inkjet printers

I purchased my Epson C84 in September 2003. I was pleasantly surprised by the print quality - particularly the hi-res glossy photo paper color prints which truly were excellent! When it came time to replace the ink cartridges in December 2003 - three color and the single black - I went with generic (after-market cartridges) rather than Epson cartridges. Alas, now in January, I've started experiencing an apparently irreversible print-quality and page-coverage degradation; both color and black. I say 'apparently irreversible' because repeated print-head cleanings and alignments have made no impact on the print quality, and the printer essentially is now useless. I even installed the Epson driver on another computer and did some test prints, but could not solve the problem. I can't say for certain that the non-Epson cartridges are the culprit, or even a contributing factor, but the C84 worked perfectly before the generic ink-cartridge replacements. Fortunately, I kept my old, reliable Epson Stylus Color 980 which, after three years (including ALL-GENERIC ink cartridges!), still does a credible job. Bottom line: the Epson C84 is an excellent buy for the money; but, just to be on the safe side, stick with the recommended Epson-brand ink cartridges.

Epson C84 comes with a high capacity (900 pages @ 5% coverage, but about 500 pages in real life) black ink and 3 color ink tanks but no printer cable. The size is compact, it looks cool, has good build quality and installation was quick.

The print quality for text is very good for an inkjet (slightly better than Canon i320) and speed is pretty fast 5-6 pages per min (faster than i320). Both the photos printed on the supplied paper sample were annoying skewed (even after we made sure paper was put in properly). The quality didn't look impressive for photos.

Printer and cartridges have smart chips in them (as do new hp's). This will ensure that you can't put in generic ink but pay Epson each time ink runs out. Also there are reports that the printer declares ink over well before it really is. To make things worse Epson seems to use different cartridge models for almost every printer it makes (Canon & hp use same cartidges in many printers).

One good thing about C84 is that its very silent, even while printing. I guess this is about as silent as you will get with printers. Also the text prints look better than on hp, significantly clearer & blacker.

In short, if you want a text only printer get a Samsung (ML-1710) or Minolta (PagePro 1250W) laser printer for similar price. For good photo printers look at the Canon line up or even better get prints at local stores. Epson C84 is recommended for medium text printing & occasional photo printing.

The quality of the print is not a problem; it's good. But it's not good enough to neutralize the expense and frustration caused by the requirement to replace ALL of the ink cartridges every time one runs out.

When the cyan ink ran out, I tried to print in black only. It would not.

I replaced the cyan ink, and it still would not print. It indicated it needed black. Back to the store, and I bought a whole set this time. After replacing black, it called for the other two. Finally, after replacing all, it printed again--in black only or in color. The ink was Epson ink. Epson Help just figured they all ran out together. Even the first time, I knew they wouldn't all run out, by coincidence, at exactly the same time.

This has happened twice more now, and I am replacing the printer. It will be cheaper. I will not want to risk another Epson product, although I liked them a lot years ago.