i am never buying another epson printer as long as i live.

[mopinko]

jesus, i have had it with the whole ink scam. make a large format printer, photo r1800, and equip it with teeenie tiny cartridges. 8 of them. at $15-17 a pop.
i tried one of those continuous feed ink things. it worked ok for a while. but i got a feeling that the printer eventually sabotaged it. it barked at me all the time that it wasn't epson. eventually i couldn't get a clean print out of it. but when i broke down and swapped it out with eom carts, voila, it printed perfect. i dunno. smell a rat.
office max had a sign up saying that due to international trade agreements, they could no longer sell non-epson replacements!
anyway, i broke down and coughed up for a new set, printed less than a dozen pages, and already it is out of 2 colors.
if anyone knows how to override the out of ink on this damn thing, i would like to know. i will be thrashing around looking for it.
also looking for recs of a good large format machine. this thing sucks eggs. the ecological nightmare of it just makes me want to scream.

[Redneck Socialist]

1. I hate mine too.

Prints real purty, but only on its own terms. It sucks ink like a drunk at a free bar, prints shitty if you don't use it on a regular basis and freaks the fuck out if you try and use heavy stock paper. More than once I've been tempted to pitch it through the window

[hobbit709]

2. ANY large format inkjet is gonna suck ink like no tomorrow.

Especially if you print photos. The only way around it is to go laser-big bucks or commercial large format-even bigger bucks.

[mopinko]

3. just make me a cart that will print a dozen f'in prints

i don't mind the ink. it's the plastic, the chips, the trip to the store. put some fucking ink in there. i would gladly cough up 5 times what i spent on this thing for a machine with a sane ink system.
but the bite in that ass is- just let me override the ink out for one fucking print. it was barking about a color i didn't even need.

[Deja Q]

11. With smaller color lasers, DPI is less and they sock it to you with toner costs...

4 color toner; it lacks the dynamic range the higher end archival printers (e.g. the R2400) have.

[mockmonkey]

4. Epson bah! n/t

[Spirochete]

5. Can it take 3rd party ink cartridges?

At least you can get them a lot cheaper.

http://www.shop4tech.com/user.htm

[mopinko]

13. i did just buy some

remanufactured carts. $5/ea, which makes me feel a lot better. i used to always fill my own, which i think i will go back to. i am also going to get a chip setter, so that i can at least override, and keep printing.
not sure what the ruling that the office max sign referred to would be, but i suspect it is about to get harder to buy 3rd party inks.

[Onlooker]

6. If you're getting large format for photos

You have to go with Epson. It's the standard. It's the one all serious photographers seem to use. I have the Epson R2400. It's outstanding, and the ink, though expensive at about $13/cartridge (and you need 8), is in fairly big cartridges so the cost per print is reasonable. But, it's a real tool. It's not the sort of thing to buy if you are just printing casually. A proper print comes out beautifully, but it takes work to get what you see on the screen to match what you see on the printout.

Canon has the reputation of having the cheapest ink.

And most people say never to use third-party inks, though in my text ink jet I have found cheap third party inks work fine.

[Deja Q]

10. *ding* *ding* *ding* We have a winner!

Pigment inks - they're a more solid form, but there are no substitutes or cheap refills. Doing that might ruin the printer. :(

[madokie]

7. I've had epson inkjet and it would piss me off to no end so I finally bought a hp about 5 years ago

and haven't had any moments where I go wtf and a couple times I refilled the ink cartriges myself without a hitch. that is if you don't call getting ink all over me as a hitch. my first printer of years ago was a 9 pin epson and I guess it would prolly still work if I had a driver for it but of all the printers I looked at back when we bought the HP that we have now, the HP was no doubt the better one.

[Deja Q]

9. I went from HP to Epson; their 1220C died just after 3 years and from MINOR use too.

HP print quality was okay, but it's been 10 years and a photomontage I'd made lost the skin tone colors a loooooooong time ago.

Reds are holding up nicely, however...

[madokie]

12. I have an HP 940c that so far has not caused me one second of grief

It prints good quality pics but I don't have any idea about the photo fading issue as I don't print many pictures, mostly its used just for print. The thing that sold me on the HP to start with was it was so much quieter than all the others that best buy had on display at the time. My old Epson sounded like it was in trouble every time it was printing and that after a while had a tendency to get on my nerves ;-)

[Deja Q]

8. I love mine and the quality they put out.

I have an R2400. 7 cartridges.

Because it uses proprietary pigment inks, there is no such thing as a 3rd party replacement...

I usually print 13x19" and get quite a few prints out of it... I also reduced the ink density by 5%; there's no appreciable quality loss. I might try for 10%...

[LiberalFighter]

14. Personally, I wouldn't use color printers for photos or anything else for that matter

I don't know what it costs yearly for you all for ink but I'm sure with my laser printer I get a better deal printing just black. And I do a lot of printing. It's been at least a year since I replaced the toner.

If I really need color photos or something printed in color it would might be more cost effective and better quality if printed at the printing place or photos at grocery/drug stores.