REFUSED to call me back.

I AM SO ANGRY that I JUST REMEMBERED they were suppose to CALL ME BACK!



ARRRGGGG.

 

[andrewh]

Originally posted by Gus
I owned an Epson 740 that worked like a horse for 5 years. The only reason I sold it was because the wife wanted something that would print borderless photos. It still worked when I sold it.

Regards,
Gus

P.S. I bought another Epson, by the way, and I love it. No problems in OS X, and the ink lasts forever in it. I really don't know about the problems everyone is reporting. Sorry yours isn't as nice of an experience.

Your new epson will print to the edges in OSX? Cool. They must have released new drivers. I must be mistaken, as I thought I read on their driver download page that it was still an issue for the 2200. Anyway my Photo 820 is a fantastic little printer for $99. I just needed large format.

 

[mymemory]

Ok, I got a new epson C60, it ran out of ink a month later just after printing about 30 pages.

We went to a refill place to insert new ink, the guy told us the cartiges still heavy, he reset the chip and vuala! my girlfriedn just printed 120 pages for her tesis and there still ink inside.

This are not rumors, this is true, the chips are programed to send false signals of the ink level.

 

[bousozoku]

Re: Canon i9100

Originally posted by andrewh
Someone in here was commenting about the Canon i9100. I picked mine up a couple of weeks ago. It does 13"x19" Borderless photos at 4800x1200. The printer is excellent.

I also like Epson printers. But one thing that frustrated me was that they can't seem to create a driver for OSX that can print to the edges. Even with the most expensive model (for consumers), the Stylus 2200 you can't use all the features like the paper roll and borderless printing. Epson blames OSX but Canon figured out how to do it. Maybe Apple fixed something in 10.2, but even so it has been out for a long time. No excuse Epson!

I'm very happy with this Canon. Highly recommended. Not cheap at $500 though.

I'm the one who likes the i9100 but hasn't come up with the money. I should have bought the Epson SC1200 years ago when I had the money for a tabloid printer.

By the way, I don't think that Epson are completely responsible for what seem to be drivers failures running with 10.2. My SC900 didn't print from 10.2 until 10.2.4 and still had the same driver that I used before 10.2 arrived. Epson have had lots of problems with the 2200 though.

 

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by mymemory
Ok, I got a new epson C60, it ran out of ink a month later just after printing about 30 pages.

We went to a refill place to insert new ink, the guy told us the cartiges still heavy, he reset the chip and vuala! my girlfriedn just printed 120 pages for her tesis and there still ink inside.

This are not rumors, this is true, the chips are programed to send false signals of the ink level.

You got the 'inside' scoop, How can you reset the chip?

Did you see the procedure? Is it easy?

:hopes for the best:

 

[andrewh]

Re: Re: Canon i9100

Originally posted by bousozoku
I'm the one who likes the i9100 but hasn't come up with the money. I should have bought the Epson SC1200 years ago when I had the money for a tabloid printer.

By the way, I don't think that Epson are completely responsible for what seem to be drivers failures running with 10.2. My SC900 didn't print from 10.2 until 10.2.4 and still had the same driver that I used before 10.2 arrived. Epson have had lots of problems with the 2200 though.

Yes, it seems Epson did get the drivers out fully featured for OSX. I'll cut them some slack. Probably was OS limitations then.

I just downloaded the one for my Photo 820. I have both printers hooked up since I have so much Epson paper to use up. Epson make such great printers, I thought I was taking a bit of a gamble getting the Canon i9100 but I'm sooo happy with it.

Anyway I'm not sure what to think about this ink cartridge controversy. I'm skeptical but if it's true I hope Canon isn't up to the same tricks!

 

[Gus]

I know everyone says not to do it, but I order my ink form http://www.ink4art.com, and I never have a problem with "heavy cartidges". I've also never had a problem with the catridges themselves working in my Epson printers. That said, my mother ruined her Stylus 820 Silver with after-market cartidges, although I'm still not convinced she ordered the right ones. Anyway, she called Epson, they scolded her for buying those cartridges, and then sent her out a new printer. Not too shabby.

Regards,
Gus

 

[ihateepson]

i hate epson

i hate epson so much i hired a web developer to build a site dedicated to all epson haters. i have a 2200 that i almost went postal trying to get to work. also spent 200 with the factory to unclog it.

feel free to bash a way on my site. i need haters.

*how much time can a person waste with a printer? buy an epson and find out

ihateepson dot us

epson aready parked ihateepson dot com and net... wonder why

 

[bousozoku]

I think resurrecting a 2 year old thread is probably not the best of ideas, so I'll give this a close.