The cheaper the better? (Epson Stylus C44UX)

Member Name: sirg0508

Product:	Epson Stylus C44UX
Date:	18/02/05 (1002 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Cheap, reliable to a point

Disadvantages: Breaks down after a certain number of pages

A couple of years ago when my dad bought back our old computer from his friend as my Christmas present, I still needed all the essentials to get me up and running such as monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer etc. As you may know, all these can add up to a hefty sum so finding a cheap option is something you may be looking for. The Epson C44UX is one of those cheap printers that you regularly find free when you buy a PC.

This printer is cheap, reliable up to a certain point, doesn’t last long but comparing it to other printers, it is one of those that you probably will have because of the huge savings compared to other printers. I am a student, I have very little money and I regularly break things – especially computers… My dad knows this and is certainly not going to spend hundreds of pounds on a top notch printer for me to break it within a few uses.

I also have a Lexmark X85 which is an all-in-one and pretty expensive so I’ll compare that to the Epson.

Prices: I think this is a good starting point! Although the Lexmark X85 is no longer available to buy (unless you have a good search around), at the time it did cost around 150GBP. The C44UX by Epson can be bought for around 35GBP.

Cartridges: The C44UX is a colour printer so requires two different cartridges – a black and a colour. These will set you back about 15GBP each but with Epson; you can sometimes get a buy one get one free offer on. Compared to the Lexmark which also needs two – these cost around 20GBP each and hardly ever have an offer on!


In the past my dad has owned the C42, C44UX and is now using the C46. This is because these Epson printers do not like to be used on a regular basis. They can be perfectly fine for a long time but then all of a sudden will tell you that there is something wrong with a part and will need to be replaced! If you took the printer to be fixed, it would probably cost more than buying another printer!

I tend to only use mine when I really have to – I need to carry my PC upstairs which is too much hassle and my room is very dusty. I do find that if the printer is left for a long time, I NEED to run a test sheet through because the ink will pick up all the dust that may have gotten into the printer and will come out very streaky which isn’t good if you are trying to print out an essay for Uni!

When you buy any of this range of printer, it comes in quite a large box with colourful graphics which would try to indicate that this is a good printer – especially for the price. It has in huge numbers that it prints out 11 pages per minute, is USB connected and can print up to 2880 dpi. There is a picture of a printer with a very colourful photo image just being printed but I never find it comes out like that!

Taking it out of the box, you have those polystyrene blocks at the sides which take up most of the room in the box! You have the cable to connect the printer to the PC which is very easy to plug in, the cable to connect the printer to the plug so it can get some power to run and there is the disk to install it as well as an instruction booklet which is like a big poster. Because the printer is feeding the paper in from the top, there is also a back to hold the paper up and stop it falling out backwards when it is in the printer. There are those very heavy duty bits of tape which are almost impossible to remove on the printer but they have to be removed so you can open it up and start using it! These just stop the thing falling apart when it is in the box.

When installing the software, the printer has to be off. The instructions are all given on screen and are very easy to follow so it doesn’t take long to get it up and running. The printer can be installed on both Windows and Macintosh but this is only for the C44UX – you will need to have a look at see if others in the range are suitable.

Once it has been installed, it then needs some ink! These are sometimes supplied with the printer (they were with mine) but you may need to buy some. You need to turn the printer on… this is done by pressing the big button to the right – there is a green light which will come on on this button so you know there is power. Lift up the flap on the printer (there are no catches holding this down so it is better to have it on a flat surface) and hold down the second button next to the power button on the printer. This will move the ink cartridges into the centre of the machine so you can easily change them – for some reason, the instructions don’t even tell you to do that!! Remove the tape from the cartridges and stick them in the appropriate slots. Press the second button again and the cartridges will start moving about in the printer. It takes a couple of minutes so you don’t need to worry if you think it is making weird noises.

The green light on the power button will keep flashing until it has finished. When it does stop, it is a good idea to print out a sheet of paper with some writing on or a picture so that the ink has started flowing and will mean you don’t have a missing part of text at the start if you begin printing out a document!

Next all is needed is the paper. You can fit A4 into this printer as well as smaller sizes and it will work with glossy paper but you can only stick one sheet in at a time. There is a little blue marker at the back so you can hold the paper in place – if you don’t do this, the paper may fall to an angle and get caught in the printer which sometimes means the ink lands on the same bit each time and can make a very big mess! There will normally be a red light flashing and the printer makes a horrible noise when you try to print and there is no paper in the printer.

Everything *should* work perfectly! If you do have problems, lights will flash on the printer and the instructions give you pointers to what may be the problem. There are also safety instructions too so make sure you are following them!

My time with the printer hasn’t been too bad. I’ve had the printer for over a year and have printed out quite a few documents. If the printer is used regularly it doesn’t seem to have too much of a problem with the ink (unless there is very little ink left as there are no indicators on the printer to tell you but there are on the computer itself so keep an eye on the ink levels). The only time it does have a little trouble starting is when it hasn’t been used for a while and the ink may dry up a little so as I said, I always print out a test sheet first so I know it is working.

The machine is pretty noisy. I once had put it on a chair and the chair was actually wiggling about with the movement of the cartridges. It might say it is a fast printer and print out 11 pages per minute but that all depends on what you are printing – colourful images will take a little longer. Sometimes I find the printer will print out half of whatever it is I’m printing and then stops to have a rest as though it is worn out! It does start up again but it still makes me worry!

Switching the printer off is annoying. I always forget that the power button has to be pressed and held down until the green light goes off unlike when you turn it on – then you just have to press it once.

The software consists of the printer driver, Epson Status Monitor 3, PhotoQuicker, PRINT Image Framer Tool, PIF Designer and the Online Registration. I personally only use the printer to print out essays and find PhotoQuicker very confusing. It allows you to prepare images to be printed but doesn’t allow you to do anything similar to MGI PhotoSuite which came with my Lexmark.

Overall, the printer is fast for just printing out text documents. It may require a test sheet first so you know it is going to be a better quality printout. I’d probably recommend you buy a better printer if you are looking for top quality photo printouts though. Comparing this to my other printer, there are huge saving to be made in the initial purchase as well as the cost of the ink cartridges which are always a big down point as they sometimes end up costing more than the printer itself! It is a handy printer to have and not a big loss when it does decide to pack in. I’d have to give this one **** (4 stars) out of 5. The reliability of good printouts is not always good and if you are a regular printer, you will find after a certain amount of pages that you will have to buy a new printer!

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