Ink quantity for Epson printers

[Radio Fixer]

Was looking at the Stylus Photo P50 and its cartridges and there are two!

One set is I believe 7.4ml (corrected later 12/04) and the other is 13ml. As usual the larger capacity work out more economical. In one review an A4 page photo, best quality print was roughly 9p using these.

Picked up on the web that my R300 is 8 years old although it seems longer. That uses 13ml cartridges but is more economical than the P50 but that has improved quality for photo prints. The P50 is claimed to produce prints that are better than lab quality... but it doesnt say whose lab!

As usual care is needed...

Gary

[Retired]

Hi,

Care is needed indeed Gary.

I bought my all in one Epson Stylus DX8400 on sale at half price. Had I known how it was going to turn out the store couldn't have given it to me.

Put a new cartridge in and print a test page only to find the new cartridge now reads just over half full. I bought a barrow-load of compatible cartridges and after the printer gobbled these with ease I decided to surf the web for reviews. I couldn't find a good review as all the other owners were having the same problem and some were even buying OEM cartridges.

I don't like calling any company names in public but I'll never buy another Epson product.

I never did much printing anyway so the printing I actually did worked out extremely expensive. I've since bought an HP LaserJet P1102W. This is only a mono printer but is OK for my needs and before buying I did the web search for reviews first before parting with the cash.

I would recommend anyone buying virtually anything these days to surf the web first for reviews.

Kind regards, Col.

[Yorkie]

My HP Photosmart that I'd had for a few years till it died on me about four months ago used five colour cartridges - magenta, light magenta, cyan, light cyan, yellow plus black. My Epson uses three - magenta, cyan, yellow plus black. I suppose it's tempting to assume that fewer cartridges makes for great economy, but I doubt that it does because to create an image I dare say it takes a certain quantity of ink, whether that ink comes from three or five cartridges. More colours gives a broader palette but uses less of each of the five colours than would just three colours.

According to Which Reports (not that I give them much credance), Kodak printers have the least cost per page and cheapest cartridges, but I take that with a big pinch of salt. Their cartridges can't be individually replaced - you have to replace one cartridge unit with all the colours, and given that some colours will run out much sooner than others, that seems to be wasteful. In my old HP printer, the yellow cartridges seem to last for ages, whereas cyan ran out fairly often.

There's such a plethora of printers, even within each brand, that it's well nigh impossible to make an informed decision as to what to buy, and most seem to offer similar features and benefits. All I wanted was a wi-fi enabled printer/copier/scanner, but if you look at HP, Epson, Kodak - whoever, they each have scores of printers that have those facilties. All it does is to confuse the customers. Furthermore, I can see no logical reason at all why there has to be so many cartridges within each firm's range of printers.

All printers seem to plummit in price within months, then six months later, they're obsolete, then with the passage of time, the cartridges become more expensive and less available.

All in all, it's a real pigs' breakfast.

[Radio Fixer]

Yes! maybe Epson isnt what it was. Myself and a friend have been using R300 Photo Printers trouble free for 8 years. Me on their cartridges and him on clones but he has had some clogs.

I have never had a problem buying Epson cartridges (readily available) for this printer and at a reasonable price from the Channel Islands (now gone up due to VAT being charged on low value items from there).

I guess that is the problem with price wars, it drives down quality. Would companies and home users buy a better made printer at twice the price as same spec others? Doubtful.

I worked a lot with the early desktop HP Lasejet models that were really built and a hernia job to move around and cost a fortune. They could never sell anything built to that standard now.

What do the labs use? Staples use massive, floor standing, colour laser photo copiers with a PC interface. No doubt very expensive and more robustly built than anything a cheap home printer can be expected to achieve.

The reason for all the cartridges, and continual change by the printer makers, is to try to beat the clone makers.

Reviews, as said, are useful but many give 4 or 5 stars and then a few give 1 or 2... maybe they are just spoilers.

I shall keep my old printer for as long as possible.

Gary

[Shaman]

Hi guys, i used several Epson printers with mixed results, i noticed on (retired) Colin,s post his gobbled cartridges, i remember reading quite a while ago Epson were took to court over the shortness of their products namely the cartridges, these were i understand programmed at installation of the printer software, to show empty, when in fact they were half full. On my old printer i used to take out the cartridges and put them back in only to be shown they were full, having just being shown to be empty in need of change, so it looked like the taking out and putting them back seemed to fool the printer/software a new cartridge had been fitted. For anyone who changed them, it must have wasted a lot of ink and made a lot of profit for those concerned, below is a link showing toner cartridges running out, when tghey were still usable, software prog adgustment cures this.....regards.....Alan

http://timsk.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/ep...idge-scam/

[Paula A]

If you ever mod an epson printer to run on constant ink tanks (£6 for 500ml!!) and do the waste ink tube addition.. you will be horrified how much ink they waste!!! Literally ££'s down the drain!!

Have a look at the help available here if you want to save a fortune and stop being ripped off by the ink cart makers!!

http://forums.cdcovers.cc/forumdisplay.php?f=24