Epson Stylus CX4800 Review
CNET has posted a review of the Epson Stylus CX4800 and their final verdict is not too positive. While noting that it has good features, especially for a machine in its price range, they note that the CX4800 had mediocre print quality and is one of the slowest printers they have seen in a while. Epson rated the CX4800 at 20 pages per minute (in draft mode), but based on their tests, CNET found that they only got 1.57 ppm. Other similar models in that price range which were tested by CNET printed anywhere from 5-7 ppm.
Based on the user reviews at CNET and Amazon, their disappointment with the CX4800 seems pretty valid. Some of the complaints that they had in the review didn’t seem to ring true with too many other people, like the lack of an LCD preview screen, which really nobody else seemed to mind. On a side note, we actually give Epson kudos for leaving the LCD preview screen off of a machine, since we think it is nothing more than a novelty that seems cool but has no real purpose. If people are going to view and edit their photos, they are going to do it on their computer, not on some tiny two inch screen. An LCD does help make it easier to use the menu options on the printer, but as far as its usefulness for viewing printers, we aren’t convinced.
Back to the CX4800. What most people seemed to agree on was that this isn’t a printer meant for people serious about printing photos. To be fair to Epson, this is in all-in-one machine that only costs around $100, so people really shouldn’t be expecting a machine that gives top-notch photo printing results. But based on the reviews and feedback, and the fact that most other Epson all-in-one machines have been pretty well-received, this might be a model to pass over.
On a final note, we have yet to figure out why CNET posts reviews of products six months after they are released. For instance, this printer came out in August of 2005, yet this review was first posted to their site on March 7th. Strange.
Epson Stylus CX4800 CNET editors’ review
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Buy Epson Stylus CX4800 inkjet cartridges
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9 Comments about “Epson Stylus CX4800 Review”
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March 23rd, 2006 at 9:14 am
i have a CX4800 and have no complaints.it’s easy to use and seeing as i’m not a photgrapher and do mostly documents i’ll keep it.i can always buy a photo printer if i need to.having an all-in one machine is nice and at the price i paid i don’t think i went wrong.anyway have a good day
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:27 am
i own a cx4800 and what sold me on the printer was not the photo part but the pages per minute. the printer advertises 20 ppm and i would guess it does no more than 5 ppm. i think epson should give me one that does what it is suppose to do. i have e-mailed epson tech dept and they have sent me things to try but nothing has helped. i like all aspects of the printer except what i bought it for. (speed) thank you–al hanners
June 27th, 2006 at 4:09 am
I like the CX4800. I bought an inexpensive all-in-one printer, and it does it all. Slow, cheap, and trouble free. I had a little trouble getting a driver for it (when I bought a new computer) two months after the purchase of the CX4800. But that’s only because I lost the driver CD provided upon purchase. It took about a day (1.5 hours of real work), but I got the driver. Over all rating= Trouble free (kinda). SUPER CHEAP. ALL IN ONE!
October 5th, 2006 at 9:20 am
The printer is a good one, easy to use, ppm is slow in anything but draft or economy modes. My real problem is that it is an ink HOG. I purchased this printer for 2 reasons. 1. it is an all in one = I can fit it on my desk. 2. It has seperate ink cart. so I did not have to replace color cart when only one was out. The problem is they are small and as most ink is overpriced. But the real kick is that if you run out of say yellow and have just put in a new black you can’t print anything until you replace the yellow. Epson says this is so you won’t pull air into the system. I don’t know if I believe that or not. There is also a class action suit going on with this printer regarding the ink. It states that when the color monitor says it is empty, it is really not and that we are all throwing away alot of ink. I filed with them and know I met every guideline and they sent me a letter back saying I did not qualify. It really was not that hard, I purchased within the req time frame, printer built in time frame. I wonder if there will be another suit for those of us they kicked out of this one. I would definatly not purchase this if I had to do it over. I know it seems to be a great cost, but you will pay for it in ink. They should just give us the printers, they make the money on ink!
October 31st, 2006 at 12:35 am
I don’t know what printer fairy blessed all these folks with a decent 4800 but it sure didn’t visit me. After sending my 4600 back to Epson FIVE times they sent me the 4800 as a replacement. It did the exact same thing the 4600 did. Waste ink on cleaning cycles and clog itself within 2 weeks. These things are junk and Epson should he sued for selling garbage like this. The ink carts also say they are out of ink when in fact they aren’t. Sure you can get around this by buying a resetter but I hardly think you should have to. I purchased a cheap HP printer to replace the 4800 and have yet to have a problem with it.
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I had a 4600 replaced because It said its ink was empty when it was full. I could have been part of that law suit but chose not to because they (Epson) were kind eneuph to send me a cx4800 Epson Stylus to replace the flawed 4600. The problem is now the cx4800 in doing the same thing the 4600 did. I spent $150 in ink before I realized we were all feeding it new ink when full because it was telling us it was empty. I wish it would have just broke down so I could have replaced it. I need a printer I can count on. I can’t aford $150 to replace ink that didn’t need replacing.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:12 am
My cx4800 suddenly declared all three color ink cartridges were empty, when in fact I had barely used them. Now I have to spend $35 for 3 ink cartridges in order to print black-and-white sheets.
What is a “resetter” ?
April 6th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Epson is sucking our money!. We should do something about it. The color cartridges are run out of ink even if I do not print one color page. I wonder where the color ink goes. My believe is that epson made this printer as well as the cx7400 in a way that takes black ink as well as color to print one black. So if you are printing a document using ‘black only; you are not using black only, you are using the color cartridges that combine together to get black. Therefore, you end up wasting all your cartridges. If anyuone knows a tip to print only in black, please posted
May 10th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Epson states on their website that they use a “small amount” of all three color inks each time a black print is made “to keep the color heads from clogging” - they don’t mention what lousy engineering that is but I’m sure the bean counters had something to do with the design to increase their bottom line!!