EggXpert

About a Year ago I needed a Printer that could print to CD's and DVD's and I needed one quick.

I had a bad experience with Epson a few Years back as to the Ink Tanks leaking, but that was almost 5 Years prior to me needing another Printer.
I’ve always used HP Printers with no problems, every one I’ve ever had I eventually just wore it out mechanically.

Anyway, the only HP Printer available at the Time that could print direct to Disc was very expensive so I opted to get the Epson Stylus Photo R260.
I was very pleasantly surprised at the quality seeing as it wasn’t a real Wallet burner.

After my project was done I started using it to print some Photo proofs and it really looked good, even at 8X10 the quality was exceptional.
It was so good in fact that here in the last few Weeks I was looking into getting a professional grade A3+ Printer capable of producing large 13X19 Prints and the Epson Stylus Photo R2880 was my first choice, until this past Week.

In the past Year I’ve went through about 3 sets of Ink Cartridges so I really wasn’t using it as my primary Printer for Photography. The HP Photosmart 8450 was my primary Printer because I do allot of B&W Photography and anyone who knows the 8450 understands the awesome job it does at producing excellent B&W Prints but I digress.

My R260 was running very low on just about everything so I spent about $70+ for the Color Kit and a Black ink Tank.
When I got Home and installed them, the Epson control Panel popped up and said the Ink Cartridges where incompatible, huh?...
I tried everything to get it to work. I even spent an Hour on the Phone with Tech support. They had me dig the old Cartridges out of the Trash and replace the new ones, no such luck. Their suggestion was to get it to a service center but knowing it would cost more to fix than just get a new one the Tech on the Phone started telling me about their new line of Printers and how if I purchased one TODAY, he would waive Shipping and Handling…

After getting off the phone I started researching the R260 online and found some very interesting info.
Epson has done some re-programming of the tiny Chips inside the Ink Cartridges to “Stop 3rd Party inferior products from infiltrating  their line of Printers”.
Come to find out, the Firmware inside the R260 and apparently several other models has Code that stops the Printer from working after a certain number of Print, passes of the Print Head and number of Cartridges reach a certain Number. They have also, in the re-programming of the Cartridge Chip have updated some Code that the older Printers will not recognize and thus pop up with the message “Incompatible Cartridges”.
In essence, Epson has set a limit on how much or how long Customers can use their Printers to keep them coming back to buy more often.
This does it with me and Epson…

All I can say is I hope that HP doesn’t start doing this with their products.
Looks like I’ll be getting the HP Photosmart Pro B9180 and never look back.
Oh and by the way, my HP 8450. I’ve had it for about 4 Years now and after numerous sets of Ink Cartridge replacements too many to count and Thousands of Prints, it STILL works like a Champ. Take heed Epson…           

Epson = Nice prints, but BAD ink support.

History from the last 8 years of working with Epson printers:

1:  Nearly all of their deskjet/professional/all-in-one printers have ink nozzles permanently attatched to the printer. This means you cannot replace the print head, unlike HP printers.  So if it sits for a while without being used, guess what?  It dries up and is junk.  I had to throw out 6 this year alone that were dead due to this oversight.

2:  Seperate Ink tanks.  While nice in theory, here is the real skinny.  Lets say you have a 6 ink system, black, yellow, cyan, magenta, lt cyan, lt magenta.  Lets say you use the ink till it is out on just one tank, but the others are not out yet.  You replace the one cartridge.  It then has to prime the new cartridge.  IT ALSO PRIMES THE OTHERS.  Guess what?  You now have to change 3 or 4 more cartridges cause suddenly they are all empty.  You change those, they ALL PRIME AGAIN.  Now the cartridge you just installed first is not full, and the one or two left are now nearly empty.  What a crock.

3:  Many of their newer models have a life usage limit.  This means, that they "expire" after a preset amount of a combination of printing, charging, and cleaning.  And they will no longer operate once this happens and must be taken to a service center.

Now, I have an RX500 that I use to do nothing but print photos with (6ink system) and it works fine, prints BEAUTIFUL pictures but the cartridge changing issues really irk me, and I have been considering getting one of those constant feed systems for it, but only if it can have Epson ink. 

I also have an HP Business inkjet 2200 that I have only bought ONE full set of ink tanks for in 5 years!  And I print on it nearly every day, an average of maybe 10-15 things in a week! 

What is wrong with this picture??  Epson, get your oversized head out of your rear and listen.  We like nice printing, your printers have some of the best results I have ever come accross but get realistic.  Make your printers more ink friendly!

I got an Epson R300 which is about 3.5 years old. and been used extensively - to print a lot of photographs - from 4x6 to 8x10, many many DVDs, and various other stuff.   I never ever bought genuine Epson Ink for it.   First I been odering Wellprint cartridge kits off Newegg for $20 per set of 6, now I get some other kind at about same price from HouseofInks.   By now, I must have gone through 6-7 cartridges of each color, and never had any problems.    Maybe it's the chip on the genuine Epson carts that tells the printer "don't accept me"?

A bit wasteful when charging, true, so if any cartriges are real low when one is out, it makes sense to replace them as well.  At 3-4 bucks a cart, I am not that concerned with getting every single drop out of them.