166
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #202,408 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★☆☆☆
Beautiful prints, when it's not clogged
This machine is just a hairs breadth from spectacular. The prints are beautiful, they come out fast, and the built in cd printer is a huge improvement over the old removable trays. Now, I've owned epsons for many years, of all different types going back to the MX-80.
If you buy this, you'd better have a deep wallet. At first, the 6 cartridges seems like a good idea. What isn't clear from the beginning is that the charging cycle is ink-wide - all 6 carts are initialized when you replace a cartridge, draining what appears to be about 7-10% of each cartridge in the process. If you replace one cart that is dead, with others that are less than 10-15%, you'll find that all the "low" cartridges are "out" after the charging cycle!
But it gets better. To try and keep the heads clear and clean, the machine runs a fairly extensive cleaning/purging cycle when it turns on or comes out of sleep. I've had as few as 6-7 printing sessions of just 2-3 sheets per session on a full size cartridge set (all 6 - about $80 of ink). I don't print very often at home - maybe once every ten days. That means it's always running a (2-3 minute long) start up purge for each print session. After I got my first actual banding (which requires an ink-sucking cleaning cycle or three), I switched to a continuous inking system. The ink-drain has been confirmed, but at least now I'm paying a dime per cleaning cycle instead of a couple dollars and there's no new-cartridge-cycle losses.
I think these machines just aren't meant to sit unused. If you don't print multiple times a day, most of your ink will be spent in cleaning. If you do print multiple times a day, you'll get beautiful prints - but you'll go through a lot of ink. Either way, plan on buying a full set of carts every month.
October 2009 · Office Products