Epson Stylus CX4600 Printer, Copier & Scanner

Rating:
Summary: decent printer, but one problem
Review: From what I can tell, the printer itself is excellent. Other reviews have already been written about most of the things I could say, however.

Except for one little thing that for me, and I'm sure for others, is a significant problem. It never allowed me to choose where to install the drivers and various programs. It automatically put them on my C drive under my windows folders which is the last place I wanted to have them. If that kind of thing is important to you, it might be good to look elsewhere. Otherwise, it's great.

Rating:
Summary: A few comments
Review: I agree with the comments left by previous reviewers, and will just add a few points:
-Print quality is excellent. In a side by side comparison, the top quality prints are better than color laser output from Kinko's.
-Photo prints from a 2MP digicam on 8.5x11 size paper are excellent (and top quality paper cost me about 80 cents a sheet).
-A 2m (6ft) USB cable is the longest you can use, according to the manufacturer. Print/scan jobs failed when I tried a 10' cable.
-The printer doesn't seem to have an auto-off or auto-on feature; you must manually use the power button each time or watch the power light flash all the time. This seems bizarre in this day and age.

I'm using an iBook G4 with Mac OS X 10.3 and 256 mb ram. I had no problems with installation or use. The EPSON drivers seem to interface well, but the photo software is pretty lame.

Update:
One of my ink cartridges ran out, and the other colors are low, after printing 60-70 pages at photo quality on glossy photo paper. A complete set of Epson ink cartridges set me back about 40$ on ebay (with shipping). Oddly, the black cartridge has the most ink left in it.

Rating:
Summary: Beats the HP 1209 hands down!
Review: I bought the HP 1209 and had nothing but problems. The CD's software did not install properly. I had to download a 100 meg+ file to take its place. Then I couldn't seat the paper in a predictable fashion, so printing business card labels was impossible; they kept being off center.

I ended up so unhappy that I returned it. I did some research and found this baby for only $10 more than the HP, and it's in a whole different class!

Software installation was a snap (though it took a long time), totally hands-off. Printing was easy, and looking through the apps it loaded on my machine, I'd say it's going to be a fun ride. Plus I now have a card reader, so I can take both the card reader and scanner I owned previously off my desk.

I'm a happy Epson customer. I've owned HP printers since the '80s, but they lost me this time.

Rating:
Summary: pretty good for the price
Review: I got this printer last nite.
Installation was pretty easy and its up and running.

Prints are good.
However, there is no option to print grayscale.

Scans are not so good with the Epson Scan software. I am now using Microsoft Photo Editor and the scanning quality is impressive.

Haven't used the copy function yet.

----------------
I contacted Epson Customer Support regarding the grayscale printing problem.
They replied back in 12 hours and pointed me to advanced settings where i can specify "Black Ink Only".
I have been using this printer for about 2 weeks now and I am pretty happy with it. I am a low-volume user though. The copier is pretty good too.


Rating:
Summary: Works great with Macintosh
Review: I have not experienced any conflicts. It is a little slower and the software is clunkier, but it WORKS. After a horrible experience with HP products, I am happy with this model. And at a great price.

Rating:
Summary: Ink Waster!
Review: I've never regretted a computer purchase as much as I regret this one...and it has nothing to do with print or scan quality...both are perfectly fine.

My complaint is the incredible amount of ink that periodic cleaning cycles have wasted since I purchased the Epson CX4600 in October. I don't do a lot of printing, I just want a decent printer that can do its job when needed. Only a small number of one page sheets (20-30 at the most, none of which were elaborate) have been printed with the Epson since October--and the remaining ink level is already below 50% with each cartridge.

As mentioned above, I know what the problem is, but don't know how to correct it...short of hacking the firmware, which is beyond my capabilities. Periodically, upon powerup (or before printing), this ink waster goes through an elaborate cleaning procedure...and everytime it does, the ink level drops considerably--you can see the levels drop on the status monitor.

Another reviewer insists that the supplied cartridges are only half full...that's not what the Epson manual claims. The supplied ink cartridges are filled to the same capacity as off the shelf replacements, according to the literature.

My old Lexmark 3200 printer, purchased with my first computer in 1999, wasn't perfect--but with the type of printing that I do, I could get 12-18 months use out of a single B/W or color cartridge. That's never going to happen with this printer, the folks at Epson have seen to that.

Avoid like the plague, unless your pockets are deep or you don't mind the mess/hassle of cartridge refilling. Personally, this is my first and last Epson purchase. In fact, even though I'd like to ditch this one after only three months, I'm almost hesitant to buy any new inkjet after this experience, for fear that they'll all behave similarly. The Lexmark still works, maybe I'll go back to it and a separate scanner. Thanks a lot, Epson.

Rating:
Summary: Epson Stylus bang4buck
Review: The Epson Stylus CX4600 is the best multi-function printer you'll find for the price that it is.

The Scanning quality is superb. The top-lid is removable for large items, and it does it quite quickly. They definately didn't just slap on a scanner as a quick qimmick for sales. There is an auto-scan mode - it recognizes what it's scanning and how to handle it (although it sometimes crops out what I WANT there, but no biggie, as there are manual sttings), a home option - more advanced settings but not too confusing, and an advanced option - total control over what is being scanned.

Printing quality is wonderful as well. Text is crisp and clean, and photos come out at very good quality. It's even better when coupled with the included 4x6 photo paper. You just have to be sure to make the correct paper settings before you print.

Copying is insanely easy and straightforward. (...) and it came out at a quality that is good enough for a casual copy, though not photo-realistic. If you want a great quality copy, it's a better idea to scan it to your computer, edit it with the included software (or photoshop if you have it) and then print. But for casual copies without a computer, it's great!

Installation is also simple. Just remember to GO BY THE BOOK. If you don't you're in for a bumpy ride. Once it's installed, you're ready to go. The scanner shows up right in my computer (if you have windows XP)

It has an included media-card slot for your digital camera, which can be used for 1.) transfering pictures to your computer (showing up as a "removable disk" drive in windows XP - my computer) and 2.) printing directly from the card using an index sheet where you fill in bubbles of the pictures you want printed, scan said index sheet, say "print from index sheet". Very, very cool.

Other things include the following:

the printer itself is compact compared to other multi-function printers, and is a bit bigger than the standard inkjet printer.

It's fairly quiet and won't annoy you as some printers do.

It has four ink containers, which makes photos look better from what I hear.

Ink containers are more cost effective due to the four ink containers instead of the standard two.(if you run out of cyan, just buy the cyan ink, not the entire color one).

A usb cable is NOT included, but it's not a very big deal (we already had one from the epson stylus color 880 this replaced).

Some may gripe as USB is the only option for computer connection, but I have no problem with it.

It includes some cheap photo software, but it'll do the job if you want to touch up scanned pictures. I don't need it as I use photoshop elements, but as the standard consumer doesn't have photoshop, this is a good add-in.


All around a fabulous printer if you want a great scanner, photo printer, and casual copier. Of course if this was a perfect world, it would have a built in ethernet port for network printing (so my computer doesn't have to be on for my brother to print to it for example), but I'm just dreaming there as I have yet to see a consumer printer with an ethernet port built in.

Ideally if you print a LOT of text, than you should consider coupling this printer with a monochrome laser printer (my recomendation is the $100 samsung, I forgot what model number it is, but BestBuy has it - white n' shiny) But the average family shouldn't worry.

For the price it is, above-par features included, and outstanding performance/quality it dishes out, I reccomend this as a multi-function printer that does it all.

Just be cautioned that the included ink containers are only about half-filled (as all included ink containers usually do), so the life of the ink containers should not be based on the included ones.

Rating:
Summary: I compared many other all in one printer-copier-scanners
Review: This one is the best for the money. I just returned an hp one for a problem with the cartridge getting stuck. The printing resolution is better than others in the same class. The speed of printing is also faster than others. The scanner does not have a higher resolution than say the hp 1315 but for my needs it's sufficient. I don't see why anyone would need a better resolution scanner. For my 1 gig computer it would take me 38 minutes to scan on a resolution of 2400 x 2400. The highest resolution is 9600 x 9600 perforated. I compared the copier of a Brother machine with this one, and the Brother machine copying quality doesn't even come close. The only gripe I have is that it doesn't come with a usb printer cable.

Rating:
Summary: Convenient, but costly
Review: This printer is convenient to use because it has copying and scanning capabilities. It really saves space. However, the ink is used up quickly. This makes the cost of printing or copying very high. Another problem is that the printer head needs to be cleaned quick often. The software cleans the head, but has to repeat a few times before the head is clean.

Rating:
Summary: great, but not excellent
Review: well i cant complain at all. i pluged it in, it worked flawlessly, i updated the drivers and no problem. the hp site is simple and easy to get around in. scanning, copying and printing all work great.

now the one thing that others have complained about, the cleaning of the head. if you use the printer everyday you wont have a problem with it. but if you let it sit for like a week and then use it, you will have to clean the head a few times before it starts to print again flawlessly. so had hp done a better job with that, then it would be perfect, but for 60 bucks i cant complain to much.