A few months back, I reviewed Epson’s Artisan 800 printer, and I loved it. Tonight, I hate its shiny plastic guts. In fact, I may never touch another Epson product again because of this…
I have a crucial fax I need to send early tomorrow morning. Crucial. I need to print 15 pages of black-and-white legal contract, sign every single page, and then fax the shit. All of this is within the capabilities of the Artisan 800. But tonight, the thing printed 9 pages, then told me it had run out of Magenta. Yes, as in, a colour I don’t need at all to print 15 black-and-white pages.
OK, so I have a spare Magenta cartridge—whoo hoo! I pop it in there, and all is well, until page 11, when it says it needs me to replace… Light Cyan.
I have Light Cyan, too, so I put it in, and it says I need to replace Cyan. Well, there’s already a new Cyan in there, so I pop it out because maybe it’s just in there wrong. Turns out, someone in my household put it in without removing the safety sticker, and the printer waited like three weeks to tell me this. So I pull off the safety sticker, place it back in the printer, but no go. Artisan says it can’t recognise Cyan. Nor can it recognise Light Cyan. Or Yellow.
Yellow? I hadn’t even touched Yellow. Suddenly, it can’t recognise half my ink cartridges, all of which happen to be completely full. I pop them out, put them back in again. Nothing.
I restart the printer twice, yanking plug and all. Same error.
I pull out all the ink cartridges, put them back in, restart the thing, and get the same beeping error for the same three miscreants.
Have you ever seen your wit’s end? Cuz mine is hanging out all over the place at this point. I go to Epson.com to troubleshoot, and I get the following frightening message:
What they’re not telling you is that pretty much any expensive-arse ink cartridge you remove for any reason may be rejected by the thing at any time forever more, so don’t even think about popping the shit out once you’ve put it in there, most especially if the machine is categorically refusing to recognise it in the first place.
So I can’t print another page, even though every indicator shows I’m full up to the damn gills on black ink. At the end of the troubleshooter, after I click “No, this did not solve my problem” three or four times, I read this obnoxious statement:
I’m not sure if you can see my middle finger from where you’re sitting, Epson, but rest assured, it is extended and pointing in your direction.
Tomorrow, when I go to print and fax my documents at Kinko’s, I’ll be thinking of you, and I will be seething. But when I go to get a new printer, I’ll be thinking of HP or Canon. Probably Canon.
aqua
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 6:20 AMEpson is appalling for many reasons including rip off ink cartridges, poor quality, incompatible drivers that prevent ‘older’ models working,
enviromental impact of all the waste there policies generate- Dreadful ,’customer services’etc etc etc …..
On the basis that it is more useful to take action than feeling powerless,I suggest that we all write to:
Seiji Hanaoka Chairman
Seiko Epson Corporation
3-3-5 Owa, Suwa, Nagano
392-8502 Japan
and tell him why we no longer wish to buy his products
Now he may choose to ignore our feedback, but he would be ignoring the people who in the end pay his wages-so then more fool him.
John McSmith
Monday, January 30, 2012 at 7:11 AMI’am having the same problem with epson their ofshore help line said I should buy a new printer. I fitted another brand of epson cartriges and the bloddy machine won’t accept them. Their service desk is usless. Never epson again.
Disatisfied customer
Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 4:15 AMEpson is super crap and not treating customers decently. We bought new color for the Epson printer and the machine said it doesnt recognize the cartridge chip. Not allowing to print anything else. What the hell does ink need a chip for crying out loud!!!
Not decent at all. Artificial monopoly.
henry
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 5:12 PMmy photor230 worked ok untill i up graded to windows7.now the printer works but cd print is non compatable cant get driver .surely when i upgrade i dont need to buy new printer and scanner
if the printer works , why not cd print?? ive also had ink problems , now buy generic , sooner dump a $2.00 cartridge than a full priced one
Vince
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 6:53 PMHi everyone, seems that i have to agree.
I have owned an Epson R290 Stylus Photo printer for 5 years and ten months. Yesterday it came up with a message saying that parts in side needed servicing. The bloody thing then shut me out.
Turns out there is a software coiunter in it that estimates when the ink pads are full. Anyway I took them out and cleaned them and then had to buy a utility for 10 bucks to reset the counters. Thing doesn’t work still and has a general error.
I had it fitted with an Ink Tank when I bought it and have only Wait for it Spent 180 bucks on ink in 5 years and ten months.
SAO the thing doesn’t own me anything. however if they didn’t do this business with the Ink then I would still have a good printer and would be happy and contented. So I am never going to buy Epson again for those reasons.
Will have to really think about what brand but it will have to be one where I can fir an ink tank to it.
SUZY
Friday, March 9, 2012 at 5:43 PMWOW! I was just doing some research into Epson printers to decide which model to buy. I had always believed they were superior to HP or Canon (which I have had in the past). Fortunately I found this website. It appears I now won’t be buying an Epson! Thanks for all the non-testimonials everyone. It sounds like you’ve saved me a lot of frustration and angst. Back to HP or Canon …
woody
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 8:06 PMi have just given my daughter my old epson r200 which i have been putting cheap replacements in for 3 years, she took it to uni. i went and purchased like an IDIOT another epson this time a sx425w again i use cheaper carts but after a couple of prints get the dreaded not recognized message . now ive had this about two months im stuffed as im not paying full price that pc world and the like want to charge.
this is going to get teed up balanced on 4 golf tees and smashed to oblvion. the very last epson product that i or my family will ever purcase
Epsonripoffs
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 9:15 PMHave had an EpsonripoffsKen for a year or two and it has been the worst technology buy I have ever made. Talk about expensive to run! And yes all the same problems tha everyone has documented in this thread – ink runs out when you’ve just put a new cartridge in, then next one when you finally get that one working, then decides it won’t recognise a cartridge (brand new one ) because you took it out and reseated it , printing quality is useless, lots of lines on the print, etc, etc, the list just goes on and on. Will never buy another epson product again. Total rip off as well as being unenvironmental junk.
Epsonripoffs
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 9:16 PMHave had an epson for a year or two and it has been the worst technology buy I have ever made. Talk about expensive to run! And yes all the same problems tha everyone has documented in this thread – ink runs out when you’ve just put a new cartridge in, then next one when you finally get that one working, then decides it won’t recognise a cartridge (brand new one ) because you took it out and reseated it , printing quality is useless, lots of lines on the print, etc, etc, the list just goes on and on. Will never buy another epson product again. Total rip off as well as being unenvironmental junk.
Bill
Monday, April 23, 2012 at 2:19 AMDON’T BUY EPSON. They purposely cripple their product just to make you buy ink. I NEVER print in color and suddenly it tells me I am out of Cyan and won’t print and all I need is black. This printer is going into the trash and I am going to research other printers.
Tally
Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 11:19 AMThe Epson Artisan 800 and Epson ink cartridges are a huge rip-off. The ink runs out so fast and one seems to trigger another. With new cartridges installed, I printed about five pages. A week and a half later, went to print again and its tellin’ me cayan & yellow are low. What the &*$#! And I am fed up of the pop-up messages peddling their lousy ink, can’t get rid of one of them. This printer is outta here and I am off to buy something that works when I want it to, not when Epson dictates, and it will not be an Epson product. I am also going to post my opinion all over the web. Take that Epson!