Rating: 
Summary: ink kills
Review: all the epson printers use the same ink.
It really is water proof and fade resistant. I have had it in sun for over a year, no problemo. Same thing happens in the printer.
Ink will eventually turn solid rendering the printer useless after about a year or so. Usually just after warranty period expires. Good luck. I only wish they could get this straight , but best thing is to just buy a new printer after the first set of cartridges you buy expire. SO buy printer, use until ink goes out and throw away entire printer, hopefully in the face of your local epson rep if you can find such an animal. Buy cheapest printer you can. more expensive models aren't any better, least not in inkjet land.
Buy a REAL camera, cheaper to BUY FILM and DEVELOP than pay for ink, and quality better. Better living through chemistry, NOT electronics.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy epsons
Review: I am extremely frustrated with Epson. Their printers stink. At least the Stylus Photo R300. Epson doesn't tell it's customers that the printer uses ink constantly. I mean constantly. I have printed the equivalent of four 8 x 11 sheets of photos in the year I have had the printer. In that time, the printer has used three sets of ink cartridges. At $15 X 6 cartridges = $90 to replace all the cartridges. Epson was nice enough to send me complementary cartridges while we were troubleshooting the problem, but I can't see keeping a printer around that uses up $180 a year if you print or not.
This is what Epson printers do. They have a reservoir that constantly needs to be filled. Whether the printer is left on or turned off at night, it constantly has to keep the reservoir filled. It's not sealed so the ink is always drying. Therefore the printer is constantly using ink. Case in point: during troubleshooting with the Epson technician, I placed brand new cartridges in the printer and kept the printer on for a month. Even though I had not printed a single color photo or graphic in the month, one quarter of the color ink was gone.
Now, one might think that they could just store the color cartridges and pull them out when needed. Not true. Their engineers are smart. The printer requires a cartridge in every slot. It can't be empty either. That way the printers are always using ink. It's great for their bottom line, but bad for the consumer.
I'm throwing my $300 Epson away. It's a real shame for the prints are great, but I can't see paying $20 for a 4 X 6 print. I'm going back to my $35 Lexmark.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice Features, Cheap Printer, Beware the killer INK!!!
Review: I bought the Epson R200 for use with my Powerbook G4. Having said that, it works fine with my Mac, and no further reference will be made to my OS so PC readers may continue aswell.
PROS:
- The CD/DVD tray works fine, as long as you read the directions and keep the top open. The printing quality on the CD or DVD is great. I've noticed no loss of quality between a CD and a piece of paper.
- Front connecting USB outlet makes it easy to connect it to a computer
- Ease of operation
CONS:
- The ink does seem to waste slightly. I've notice a little pool of ink soaked up by some white pad in my printer, which makes me a little woosy, seeing as ink's 20 bucks a pop or more or something, and this is after printing one CD.
- I had to manually line up or adjust the center of printing so the disc would be printed on center. This took me quite a while, and if anyone else is wondering, I'd adjust it only by .1, .2, .3 mm and so on, NOT a full mm.
- (comment on inkjet cd printers, not soley the R200) The printed disc must dry for 24 hours, but even then, dense black ink is easily smeared by a rub of the thumb. The discs can also, obviously, not get wet, like Gremlins, otherwise the ink runs. Expensive lamination devises are made, but I've found none for cheap, which kind of defeats the purpose.
- The text seems blurry. This is common w/ inkjet printers, and was also the first thing I printed so it could also be a one-time thing. Also this problem is minor. If you're that worried about sharp text, buy a laserprinter.
OVERALL: This printer prints great on CD's and DVD's and the software packaged with it (Epson CD Print) is pretty good, only limited by not allowing you to rotate text. However, GraphicsConverter, available online for free trial, offers great manipulation and editing of images and text rotation. The Epson CD Print works great for me otherwise, and I am very harsh on this kind of stuff. I like freedom and the ability to design very technical images and prints. It's nothing expensive and professional, but it's not at all a bad or limited package for home use, and I've created labels that look just as good as real screenprinted CD's and DVD's... Also, the printer comes with a photo editing program which is decent, although I still use graphics converter for most things.
This printer is definately for those who want to print brilliant photo-images on discs, as well as text on paper. Ink smudging is to be expected slightly. And the only thing to rival inkjet CD printing would be thermal printing which is expensive, difficult, and far away in detail, or HP's new LightScribe technology which is currently monochrome, so don't expect any colorful images. I recomend this printer. Good quality, cheap price, easy to use for those who read directions, and good software packaged. I recomend a cheap warrenty too.
Rating: 
Summary: Great printing, but wastes ink!
Review: I bought this printer as a dual purpose text & photo machine. The print quality has been outstanding, but the printer goes through ink at an absurd rate. Seems that any time I use it to print text, it still runs a test/purge cycle on all the cartridges, depleting the color tanks even though all you're printing is text. With the cost of ink, I'd probably be better off in the long run with a small laser printer for text, and leave the inkjet for photos only.
I find the CD printing feature great. I haven't had any issues with smearing, as long as the disks stay dry. Get them wet, or touch them with damp fingers and then you'll have smearing problems. I just handle them carefully and everything is fine, it's a worthwhile tradeoff to not deal with disk labels.
Rating: 
Summary: Awesome
Review: I bought this printer specifically to print my wedding favors, personalized CD's. I was simply amazed with the quality of the prints that the printer had on a CD! I printed over 100 CD's and I still have over half a tank left of all the inks. I can't complain about printing that much and still having ink left, I'm not sure what other people expect from thier printers, but I thought that was amazing, esp. since most of what I printed was black, not just text.
I highly recommend this printer, especially for the price. and the print quality for photo's on photo paper was also excellent, and fast!
Rating:
Summary: Inexpensive brother of R300
Review: I don't own this, but I'm ordering it today. It has exactly the same print engine and software as the R300 that's almost twice the price - I checked the specs at Epson. If you don't need the card readers or pictbridge, buy this instead. On the Canon printers you have to go to the i960 also close to twice the price to find a six color printer. Read Steve's digicams reviews of the R300 if you want to know how well this prints. The best buy out there. The inks alone are worth $70.
Rating:
Summary: Buy This Product! It's Amazing!
Review: I needed to purchase a color inkjet printer for photo printing. I have been a die hard HP fan for years (my HP LaserJet 4L is still my workhorse for B&W). My photographer recommended Epson for quality and multiple ink cartridges and I also read the online reviews. This printer had 5 star reviews because of quality and ease of installation, so I purchased it. The installation was truly a snap (and not intrusive like users complained about HP's installation) and literally took about 2 minutes. The photo quality of the pictures are out of this world. I bought Epson photo paper in bulk at Costco ($20 for 120 sheets) to insure good results. Yes, after printing out about 100 8x10 full color, best quality images, I have to go and buy a Yellow Toner Cartridge, but what can you do? A photo lab here in L.A. wanted to charge me $2 per 4x6 print! I have had to play with calibrating my color management with Photoshop to match what's onscreen with what prints out, but that's a Photoshop issue and not an issue with the printer. Just read your Photoshop manual or get a Visual Quickstart Guide for Photoshop. This printer is quiet, compacts nicely (when not in use) on my jam packed desktop and installation and the quality of prints is amazing! I cannot recommend this printer enough!
Rating:
Summary: Buy This Product! It's Amazing!
Review: I needed to purchase a color inkjet printer for photo printing. I have been a die hard HP fan for years (my HP LaserJet 4L is still my workhorse for B&W). My photographer recommended Epson for quality and multiple ink cartridges and I also read the online reviews. This printer had 5 star reviews because of quality and ease of installation, so I purchased it. The installation was truly a snap (and not intrusive like users complained about HP's installation) and literally took about 2 minutes. The photo quality of the pictures are out of this world. I bought Epson photo paper in bulk at Costco ($20 for 120 sheets) to insure good results. Yes, after printing out about 100 8x10 full color, best quality images, I have to go and buy a Yellow Toner Cartridge, but what can you do? A photo lab here in L.A. wanted to charge me $2 per 4x6 print! I have had to play with calibrating my color management with Photoshop to match what's onscreen with what prints out, but that's a Photoshop issue and not an issue with the printer. Just read your Photoshop manual or get a Visual Quickstart Guide for Photoshop. This printer is quiet, compacts nicely (when not in use) on my jam packed desktop and installation and the quality of prints is amazing! I cannot recommend this printer enough!
Rating:
Summary: Not Good for printing on DVD's
Review: I purchased this printer based on some of the previous recomendations in order to print titles directly on CD and DVD's.
The only problem is that after printing on the disk the ink smudges - badly. Even after allowing 30 minutes to dry. It's basically an unuseable feature for this printer.
Otherwise it seems to be a decent color printer.
Rating:
Summary: Great Deal
Review: I was was all set to buy a Canon (probably the i560) when I discovered this beauty. Decent speed, 6 individual ink tanks, cd/dvd printing... How could I say no? I've been using it for a week with no problems, and as someone who always feels a tinge of buyers remorse, I have none with this printer. My only question is how quickly the black tank may run out, but hopefully i won't find out for a while.
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