Great Prints, Huge Hidden Costs
Written: Dec 11 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent Photo Quality, Pictures are very durable as long as Epson inks are used
Cons: Epson greed: NO printing with low ink, nor with refilled cartridges. Quirky software. Nozzles clog
The Bottom Line: I would avoid this Epson printer based on difficulty of use.
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| vikingdave's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 1280 |
I work with PhotoShop, and am also finishing several degrees at university. Thus I've printed a hundreds of digital pictures with this printer, and perhaps a couple thousand pages of reports. Although this printer outputs excellent quality photos and good quality text, it has been very frustrating time and time again.
For example, I was finishing a critical term paper and had to leave for class pronto. I had printed another document a few minutes earlier with no problems, then before dashing out the door, I went to print my paper, and -SURPRISE!- Epson software tells me that my ink is getting low SO I CAN'T PRINT ANYTHING TIL I REPLACE THE CARTRIDGE! To be clear, the printer still had enough ink to print with, as I had just printed another document with no streaking or fading evident. No other printer of several I've owned has been so user unfriendly. Epson greed to get you to spend on consumables.
Further, if only the COLOR ink tanks are low and you just want to print a BLACK text document, SURPRISE! it won't let you print until you replace the color cartridges (even with a full black cartridge.) Epson greed to get you to spend on consumables.
I use only Epson inks for their supposed durability. However, if you are tight on cash and want to refill the tanks, Epson has put a 'special' chip in the cartridge to disable printing from the cartridge once the ink is used up. Chip resetters are available, but Epson has rearranged the chip to disallow older chip resetters from working. Epson DEMANDS your money as an income stream after you purchase this printer.
If the printer is not used for a week or two, the nozzles likely will have to be cleaned several times, via a software process. This is another frustration when you are in a hurry and just want to get something printed quickly. Instead, you find yourself for 10 minutes futzing with the printer, again and again. I finally bought a cheap inkjet as a second printer just to be able to print documents in a hurry because the Epson has stalled so many inconvenient times.
My next printer will not be an Epson: print quality is excellent, but the costs in time and aggravation are too high. Other companies' printers have caught up to Epson in print quality nowdays, and I understand they are more user friendly.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
vikingdave
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Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 0 members
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