A Very Cheap 1st Time Colour Printer (Epson Stylus Colour C20SX)

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	Epson Stylus Colour C20SX
Date:	27/03/06 (165 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: VERY cheap and cheerful

Disadvantages: Print quality leaves a lot to be desired

I got this printer free with my last PC over 4 years ago. At the time I was thrilled with it, as it was my first new printer (previously I'd had second one printers handed down to me by friends or family members who'd upgraded, etc).


~*~PRO's AND CON's~*~

If you want a printer just to knock out a bit of basic correspondence and a few basic colour images then this is absolutely perfect for this purpose. Printing out basic letters, spreadsheets, college assignments (as I was doing an evening course 2 years ago), I was more than satisfied with the print quality for this kind of printing.

When you print something in draft quality (fastest speed), the print is really feint - so I rarely used this mode of printing. I prefer to see how it looks on the screen rather than use this draft method and strain my eyes to see anything! In normal mode the print quality is very legible and in highest quality, the output was very good, although it took far longer to print anything. In general I tended to stick to the default print setting which was sufficient for my correspondence needs.

I found that it easily printed about 6 black and white pages per minute but took quite a bit longer to print in colour. Sometimes the wait for colour pages to print was quite frustrating.

A dinky little printer, you can push the paper output tray inside the printer to take up less room which I found is a handy feature, although the paper output tray is actually quite small..

Then again, if you're like me and a digital camera photo maniac, the print quality of pictures that come out of this printer does actually leave a lot to be desired. I'd recommend you try out the different settings for the paper type, for example, if you're using photo paper, using the photo paper setting doesn't necessarily give you the best results. I have actually seen some really good colour photo prints other people have done with the same printer but, personally, I could never get my photos to come out that well :(

I don't particularly like the paper feed tray, it doesn't hold many sheets and it's curved so the paper is always leaning backwards.


~*~CARTRIDGES/COST~*~

Replacement print cartridges are not expensive and if you buy remanufactured cartridges they are actually VERY cheap - just a couple of quid for the black cartridge and about £4 for a colour one.

Even when you use original print cartridges by Epson the quality could be much better. On advice from various friends and colleagues, I've tried different settings for the print quality and the paper type, using photo paper, matt and glossy, print quality paper, etc, but have never been entirely satisfied with the overall output. But I would add that using original Epson ink cartridges definitely gives a better print quality than using recycled / remanufactured products.

Original Epson cartridges themselves are not that expensive if you shop around, you can pick up the black cartridge for about £6 and the colour for about £7, so paying a few extra quid will get you better print results. I had actually seen the cartridges advertised for over £15 each which I thought was a real con. Why pay that much when you can get them for less than half the price - even for the originals?

The best price I could find when I researched the printer cost some time ago was just under £50 although I can't find a current online price for this anywhere now but I'd recommend paying a bit extra and getting a higher spec model if you can afford to - as a printer which I got free with my PC, it served its purpose well enough.


~*~A EULOGY~*~

My Epson C20SX printer died in August 2005, it lasted over 3 years and gave me loyal service in that period of time... As part of it's eulogy, I would add that during it's lifetime with me it never gave me any mechanical problems and I feel that 3 years without breaking down or giving me any mechanical problems is a pretty good record considering she was a freebie with my PC. God rest her dear departed soul.

Summary: A reliable printer which sadly doesn't seem to be easily available anymore.

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