It's not quite hate (Epson Stylus DX5000)

Member Name: fantiquitous

Product:	Epson Stylus DX5000
Date:	02/06/09 (36 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: it looks alright, and the buttons are reasonably straightforward

Disadvantages: uneconomical ink cartridges, poor quality or liney prints too common

I don't exactly hate this printer, but I would not recommend it to anyone, for a number of what I think are rather important reasons.

It's ink usage is pretty terrible. I bought this printer as the ink seemed atleast somewhat reasonable, and could be purchased in four separate process colours. I figured it would be easy to change one without having to change them all. It has small cartridges with tiny amounts of ink. The cartridges run out astoundingly quickly. It turned out not to be good value at all.

If any ink colour runs out, you cannot print at all. I would love the option to print the document in whatever colour(s) it can, but it just tells you to change the cartridge, and refuses to function. However on one occasion when I was low on black it offered to make black out of the other colours for me.

This printer does look nice on my desk, it appears to have an attractive yet practical design. I think it fits a fair amount into a smallish amount of space, meaning it all looks neat and tidy. And all the buttons are simple and straightforward. So I was really pleased with it before I came to use it.

I originally had a problem with the printer pulling in the paper at a wonkey angle. It turns out there is a slidable piece of plastic to secure the paper which i had manged to miss previously. Thankyou for the correction goosey; Let's see how i get on with it.

It doesn't accept many different paper types. If the paper you put in is remotely shiny, like photo paper. It will come out horribly liney (not related to the priner heads needing to be cleaned). The impression I was given was that it was meant for printing photos - it's terrible at it. It only really likes reasonably thin & low quality paper. It's really disappointing that I can't make the most of my snaps.

This printer looked good on paper. It's just a shame the paper that comes out of it doesn't fair so well. All parts had high specifications for the price, and appeared to far exceed other models and brands. I now know these numbers mean very little alone.

It's pretty noisy. Not horribly so, but you can't help but cringe a little when it comes to printing when it's late and quiet. I expected more from a (somewhat) modern printer.

Speed is unremarkable, so there's not much to say here. It does have different modes. The fastest is draft. Not too bad if you want to save on ink, but the results are just far too pale for most uses. There a couple of other options, but they seem unremarkable. The best photo option doesn't really make things look much better to me. But the quality is generally fine.

One feature I do find handy here is photo enhance. It's a box you can tick when the printer options come up when you print. It doesn't make a massive difference, just helps brighten things up a little bit - without it I can find some images too dark.

Another feature that I think is handy, is that it works as a photocopier. By this I mean it can be used without having to do it all via the computer. You can just hit a button to either copy in colour, or black and white. You can also put a camera memory card right into the printer, however I have never used this feature myself.

The printer is pretty easy to maintain. And has all the standard options for self cleaning etc. It's also relatively easy to get amongst things and physically clean things yourself. Thankfully simple tasks such as removing clogged paper or changing a cartridge are as simple as you would hope and expect.

The printer is not able to turn itself on when it receives a print command. It must be turned on manually, else it thinks there is some kind of error. Not a huge problem, but a little inconvenient at times.

There is a large range for scanning quality, which goes from 50 up to 9600dpi. I have the usual colour options. It has a few other features which may or may not be useful, but I have never bothered to work out or use. The scanned images seem pretty good. As with many other scanners it may alter a few tones, especially orange. But it's nothing too serious.

Personally I have vowed never to buy an Espon again. I even sent Epson some constructive feedback on why I disliked this product so much. I miss my old HP printer. It was many years older, yet far superior - in that it worked simply, properly and effectively. I could even forgive the fact it would occasionally print a page of smiley faces. Infact those faults appear almost endearing now. Atleast I didn't have to buy ink every other time I decided to print something.

Summary: Cheap to buy, expensive to run, with disappointing results. Will avoid Epson in future.