Rating: 
Summary: Accurate Color, Great Paper Tray
Review: I have used this printer for the last three years. As a visual designer and a fine artist I have used this to print all sorts of design projects, illustrations, and web pages. The colors this produces are a better match to what I see onscreen than any other color printer I have used (HP deskjets, HP color laser, Apple color laser). Even at "normal" quality on cheap paper, the prints are good enough to frame. I used this printer with photo quality paper to print the portfolio I show at job interviews. The dithering is subtle, with none of the dark-dot-amongst-light-dots problems that cause a speckled look on cheap printers. The colors are vibrant, but ACCURATE (unlike the HP printers that always print colors oversaturated). As other reviewers have noted, the ink cartridges (separate for each color!) last a long time, typically several months with heavy usage. The printing is fast, even at high quality, much faster than color laser printers, and comparable to most desktop printers. The flat paper tray (as opposed to inclined) rarely jams. The tray can hold about 50 sheets of paper, so it is good for use in an office environment being shared by many people. This can handle even light card stock, although I have had some varieties of 80# card stock JAM and refuse to go through. Unfortunately, the stock is forced to go through the rollers, and there is no way to open the back to allow it to go straight through and avoid jamming on heavy stock. This is the only bad thing about this printer.
Rating: 
Summary: This is a workgroup printer, not a personal printer.
Review: I haven't had any problems with this printer in the 2+ years I've been using it, but there are some things you need to know before you buy this printer. First, this is not a printer for personal use, it is intended for a workgroup of graphic designers. It's capable of printing pages that are over 17" wide, and it has high-end capabilities that only a professional would need (or even care about). And since most professional graphic designers use Macs, that might explain why the PC users are having all the problems. Because this is a pro-level printer, it's very important to read the instructions carefully. I had a hard time getting it to recognize paper sizes until I sat down and studied the manual, and since then it's worked perfectly. Lastly, this printer is huge. Turning it on takes 10 minutes, so we never turn it off. I gave it four stars instead of five, because we the printer is technically overkill for us, and trying to get the RIP software and color matching to work was too much trouble for us. Plus, it's pretty much outdated nowadays, especally with the Epson 2200 that's now available.
Rating:
Summary: This is a workgroup printer, not a personal printer.
Review: I haven't had any problems with this printer in the 2+ years I've been using it, but there are some things you need to know before you buy this printer. First, this is not a printer for personal use, it is intended for a workgroup of graphic designers. It's capable of printing pages that are over 17" wide, and it has high-end capabilities that only a professional would need (or even care about). And since most professional graphic designers use Macs, that might explain why the PC users are having all the problems. Because this is a pro-level printer, it's very important to read the instructions carefully. I had a hard time getting it to recognize paper sizes until I sat down and studied the manual, and since then it's worked perfectly. Lastly, this printer is huge. Turning it on takes 10 minutes, so we never turn it off. I gave it four stars instead of five, because we the printer is technically overkill for us, and trying to get the RIP software and color matching to work was too much trouble for us. Plus, it's pretty much outdated nowadays, especally with the Epson 2200 that's now available.
Rating: 
Summary: pros vs cons
Review: Pros:
- Inkjet cartriges are big and last a long time.
- Color is very nice just make sure you use good paper.
- Paper takes large sizes and different thickness. Cons:
- Not supported for Mac OS X!
- No background prining allowed (u can't do anything while printing!)
- Parallel port only means slow and need usb adapter with new mac.
- Has problem grabing paper which means u need to sit and watch it do each print. This is one of the worst problems.
- Error messages that u need to click ignore button. This gets old fast after 100 print out!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent print quality and cheap to run
Review: The 3000 does a couple of things that more recent (affordable) printers don't do. First, it prints up to 16" by 20" (actually, 17" x 22") - and Epson's paper is available and reasonably priced. The other is that it has large, independent ink reservoirs. Each colour is independently changeable, so you never get to dump useful ink. And the ink reservoirs are enormous - we've been printing photos and full-colour pages since Christmas '99 and the thing *still* has ink left seven months later; this in sharp contrast to our experiences with the 'consumer' printers, which need rather frequent ink refills. Don't be misled by the claims of 'long-life' inks on more recent printers; while the claims are true enough,you can buy ink and materials for the 3000 which give you archival quality prints (your choice: 15-20 years; or longer) along with the benefits of large image size and very low running costs. And yes, the prints are gorgeous (although 6-colour prints *are* a little better, you have to squint to tell)
Rating: 
Summary: Don't let anyone give you one for free
Review: This is quite possibly the worst printer ever made in all printer history. The color is horrible, it jams the paper every other print, slow as mollasses, impossible to service, and just generally looks bad. The roller-arms are spaced so that they never take its own specially priced paper straight into the feeder. Ink Cleanings usually last for two prints on most minimal print settings, then degrade into splotchy lined garbage. Makes the most horrible noises when printing and death rattles when jammed or confused. Don't let anyone give you one even for free. and for heavan's sake, don't actually spend money on one. I have two, one for parts, and the other for parts backup, as both are equally on their way to a trash heap in South America where orphan childern can beat the living daylights from its horrible plastic casing. If negative stars were available for review, this product would deserve them.
Rating:
Summary: Don't let anyone give you one for free
Review: This is quite possibly the worst printer ever made in all printer history. The color is horrible, it jams the paper every other print, slow as mollasses, impossible to service, and just generally looks bad. The roller-arms are spaced so that they never take its own specially priced paper straight into the feeder. Ink Cleanings usually last for two prints on most minimal print settings, then degrade into splotchy lined garbage. Makes the most horrible noises when printing and death rattles when jammed or confused. Don't let anyone give you one even for free. and for heavan's sake, don't actually spend money on one. I have two, one for parts, and the other for parts backup, as both are equally on their way to a trash heap in South America where orphan childern can beat the living daylights from its horrible plastic casing. If negative stars were available for review, this product would deserve them.
Rating:
Summary: Best on Market
Review: This printer delivers postscript quality color printing andlarge format too. The ink is pricey but the printer is not . . .The quality and functionality is so much better than Tektronix or the like and it only wieghs 20#s. On gloss paper the quality is better than a laser. It is not good to print 100s of b/w pages at a time in good quality though; too slow.
Rating:
Summary: WHAT ISN'T WRONG WITH THIS PRINTER?
Review: We've had a Epson 3000 for 3 years now and I can say that it is the worse printer I have ever had to deal with.
For starters the machine refuses to feed paper right the first time or the second sometimes it will go the third time (after you have let it cool down), the quality is ok, (when you can get it to work) it likes to print only postscript code on the [costly] paper the first couple of times out of course adding to the cost of comsumables. The printer also likes to miss feed paper a great deal we waste on an average 4 sheets per box ... you have to constantly babysit this thing! When we sent it in to be looked at the service personnel not only broke the door to the ink drawer and refused to fix it, but also kept it long enough to slam it out of warranty. We were stuck with it and there was nothing we can do about it. Just to be fair we tried the 9000 professional and got some of the same old same old, but this time the printer printed backwards, ganged layouts would'nt print right, color calibration was anything but consistant and trying to operate the rip software on the required PC was like trying to decipher Ancent Egyptian Sanskrit. Not for the faint of heart or anyone that is in a hurry, this printer really will cost you in time more than anything else. The time you waste trying to get it to operate properly.
Rating:
Summary: The Emperor's Clothes
Review: What has been glorified as a premium graphics printer -- isn't. This printer is old technology in a new box. And, I wound up having to BUY their latest RIP software ($158) to get it to run w/ Windows 2000. But worst of all was Epson's customer service. I had over 22 contacts w/ them in three months and, in the end, they were unwilling to take the machine back. During those three months, the printer's lack of performance was blamed on a variety of things. Me - "it's a complicated machine, you are probably are doing something wrong." The paper - "Epson only guarentees print quality on Epson paper." My software - "Your software may not be able to produce files that are good enough." I will NEVER buy another Epson printer, mostly because of what I have been through with their customer service.
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