Great for printing both photos and text-based documents, Epson's Stylus C64 is affordable, fast, and engineered for quality. With Epson's water-resistant, light-resistant, and smudge-resistant DURABrite inks and 177 nozzles (monochrome plus color), the C64 can print black text at 17 pages per minute, color sheets at 9 ppm, and 8-by-10-inch color photos in under five minutes each. The printer's 5,760 optimized dpi ensures photo-quality clarity and detail for your bordered or borderless pictures, text, or graphics. Of course, higher-quality settings result in longer print times.
For photos, DURABrite photo paper gives amazing prints with vibrant color, fine detail in highlight and dark areas and smooth graduations. For everyday printing, you can enjoy the same exceptional quality on plain or recycled papers. Due to the special nature of Epson DURABrite inks, you can print on both sides of the paper without fear of leak-through or page wrinkle, and you can handle prints as soon as they're printed. Epson's Variable-sized Droplet Technology produces and controls ink-droplet size (with a 4-picoliter minimum) to maximize both quality and print speed.
The C64 supports several paper types, including plain paper, premium semi-gloss, and DURABrite photo paper, as well as large-format sizes up to 10 by 15 inches. Convenient individual ink cartridges make ink replacement simple and cost-effective, and USB connectivity facilitates quick setups on both Windows and Macintosh computers. Included Photo Quicker v3.4 software simplifies photo editing and print management, and the C64 is backed with a one-year warranty that includes the Epson exchange program.
What's in the Box
Printer; black, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink cartridges; paper support; left edge guide; output tray; output tray extension; printer cover; power cord; driver CD-ROM; USB cable not included
1 A one-star rating is unspeakably generous.
I am honestly surprised that I even have time to write this review, considering the fact that my every waking second is spent fixing the paper jams created by this worthless, soul-destroying printer. Not a single print job is completed without at least two noisy, snarly, monumentally infuriating paper jams. This printer basically just sits there, rips up paper, guzzles through insanely pricey low quality ink, and makes my life a waking nightmare. Needless to say, the paper jams aren't the only problem. Ink cartridges will last you approximately 10.5 seconds, and I have easily spent five times the price of the printer in replacement cartridges and I've only owned the thing for THREE MONTHS. Epson, you have some serious freaking explaining to do. I have no idea if your other products are equally horrific, but I am content with the knowledge that I will never find out. I wouldn't buy another Epson product if it were the only thing standing between me and a slow, painful, early death.
2 Unreliable and Expensive
I bought this printer 8 months ago. It worked well for the first few prints. After that, I used up about 80% of my first cartridge cleaning the print heads, which never seemed to work very well. Each head cleaning seems to use up about 5% of the ink in the cartridges. After the black cartridge ran out I spent $22 on a new one from Amazon, only to discover the printer had stopped printing entirely after installing it. I will never buy another Epson product after owning this.
3 Label Hell
This printer seems to be incapable of printing labels (however I do accept that it may be possible that I have a faulty unit). The Label begins to feed, then the printer dog ears the corner and pulls the label off the backing and jams itself to death. This is using A4 Avery labels which have on other printers seemed infallible.
It is a real shame as it can perform well if you only need to print a few photo's.
Beware being tempted by the price of this unit, you may be better stepping up to a higher modem Epson.
4 Cheap to buy, expensive to own
The ink will kill you, especially the black. Generic ink? Forget it. It clogs the nozzles and you'll waste more than you will use cleaning the nozzles. This thing does give a good print-out, but it's not worth the high price of ownership. I had an 880 and loved it. I hate this.
5 Cheap printer, expensive non-fading ink.
This little printer was no trouble to set up and start using. It's a bit slow. Even just a black & white page takes quite a while. A full-color photo takes a couple minutes. The "draft" mode comes out verrrrry faint, but is really fast, and obviously uses a lot less ink (an important point, as you will see).
This printer uses a special type of ink, called "Durabrite", which is MUCH longer-lasting than normal inkjet ink. (It's a pigment-based ink rather than a dye-based ink.) Your printouts will not fade away like a normal cheap inkjet's will. The downside to this super-duper ink is that the ink is darned expensive. The good news is that the four colors are separate cartridges, so at least you only have to replace the one color you've run out of. The black ink, however, is the MOST expensive inkjet cartridge you'll see in the store. It's about twice the price of a normal black cartridge. Yes, your printouts will last some 70 years on plain paper, instead of vanishing within 2 years like the cheapo inkjets do. Three of those $25 black cartridges later, and you've just spent more on ink than the printer itself!
Strangely, the other color cartridges (cyan, magenta, and yellow) are only half the price of the black cartridge. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Too bad the black is the one you'll be buying most often.
I should point out that this printer will try to con you into replacing the ink cartridges long before they actually run dry (it gives you all sorts of dire warnings about low ink levels). Don't fall for it. It will actually STOP printing when it's truly run dry, so just keep printing until it stops, and only then replace the cartridge that's empty.
So, should you get this printer? It depends on what you'll be using it for. If you want a cheap printer for making quick printouts that you'll be tossing in the trash within a couple years, get a different printer. If you want printouts that will still be legible 50 years from now, get this one. If you're an artist or photographer and want to make decent prints of your art that won't fade too quickly, this is a good starter printer for you.
6 Great Printer, But Ink Eater
The printer itself is a great product, especially for the price. The print-outs are of excellent quality and it prints fairly fast. However, it goes through ink SO FAST! I don't use it extremely often and I go through one black cartridge every month and a half.
7 Slated too badly
I have read quite a few bad reviews for this printer, but I bought one after it being reccomended to me at my local office suppliers. I think its a nice little printer for a good price. As for the ink cartridges, Epson are the cheapest printers to run, as at a computer fare or online, you can pick up a set of 4 replacement cartridges for about ?10-?15.
8 Decent color printer
I purchased this printer specifically for color printing, since I have a trusty 11-year-old Panasonic KX-P4110 laser printer for my regular printing. I use my Epson printer just for making fancy cards, colored labels, business cards, and color letterhead stationery. I've found that the quality of printing is leagues ahead of my old color printer, a 6-year-old Bubblejet. The cards that I've made with the Epson have a very sharp appearance, and they are much less susceptible to water and moisture damage than the prints from the Bubblejet.
On the other hand, the ink cartridges seem to last even less time than the Bubblejet cartridges, and they are quite expensive to replace. I would never even consider printing a simple black-and-white job on the Epson- -I route all black-and-white jobs to the laser printer for fast and cheap copies. And when I design my cards, I find myself thinking about ink usage as a primary factor in the design, which limits my creativity somewhat, but helps my budget. After lofty plans for cards with retouched photos and fancy borders, I usually end up going with simple line-drawings and no borders. And the text for the cards has to be in color because the black ink seems to disappear so quickly. When I write a letter on my company letterhead, I first print the letter text on my laser printer without the letterhead logo. Then I put the already completed letter into the Epson to add the colored logo. Using the two printers in tandem for a single document is time consuming, but the ink savings make it worthwhile and necessary. In short, this printer will most likely satisfy your occasional color printing needs, but when you use it, you will constantly be thinking of your ink.
9 Epson's cheap printers kill you on toners and paper.
They have a trojan horse business model. You get a printer for practically nothing, but it runs out of ink after less than 50 prints and they charge an arm&leg for toner. For example, I bought a color ink cartridge 2 months ago. I made 8 high-quality color prints for school on epson inkjet photo paper. Today, I made 3 color prints on epson heavy matte paper. The 25$ toner is now half full. The paper works out to about 30 cents a sheet, meaning I paid Epson about $1.40 per print in the last two months. Can you imagine how much it would cost to stock a photo album of your last vacation trip? Half of my prints were re-prints because the printer colors look -nothing- like what they do onscreen. The bottom line is, if you're going to buy a low-end inkjet printer, do the research and find out how much you're going to be spending per high-color print. Don't believe the manufacturer's claims! Check out third-party websites for details on exactly how fast these printers run out of ink.
10 Excellent photo quality, text so-so
This is a versatile little printer for the home. It produces excellent photo quality (you don't have to use "best" setting to get it , either). The Durabright inks are indeed water resistant, but very expensive. On the plus side, the cartridges seem to last a long time. But it is expensive to fill this thing with ink, almost as much as what the thing costs. I'm not impressed with the text quality. It looks very jagged. I bought it primarily for text, so it is a disapointment. At this price, the machine has to be considered as disposable as the ink cartridges. Buy it, use it until it dies, buy another, fill up the landfills. Epson seems to come out with a new model (and new ways to sell more expensive cartridges) every month.
I had an Epson 880 before this unit, and it produced equal results on photos, better results on text, with ink costs much lower. Epson is clearly interested in making its money on the ink. The 880 died after two years (started producing blurry text on certain WP programs), and so it's been retired to the Internet computer, where it still does a superior job to this guy.
Overall the C64 is a cheap, decent printer that will cost you its weight in ink.
