A lot of printer for the money

I've been buying Epson Stylus printers for the past 6-7 years, and both my previous purchases started to pack up once they reached the 3 year mark, generally becoming more and more quirky (refusing to feed paper, funny splodges on the page, etc), so this time I thought I would try an HP.

The main reason I bought this specific printer was because it had good reviews as a general purpose printer, but it also seems to do a pretty good job with photos. I also didn't realise until I bought it that it had a built in Ethernet port (plug it into your router and you've got wireless printing!), Picture Bridge (I can plug my Canon Ixus into the USB port on the front and print directly from my camera). It has a separate feed slot for envelopes and photo paper, as well as a fixed paper tray. You can also plug in a Bluetooth adapter, to print from your camera phone (if you want to go in for all that nonsense - why bother : ))But the thing that has really impressed me is how quiet it is, relative to both my old Epson printers, and how quick. It's not far off Laser Printer speeds when printing emails, etc.

And what's more, this is the first time I've ever bought a printer for under £100. I've yet to see how it will fare after 2-3 years, but I'm pretty impressed so far. Bargain!

Bring the Office to Your Home

Having had a Canon colour ink jet die after virtually no use and the toner cartridge expire on a 15 year old HP Laserjet 4L in the same weekend I thought it was time to have a look at colour lasers again. Although the cartridges for this printer are expensive, they are no more so than other HP cartridges and with 2000 sheets quoted for home use should last a reasonable length of time (just got to keep the children under control). The printer itself was delivered by Amazon by 0900 hrs on a Monday having ordered it on a Saturday afternoon! In 15 minutes it was set up and connected to my router as part of my home network - the installation of the printer bloatware on all connected PCs took longer but all PCs printed to it first time. Its speed of printing, quality of print (especially on gloss laser paper), quietness all make me wish I had done this long ago - the family no longer complain that the network printers connected through other PCs are down and I can go away knowing that the HP is just sat in the corner of my study waiting for a task. Now if it will just last as long as the HP 4L its purchase price will just become a memory.

Oh dear...

Having been the owner of several previous HP printers this one turned out to be a huge disappointment. I was so looking forward to getting a networked printer for my home office setup and this looked just the job. The printer itself is very sturdy, well made (apart from the flimsy plastic paper `trays'), prints beautifully and is fully featured. Unfortunately HP paid less attention to the software and that's where the root of my problem lay. It loaded onto my old PC (running XP) and ran no problem but could I get it to work on my new Dell (also XP)? - not a chance! Three days consulting HP's tech support (based, you've guessed, it in India) failed to resolve the issue (something to do with the PML driver...). The guy was courteous and gave it his best shot but there comes a point when enough's enough and back it went for a refund.

So why 3 stars? Well if you get one and it works with your setup you'll probably want to give it 5. However, there is definitely a software compatibility issue (HP admitted receiving numerous calls similar to mine) and I find it unacceptable that software is being shipped that is less than robust. After all, there's no shortage of other vendors vying for our business...

A printer that won't load paper?

From the day I bought my C5180 wouldn't print until you'd fed the paper at least 3 times.
I contacted the email support"team" - they emailed me a nonsense 5 step (1 hour check) to troubleshoot the problem.
As far as I can gather it is due to poor design; on the support website it actually states"there must be between 10 and 25 sheets of paper in the tray" to avoid this problem. GREAT I have a 100 sheet printer that is actually a 15 sheet printer.
Customer support offered to collect my new and defective printer and replace it with an old refurbished one.
No thanks; I'll have my money back and buy a Canon!
SHOCKING!!

Just Great.....

amazing quality for the price range... have been using one for about a year, with no problems at all. a 20 pound toner gives about 2700 A4 prints, which makes it cost effective. moreover, the toner save mode has such a nice quality that i used it for my University reports and all.

Amazing value for money...

How disappointing!

Could not wait to get my hands on this gadget but when it finally arrived I was in for a huge disappointment.Not only is it incompatible with my iPhone it is also incompatible with my digital camera.When I did finally find a compatible device the quality of the prints was shockingly bad.It's a great idea in theory ,but in reality it just doesn't work.I am just going to stick to my Polaroid instant camera in future.

Surpasses expectation - ideal for family tree enthusiasts

This is a fabulous product at a fabulous price. I wanted to scan old family photos, some dating back to the early 1900s that were not in good shape. The scanner is not only easy to use but the results are excellent. There are slide cases, too, for scanning slides, which I haven't tried yet. I scan from Photoshop. Just go into Photoshop and select File - Import - Epson V500 and it's done, or you can simply press the scan button on the front of the machine. Scanners I have used in the past have been confusing and complicated - not this one. The machine wants to scan at 100%, but you can easily adjust the pixel amount in the Customize menu. This is great for my old photos, some of which are quite small. I have a great photo of a Victorian family gathered under an oak tree, complete with big mustaches and wasp waists. The picture is sadly fading, but the scanned image is a great improvement and has brought back a surprising amount of lost detail simply with Auto Contrast. You can also scan documents - if you are into family trees, this means wedding certificates etc - and you can even scan useable text. The quality of this scanner is great. Unless you are a professional photographer, why spend more?

Great printer

I am very pleased with this printer, the print it gives is excellent and the wireless capability is also good. The service from amazon is also first class.

Don't touch it with a barge-pole!!!

Epson Stylus R800 Inkjet Colour Photo Printer

Oh yes, the quality's great - until you don't do any printing for a week or come to change cartridges that is. The ink-wastage is unbelievable. I can't even begin to describe the amount of time and money wasted vainly trying to unblock the printheads. Nothing works - not even Isopropanol. My guess would be that a lot of the positive reviews are written fairly shortly after purchase or by very heavy users who print regularly. For normal use, this thing has been an unmitigated disaster.

Frankly, my personal opinion is that this printer is so fundamentally flawed that I don't believe Epson should even be selling it - it's about time they realised that there are a lot of people who will never go near one of their products again. If you are still considering purchasing one of these money-pits, check the internet - my experiences are commonplace.

Bottom-line an expensive waste of money that's gone in the bin after 1-year.

FYI, this is an independent review and I've no connection to any printer manufacturer, distributor etc.

Rant over.

Buyer beware

This printer uses the same print engine as the disgraceful Kodak 5300 and 5500. I work in a large store where we sell a lot of the biggest name brands. The 5300 was brought out a year ago and within my store it has acheived 25% returns just within the first year. Lexmark used to hold the crown as worst manufacturer reliability but Kodak has taken that crown easily.

One of the problems extends from the photo printing process where a clear film is applied over the ink on the paper. When the ink runs out this film is still applied, then if this paper is re-used after the ink is re-filled the ink will not stick and a mess ensues. If you do buy a kodak and you run out of ink, do not attempt to re-use any paper twice.

The problem above accounts for a large percentage of the returns, but the rest are a mixture of faults in a much higher ratio than any other manufacturer.

Kodak should be applauded for their approach on ink prices, but it a shame they are made poorly. Nice looking printer as well.

EDIT: Lol well in my store we power up and take sample pictures of the new products. Last night was the ESP5's turn. Started fine, printed test photo's good, went to scan and it swallowed 20 sheets and the A4 drive mechanism is knackered. The first ESP5 opened is faulty - GREAT start, but it looks like the same problems from the 5300 are going to exist.

Great value, a tiny professional printer

Great value, user friendly, and very compact. Faster, cheaper, and quieter compared to what I upgraded from. Easy set up.

A networked marvel - but now forced to replace

I have had my 2600n for around 2 years and have been very pleased with the results. Sadly I've recently been confronted with ghosting problem which seems to be related to the 'lifetime' fuser. I'd say that 2 years and just 5000 prints is not exactly a lifetime.

I reckon I've averaged 7p a page - I produce lots of full-colour stuff -but this won't improve with time so I might as well replace the printer (yet another piece of technical kit which is not cost-effective for me to fix). I'll probably go for another 2600N (at 200 pounds) as it comes with full cartridges (so printer itself is basically free) and I can use cartridges I already have.

Note: There are a few comments relate to being forced to replace cartridges if one runs out (printer refuses to work). This is easily over-ruled using"Cartridge Out Override" option and you can get a lot more out of your cartridges (option is well hidden but described in manual).

Good choice

This laser BW printer is really small, cheap and rather fast. After 3000 copies started to load 2 A4 papers simultaneously out of 20-30 loads. I had to change the 80 g/m2 paper with a thicker 90 g/m2 paper to fix the problem. The software wizard for the front/rear manual prints is very nice.