Not so hot... (Epson Stylus Color 740)

Member Name: FiscusFish

Product:	Epson Stylus Color 740
Date:	29/10/00 (423 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Colour print quality

Disadvantages: Doesn't work!

I already had a cheap Canon inkjet that was a few years old but it wasn't much good for photos. After checking a few reviews it seemed the best printer you could buy for a reasonable amount of money was the Epson 740, £150 later I was a proud owner.

It installed easily until I tried to connect it via a USB lead. It worked well with a serial one but when I followed the instructions for USB it didn't want to know. Much cursing and a new lead later and it was up and running.

First impressions were great. No one buys a photo quality printer and doesn't try printing some photographs as their fast task. The prints came out wonderfully, practically photo quality..... Especially if you used photo inkjet paper. Next I tried a letter. Not so hot there though, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong it wasn't bad just not as good as the Canon I was used to. I thought perhaps it would improve over time as I got to understand the software better. I'm not sure it did but I grew used to it so....

I don't use the printer that often but when I do I tend to hammer it a bit. There in lies the problem. If your Epson isn't used at least once a week (or so it seems) the ink tends to dry on the print head. Not that big a deal to run the cleaning program which generally gets it working again, although using a lot of ink in the process. However, if you leave it longer without use the print heads become irreversibly blocked! No amount of cleaning will get them working again. Not a problem you say, just buy new cartridges and the print heads will be replaced too. 'Cept on Epson printers the print heads are built into the machine and aren't changed with the cartridges..... It costs nearly as much to get them serviced as it does to buy a new printer... Once out of warranty you're on your own... This isn't just a problem thats affected me. It's well known about, doing a search with someone like www.dej
a.com brings up many tales of similar woe. The moral of course is use it very regularly and clean it at least once a week or else. Naturally I only found this out afterwards....

So here I sit, my £150 photo quality printer sitting next to me, blocked print heads and all. I'm going to see if it can fly soon, then I'm going to buy a new printer. Bet you can't guess if it's going to be another Epson or not?

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