Dissappointed in Epson Printers

[humanshield]

Bought an Epson multi function printer about 14 months ago.   Work Force 2450
Something physically came apart inside and so now it's a pile of garbage....after only 800 printed pages

Of course, the warranty ran out 2 months ago.  Opened it...nothing inside, no sign of damage.  But apparently the drive gear is now going the wrong way!
As paranoid as it may sound, it sounds like a firmware issue.   Like the programming is suddenly causing the gears to go backwards?  Hmmm....Buy cartridges from Epson or else???


OTOH....

Bought a Cannon printer scanner 2 years ago....left it outside in the shed for that 14 months I had the Epson (thinking I didnt need the Canon printer anymore)....brought it back inside...plugged it in.....it prints perfectly.

From now on....so long Epson....Hello Cannon

[gsx600racer]

My preference has always been HP. Just sucks that the consumables are so damn expensive.

[90GTVert]

My last inkjet was an Epson. It ate ink like I've never seen before. It had to be some sort of software/firmware issue. I'd print less than 50 pages of mostly plain text and it would tell me that one of the colors or black needed to be replaced and would refuse to print till they were replaced. I can't figure out how it was using up colors when printing black, but it did. It wouldn't recognize brand new genuine replacements at times and refuse to print. Sometimes it would print for a while with a cartridge and then not recognize it as an Epson all of the sudden. I hate the proprietary BS that they do and it's ridiculous when you're spending a small fortune on their genuine ink in the "XL" versions and it doesn't last or isn't recognized. Unless I have a memory lapse, I won't buy another Epson printer.

Before that, I had a Canon. It wasn't as bad, but still had the proprietary cartridges. I got refills to work once or twice, but it was hit or miss. Got tired of it and bought the Epson above.

Before that, I had an HP Photosmart. I only got rid of it because I wanted an all in one and it was just a printer. It worked reliably for me and I had no real complaints. It was from 2001 or around there and lasted for years.

I finally gave up inkjets this last time around and bought a Brother all in one black and white laser printer. Color is the only thing it lacks, but I don't really need it. It scans and copies quickly and easily and it's the most reliable/maintenance free printer I've ever owned. I've went through maybe 3 250 packs of paper over the couple of years I haven't had to touch it other than putting in more paper. It's still the original toner cartridge. It's pretty amazing after being used to inkjets for so long. I used to work in a print room at an accounting firm where there was a room of laser printers shooting out tax returns 3" thick all day and know how little trouble they were. I always thought it was more to do with expensive professional grade machines, but this sub-$200 Brother is doing quite well. It wouldn't compete with those, as I had to move paper cases on hand trucks for the volume the pro models handled, but I'll be buying another laser printer next time.

EDIT : And if you wonder why I didn't buy more HPs after the first being so good... I am under the impression to some degree that electronics like these have been designed worse over time for the consumer. Maybe it's just my luck, but it seems like so many things I had 15-20 years ago work fine, and things that I buy new now aren't that likely to last or with printers they are much more likely to place more emphasis on making the user buy genuine supplies than making the user happy. I don't really know if HP is indeed much better, or many models were better earlier in their popularity.

[oldgeek]

I purchased a Brother MFC9130CW color laser about 3 years ago. Worked so well my brother has one, and got one for my father last month. The last one was $286.00 delivered to the door. The cartridges are pricy, but the yield makes them CHEAPER than ink jet.

[humanshield]

Might have to try a Brother Laser printer.

[tsimi]

Same here.
I am a Windows user so I never run into real connection issues but my wife uses a Mac and we had all kinds of troubles with the Epson.
Epson does not supply any drivers for Mac anymore they gave that responsibility to Apple which again they do not offer drivers for older OS for that specific printer.
Wifi connection would not work properly and needed to be reconfigured every single time.
So after we finally got used to this kind of routine the printers roller that pulls the paper in started to act weird. It would pull regular paper but no photo paper. So my wife and I decided to buy a Canon and no issues at all since then.
Setup for Mac was also not really straight forward but then again what is with those damn Apple products.
But once setup all is running good.

We used to have a brother b/w laser pinter long time ago. Very reliable machine for regular printing. It does get expensive though if you want one that prints in color and can handle photo paper.

So long story short, buy a Canon with single ink tanks and forget about that crappy Epson.

The last experience I had with HP was bought the printer for 100. The 3 in 1 color ink run out actually only 1 color run out but you need to replace the whole danm thing so went to the store only to find out that the ink cost 50 which is half of the printers new price. Sold the printer for 50 and never looked at HP again. Don't know how they are these days but in the past the where famous for overpriced ink.

[190mech]

Epson stuff has worked great for me,BUT I'm a linux guy and they support this freeware system..Gotta love FREE!!

[acvw74]

I think "The Oatmeal" says it about right!

Printers are from Hell

[Chris Cristini]

sudo apt-get update!!!! HAHA

[eclark5483]

I hate Epson with a passion. Typing on my phone ATM, but I'll give you a rundown of why you should never ever buy one after I get home.

[ryan_ott]

We have always had hp products. Currently have a Hp laserjet pro 200. It's a couple years old now but worth every cent paid for it. It's huge! Only changed the black once. I think I'm still on the color samples. I forget. Mainly got it because we needed a fax also the wife prints coupons a lot so being laser it saves in the long run. Also being wireless is a big plus.



m.staples.com/HP-LaserJet-Pro-200-All-in-One-Color-Printer-M276nw/product_949797

[FrankenMech]

I have a Brother MFC-L2700DW B&W laser, printer, copier, scanner, fax. I can't really tell anything about the Fax because I have never used it. Everything else works well. It was a PITA to do the initial setup with the cryptic instructions.

Works much better than the old HP inkjet. That thing sucked up ink like money grew on trees. Generic or refill cartridges never worked. I think they sell the cheap inkjet printers so they can sell the ink.

A new genuine brother toner cart costs less than $65 which is about what 3-4 HP ink carts cost.

[niz76]

Companies do not get into the printer business to sell printers. They lose money on the printers. The $$ is in the ink!! So much so that's it's called Black Gold. Printer ink costs more than blood by volume and is worth more than caviar in weight...

[Deleted]

I had a Cannon printer for years and I was able to refill my ink cartridges easily. I bought 2 quarts of ink online for like $10 and I was able to refill about 30 times or more and still have some ink. (Saving a cost of about $20/cartridge)

Well, that printer fried but, it had given me good service for a long time so, no regrets. My buddy, a computer "expert" told me to get a Kodak, so I did. Well, they are out of business now but I hate this thing. You have to buy a color and black and white set of refills even if you are only printing in black and white. Then, you print out 10 pages and you start getting messages about your ink being low, and time to refill. I ignore them and after another 20 pages, it quits printing. I have tried to refill these but, it has some chip that I can not reset and it thinks it is still empty. What a rip-off! I once printed out a novel that I had written with my Cannon and it was 450 pages. No problem. The Kodak? After 10 pages it "thinks" you are low on ink, either color or black and it does not care. I would love to learn how to hack this, I really would.

Maybe this is why they went out of business?

Bill

[FrankenMech]

Kodak went out of business because they were dinosaurs and did not believe the digital writing on the wall. They fell behind on all of their products. Of course with digital we can no longer believe what we see. The record companies are still struggling because their business model is a dinosaur. I think ink jet printers are dinosaurs. Forget the ink jets.

I get along well with a monochrome (B&W) laser printer. If for some special reason I need color I can always take a flash drive to a copier center. I can remember taking a floppy 'spinner' in for that. Spinner drives are dead also and I am glad to see them go. I wonder when Netflix and Red Box will start distributing movies on SD cards rather than DVD's? I think DVD's will eventually go the way of Beta/VHS and the dodo bird. DVD's lose their data over time. Flash will go away also, other technologies are coming along.