I like it (Epson Stylus C80)

Member Name: cpipe

Product:	Epson Stylus C80
Date:	29/06/02 (458 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Speed, Quietness, Print quality

Disadvantages: Running costs

I've got a 1200 dpi mono laser printer which gives very good service, but I wanted a colour inkjet so I could output the occasional colour job and which would be a fall-back in case the laser printer ran out of toner or something. I wanted something reasonably cheap, but not at the bottom end of the range because I need output to look professional. It would be used mostly for text, with some graphics and the occasional picture.

Epson's latest Stylus, the C80, seemed to fit the bill, and my local shop had one for £160; I'd have preferred something around the £100 mark, but was tempted. Then I found Watford Electronics were offering the C80 at £136, and free delivery if ordered via their website. This seemed too good to miss, so I ordered one. It was delivered a couple of days later and proved a doddle to set up.

The machine's appearance is good, and although it's fairly lightweight it does seem to be well engineered and it makes satisfactory clunky sounds which suggest that it will not fall to bits or faily to feed the paper in straight.

I was pleased to find the paper path less steeply curved than on my laser printer, so it would feed 160gm card without any trouble or any curling.

Text is almost as crisp as on the laser printer, and colour printing is a great deal better than on inkjets that are only a little older.

Speed (using a USB connection) and quietness are both very acceptable.

I'm expecting running costs to be pretty high (you have to use Epson cartridges, and they cost between £8 and £9 each for the C, M and Y cartridges and £20 to £21 for the black one, plus VAT - not to mention the cost of special Epson paper for the occasions when I want to produce something looking really good), but this should not be a problem for the occasional use I envisage (provided I don't get overexecited and print out too many nice colour pages from the web!).

All in all, I'm very gla
d I bought it.

Summary: