Product Reviews

For those that know me, you know I am quite outspoken about why I use this over that. I believe it is time I start to write what I have found.
This past month I have two experiences from hell and both could have been avoided had I followed my instinct. 

I am going to start with printers and why I use Epson and why I sing the praises of Epson.

I currently run the Epson 7880, and usually you will find I also have the R1800 and maybe one other smaller one. I have also kept a laser printer from time to time.

Recently I needed to produce a lot of 8.5 x 11 pages for a client. I decided that a low-end ink jet would be the best and easiest way. The page was mainly text and did not need extreme quality.

 I purchased an HP ink jet from Staples; it was on sale for $ 59.95 reduced from $ 75 I believe. The sales person told me it would do about 220 pages of normal text. I needed to do 100 or so.

Well let me say that installing the printer was not too bad, took about 20 minutes, which for this type of printer seemed long.

I was annoyed and shocked at the amount of running onto the web it wanted to do, via my computer. It seemed every time it had an update or newsletter or something from HP.

The print quality was fine, nothing special but certainly useable.

The kicker came when it ran out of ink after 72 pages. I decided the printer was maybe a keeper so I went to buy new ink, some $73.00 later I was back working. The next problem was it became low on ink and did not stop printing; I often load a printer up and walk away. I was left with at least 20 pages that were useless. I had enough and decided to return it.  Staples were very easy to deal with and the salespeople totally understood my frustrations. They told me I probably had starter cartridges. I am not sure what these are, I know with my large Epson a good portion of the supplied cartridge is used to fill the system and pipe work, but Epson tells you this in the manual.

Next HP experience, a client called his printer was down and he was purchasing a new one. He got the HP 4700 series. I was asked if I could install it. Off I went. Well what an experience, this person runs an up to date laptop with Windows XP and has I maintained by Karin, she does all our 3D and CS work. The computer is in near perfect condition. It took one and one half hours to install the software. It was painful; it was silly and a waste of time. So now it is installed and off it goes constantly checking the HP web site for this and that. My client ignored it. He continued to use it, well for all of one week and then it died. The light was on, but it did not work. Again I went to diagnose the problem. It took about 45 minutes to walk through the HP troubleshooting system and conclude the printer was DOA. Off he went to exchange it. He asked I return to install it. Being the same printer I figured it was a case of plug and play. You would have thought I had learned by now. Of course it wasn’t. It took a good four hours for the new printer to configure. I had started it and left telling my client when it prompted input to just follow the prompt. It never prompted it just kept going and finally was done, after some four hours. He was not happy. I wonder if HP was spying on his computer. The next day he called, he was frustrated and decided to follow my initial advice and buy an Epson. He returned the rogue printer and ordered an Epson Workforce30.

I installed it in less than five, yes count, one. two..three..four …five minutes. It works flawlessly and no it does not run back to Epson every five minutes to report on what it is seeing.

Of course removing the software from his computer took over an hour again.

To give a comparison, my Epson 7880 is two years old and has run, touch wood, flawlessly. If ever I have a question I have a number I call and ask and it is answered. I do not always like the answer, but never the less it is dealt with. Recently I had a cartridge error. The error would show, I removed the offending cartridge and clean the contacts return it and it was fine. I called Epson, the pro division is awesome and I dealt with a lady called Veronica. I think I was on the phone about 4 minutes; I described the problem and what I had done. The response was instant; they shipped two new cartridges by courier. Two days later my problem was fixed. Prior to this we had a small issue with Epson satin Canvas. The same response, next day at 10 am a new roll of canvas was at my door. In the last 15 years or so, since around 1994 I have been a consistent user of Epson products. I was one of the first to scan 4 x 5 negatives with a flat bed scanner. Epson has always been there. We have not always agreed, but they have never been shy of answering what ever my question. This is why so many pro’s speak so highly of them. I have colleagues use Canon, I do not have any personal experience, except to use the odd Canon camera from time to time. I know  Canon printers work well with Canon created images. I also know the few people I know that use Canon printers say they have no service in Canada.