Am I the only person in the world to have problems with Epson Printers (Epson Stylus Photo 925)

Member Name: deannatrois

Product:	Epson Stylus Photo 925
Date:	03/06/03 (849 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: price, specs, superb quality photo's on Epson glossy paper at high spec

Disadvantages: running costs, reliability, Customer Service

This one was the most expensive and the worst. But first the Epson specs:

Part number C11C456012
Characteristic A4 6 colour Inkjet
Technology EPSON Micro Piezo?
Print direction Bi-directional with logic seeking
Print head configuration 96 nozzles - Black
96 nozzles - Colour (cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, light magenta)
Noise Level 45dbA per ISO 9296
Power consumption 12 watts (during printing ISO/IEC 10561 letter pattern)
ENERGY STAR compliant
Dimensions Storage:515x333x209mm
Printing:515x663x299mm
With Cutter:515x626x299mm
Weight 7.6Kg (Standard)
8.6Kg (With Cutter)
Resolution Maximum 2880 x 1440dpi in black and in colour
Maximum Resolution:
Plain Paper : up to 720dpi
Photo Quality Inkjet Paper: up to 1440dpi
Matte Paper Heavyweight: up to 2880dpi
Photo Paper: up to 2880dpi
Premium Glossy Photo Paper: up to 2880dpi
Glossy Film: up to 2880dpi
Colorlife Photo Paper: up to 2880dpi
Inkjet Transparencies: up to 360 dpi
Speed Approx.8.8ppm in black A4 text memo pattern (Economy mode)
Approx. 8.5ppm in colour A4 text memo pattern (Economy mode)
Approx. 7.3ppm for A4 document with text & colour graphics (Normal mode)
Approx. 121 seconds for 8"x10" photo (bike image, 720dpi mode)
Driver Driver: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0,Windows 2000, Windows XP, Macintosh OS 8.1 and above including OSX

First of all, the Epson prints about 2 pages a minute of plain text. The high spec Photo quality prints are superb - as long as the printer is working. Superficially this printer seemed like a bargain with the spec's it has at the price it is. However,

It only prints around 200 low quality black text pages from a tiny black cartridge costing £22.99 (u can get them for £18.99 but its still a very expensive procedure). The colour ink cartridges come in a set and cost around £18 and after printin
g 6 photo's, the cartridges were over half empty.

It arrived in the box without a start up guide and no power lead.

8 days after purchasing, black text printing became suddenly non-existant overnite (i.e. invisible) so I carried out the nozzle cleaning procedure. This remedied the situation until the next afternoon (less than 12 hours later when I had only printed 2 pages of text in the intervening time) when I needed to do two nozzle cleans. U never know, it might last for another few hours this time.

I have a new AMD 2600 PC, with 1024Mb DDR Ram, that worked perfectly until I downloaded the Epson driver software and the updates from their website. Then when creating a Word document, I found it impossible to save the document if I tried to just after printing. When I turned the printer off etc.., there were no problems.

Epson sent me a pretty useless standard 'fix' email (describing flashing green and red lights that don't exist etc). Now the print quality has disappeared (literally) I am giving up and returning the printer back from whence it came.

Never again.

I must be the only person in the World to have problems with Epson printers and their print heads going splat just after the warranty period runs out as I am continually told that Epson printers are super reliable by salespeople etc. However, I can't say that that has been my experience. Going to swap it for a Cannon I950 or I850.

Summary: