Epson FAQs

Should I buy an Epson printer?
What are the benefits of a Epson printer?
What is the downside to owning a Epson printer?
How expensive are Epson printers compared to others?
How expensive is it to operate a Epson printer?
Can I refill Epson inkjet cartridges?
How fast are Epson printers?
Are there any good Epson photo printers?
How does Epson ink compare with other manufacturers?
What's the deal with Epson printers getting clogged?

Should I buy an Epson inkjet printer?

It depends on what you are going to use it for. If you want a good photo printer, then there are a number of Epson printers that you can choose from. But, the selection is a little smaller if you want a good all-in-one printer, and in general, Epson printers are not known for their text printing.

Speed and good photo printing for the most part. Epson makes some of the best photo printers on the market and their machines are widely used by professionals.

Quality and longevity issues. Entry level Epson inkjets are not known for their quality and many of these models can be problematic. The quality of Epson printers varies greatly, so that their cheapest inkjet might be junk, but one of their photo printers might be the top model available. You also won't find as many older Epson models still in use today like you would with HP.

Their costs average out to be on par with their competitors because they have a lot of cheap entry level inkjets. The cost of their photo printers is either comparable to others or else more expensive, due to the fact that a number of their machines are marketed towards professionals.

Pretty cheap, relatively speaking. Thanks to their individual ink cartridges, the cost to operate an Epson is not very high, and in some cases Epson offers the most affordable printing of any manufacturer. In some cases it can be cheaper to operate a Canon due to the lower cost of their cartridges.

No. There are companies that sell refill kits for Epson cartridges, but they basically don't work. Epson cartridges are more just plastic ink tanks than actual cartridges, so they are not manufactured in a way that allows them to be refilled. They are either too delicate to be refilled or else they contain microchips that essentially "kill" the cartridge after one use.

Some claim that Epson printers are the fastest on the market and we don't really have any evidence to prove or disprove that. The speed of different Epson printers varies so much because of the big differences in quality throughout their printer line. They have inkjet printers that can print documents very fast, but are merely average when it comes to printing photos. But then they also have photo printers that are extremely fast, but may not be fast at all for documents. For instance, their Photo RX700 prints an 8.5 x 11 faster than all its competitors but takes twice as long to print text.

Yes. Epson and Canon dominate the photo printing market, and the top machine is usually always made by either company. The Epson Stylus Photo R2400 and Stylus Photo R1800 are currently two of the top selling and best-reviewed photo printers on the market. A few years ago, Epson released the Stylus Photo 2200, which pretty quickly became a popular choice for professionals. It was one of the first really high end printers marketed towards individual users.

Unfortunately there really hasn't been a study done by anyone that resulted in one brand of ink clearly being the best. So, we really don't know how much better or worse Epson's ink is than the ink from other companies. Part of this is because the paper that you use can have a big effect on how good your prints turn out. So you could be using Epson's most expensive photo paper and think that their ink is the best, and vice versa if you are using stock paper.

It can work fine as long as you use with Epson inks or inks made for an Epson printer. All the manufacturers design their paper so that it works best with their inks, so that way you will essentially be forced to keep buying their ink and their paper. There really is no one paper that is better than the other, so Epson paper is on par with everyone else's.

Probably the number one complaint we hear about Epsons is their tendency to get clogged. People complain that their printers are constantly clogged and that they require frequent cleanings. These cleanings are not only annoying and time-consuming, but expensive because of the fact that they use up so much ink. Because of the technology that they use, Epson printers are always prone to clogging and always have been. We have heard complaints about this subject for years, although it seems like things have improved slightly over the last few years. It should be no surprise that Epson's cheapest printers are the ones that are the most likely to get clogged.