First of all, let me give a little prologue.

Important Email comes in, need to print, go to print on my old (had it for a year and a half) Canon BJC 4000 Printer, whats this? a blank sheet? Check cartidges, check heads, cleaned, changed cartidges, nothing, blank sheets during print process....

I needed a new printer.

I ordered this straight away, I had massive things to print, had nothing to print with, and to hell if I was going to hand print it all down.

It came in a lovely retail box, but we dont really care about that now, do we.

Unpacked, checked to make sure it had everything, the only downside I have in this, is I had to put out the extra $$ for a USB cable, as it did not come with one.

Cleaned off a space on the desk on which I had been working on the New Windows XP Pro box on, the typical technician desk, absoluttely everything and nothing... according to the wife at least ;)

I could wish for a longer power cable, but thats only due to my work area layout. The instructions are very straight forward, the cartidges EASY to insert, much nicer then the BJC 4000 that it replaces. The cartridge size is on the small side, at least from the amount of ink I have used thus far, about 10 pages, used some 5 percent of its capacity. That could also be due in part to the initial phase. When you plug it in, insert these cartridges and turn it on, it takes up to 5 minutes to fill its heads. Now, that may make up for a large part of it, but I hardly think for that MUCH of it.

The USB cable plugged in nicely, and as I plugged it into the back of the tower case, my 800Mhz Duron system newly built just over a month ago, it recognised it within moments, and prompted to install the software.

One concern I have though, is that the CD did not come with Windows XP drivers, but I can not fault Epson for this, Windows XP is only newly out and these things take time, I also have not had time to check out updates at the Epson website.

The colour, oh the colour, this printer has a passion for colour, although My best colour came out of that old BJC 4000.

The noise, oooh, the noise, the one thing I wish I had from the old BJC 4000, it was quiet, this one isnt, clunky sounds while printing. I guess thats what you give up for when you purchase a sub-$100 printer that is so capable.

The printer overall was easy to setup and configure, the paper feeds easily and the business cards I just printed up are excellent. It is also a welcome addition to my desktop, and is more then what I might use at most times.

You could certainly do worse for a sub-$100 printer.


-o-o-
Update January 21st, 2002
-o-o-
I have since required a replacement B&W cartridge, (about 2 weeks ago) and I have noticed that On the present system (duron 800 w/ 256 Megs) I loose my mouse control frequently. I suspect this is the USB and PS/2 fighting for cpu cycles.

-o-o-

-o-o-
Update March 21st, 2002
-o-o-
About a month ago, I had upgraded the drivers for this printer. The periodic lag seems to have all but disappeared during its usage. Now I just get it with my USB digital Camera....

On the cartridge issue. I am near empty again on the B&W cartridge, and the colour is also near empty. I can barely see the indicator, but it still prints.

Once while on the bottom quarter of the black ink (2nd cartridge) I found I needed to clean the nozzle for about 15-20 minutes using the automated program/script. Talk about a waste of ink....

-o-o-
Update June 16th, 2003
-o-o-

I can not believe it. I have never had this occur to me. I attempted to print some important data last week, and I ran out of ink. This is not an abnormal occurance, however after changing the ink cartridge, The printer decided it needed a maintenance call. To wit.

At first it offers up a 'Communications error' which is pretty vague. I've gotten them even if I try to print and the printer is occupied.. (yes, I often have up to 20 print jobs in the queue). Following that message it offers another .

Maintenance Call

Parts inside your printer require maintenance or replacement. Contact your dealer.

This is very unsettling, the printer is not very old. During my inquiries of documents, it is suggested to attempt to reseat the recently changed ink cartridge. I would do this, but the cartridge will not present itself.

This occured about 8:55PM thursday night. Quickly I loaded up epson's website and looked for a contact number. In short order I was on the phone to tech support. In short, the conversation determined that I needed to call the Canadian line, and after he supplied the number, I thanked him and hung up. 30 seconds later, having dialed the new number, I discover its setup for OUTGOING CALLS ONLY.

Within a minute I was back in the queue for the main Epson line to California. It seems that the Canadian office closes at 9pm and does not answer 'that near 9'. I was in luck however, the 2nd employee at Epson that I talked to, was at least willing to hear the error message. My intent in this was to at least get a inkling of how it might be easily fixed. Guess what. The message in question, is a very specific one. From the jist of what I understood, is I now HAVE to take it into a dealer to have it serviced. I now see a image of a invoice over $50 to fix it... not likely, would buy new.

I will decide what I am doing with this printer in the following week, please check back here periodically to learn how this saga ends.

Oh, before I forget. Epson support gets a A+ for service. The tech did not HAVE to listen to me, but he was kind enough to. My next printer, may well be another Epson.

-o-o-

Peace


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 59.98
Operating System: Windows