Epson Stylus Photo RX500 All-in-One

Rating:
Summary: Great specs but buyer beware
Review: This all-in-one has some pretty impressive specs and for the advanced-amateur photographer looking for a way to print AND scan photos in a space saving unit, it's almost the way to go. Almost? This printer does not utilize Epson's Durabright inks but instead uses dye inks. Why is that an issue? Longetivty! I emailed Epson about this issue and this is what they said:
"The reason the RX500 does not use Durabrite inks is because it is a photo
printer. Durabrite printers are units that are assumed to be primarily
used for document printing. The ink used in the RX500 is Epson Photo Dye
based ink which provides a wider color gamut than Durabrite inks which are
pigment based.
While pigment based inks are very durable and provide lightfastness up to
80 years on selected paper types, Epson Photo dye inks provide a much
better advantage for those printing photographs. Epson Photo dye inks
provide light fastness up to 30 years on selected paper types as well as
six color printing for "unvisible" dots in photographs providing for
smoother gradations and a wider color gamut."
Hmmm... wider color gamut is a good thing but I want my prints to last a long time too. And is it just me or does anybody else out think that longevity in your typical office documents is overkill? I don't frame my memos for display and I doubt anybody else does either. It just doesn't make any sense!
Why am I ranting about this? Because if we consumers band together, maybe Epson will produce what we want. I would encourage you to write, call, and email Epson - maybe they will produce inks with better light fastness ratings for this multifunction printer. If that were the case, I would buy this unit in a heartbeat!

Rating:
Summary: Super All-In-One!
Review: This Epson all-in-one is great! It replaces an older scanner and separate printer. I do "low budget" digital photography and digital art. This machine will do my artwork as well as text documents.

Rating:
Summary: Poor text printing quality. Proprietary protocols
Review: This is a full featured product offering all sort of gadgets and is surely worth for people that prefer options over quality.
I bought this printer as a replacement for my HP all-in-one officjet R40, that I bought 6 years ago. Unfortunately I did not pay attention to the moderate ratings this printer got in tests when it comes to standard text printing (and this is something you will do often). Text printed with this machine looks like a somewhat better needle printer we had 10 years ago. If you use it under photo printing operation, it will use quite a lot of ink and will no way match up with the HP office jet. Also printing is fairly slow. I wonder how Epson can quote st like 10 pages per minute.
The software is not really mature yet. You only can install the software from the CD that comes with it and it will only allow you to install it onto the C drive. I had one computer in the network with a nearly full C drive but an empty D drive. This then is bad luck, because Epson support line is not willing to help you to solve issues.
Setting up the Epson onto a network using a D-Link USB print server seems to be impossible. The D-Link hotline thinks that Epson uses proprietary protocols and should help. The Epson hotline will not help. They argue that they sell wireless Epson print servers for st like 180$ and there would not be an interest in helping you on setting up their printer with other print serves.
Another point seems to be worth being mentioned. It took me someting like two days to get the printer working properly. By this time I have not printed color images yet. However, by just turning on and off the machine the color ink got used up by approximately 1/8th. This is quite strange.
The scanning option for slides and negatives is nice. However, it will not match up to what you will get from a real slide scanner. It is a gadget.
Given, that you will only be able to print with Epson paper or in the highest quality photo mode for getting moderate quality, I would assume, that this machine will cost quite a bit over the yeras and I would seriously think about buying this all-in-one. As for me, I will sell it.

Rating:
Summary: Great Photo Printer
Review: This is a great all in one for the price. The photos print crisp and clear color is exceptional for a low cost photo printer. Copy and scanner yields excellent results.
Only downside is limited support for Mac OS 10.3. Copy Utility does not launch but Epson promises an update soon.

Rating:
Summary: Great Stand Alone, Beware Software Problems
Review: This printer was a great stand alone product, but when I connected it to the PC, the software would not install. I worked on it for 2 days, called epson and they couldn't even figure it out. We even downloaded info off epson website. We did eveything but it would still not work with my PC, I have Windows XP. But overall I wished it would have by the pictures I printed off my camera's memory card. Great pictures. But I sent it back to Amazon.com and I am going to reorder another and try one more time to see if something was defective with the first one.