Epson Stylus C84 Inkjet Printer

Designed for versatile printing of both photos and text-based documents, Epson's Stylus C84 is stylish and fast and packed with user-friendly features. With Epson's water-resistant, light-resistant, and smudge-resistant DURABrite inks and 357-nozzle design (monochrome plus color), the C84 can print an 8-by-10-inch color photo in less than two and a half minutes (in Photo mode). The printer's 5,760 x 1,440 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.

The C84 supports a variety of paper types, including glossy, semigloss, double-sided matte, and inkjet transparencies, as well as large-format sizes up to 8.5 by 44 inches. For photos, DURABrite photo paper gives amazing prints with vibrant color, fine detail in high light 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 the prints as soon as they're printed.

Convenient individual ink cartridges make ink replacement simple and cost-effective, and USB and parallel connectivity facilitates quick setups on both Windows and Macintosh computers. The C84 is backed with a one-year warranty that includes the Epson exchange program.

What's in the Box
Epson Stylus C84 ink jet printer, one cyan ink cartridge (T044220), one magenta ink cartridge (T044320), one yellow ink cartridge (T044420), one black ink cartridge (T043120), and printer documentation

The Epson Stylus C84 has been designed to meet all the print needs of home, home office, and small office users, where the most commonly used media is plain or recycled paper. The Epson's second generation DURABrite inks, which continue to provide resistance to water, are smudge proof, and fade resistant for up to 80 years. The ink offers laser sharp text and vibrant color reproduction on plain paper, resulting in the Stylus C84 becoming an all-round document and photo printing solution.The EPSON Stylus C84 has been designed for the small and home office where running costs are very important; the printer has separate ink cartridges, and the user has the choice to use standard or high capacity ink cartridges. As well as the new DURABrite inks resulting in better print quality, especially when printing photographs, other photographic features include the ability to print border-free prints up to A4.

1 Don't Do It
This printer lasted just over one year before all of the print heads clogged. Naturally, the warranty had just expired. I won't ever buy an Epson again. Quality has declined rapidly in recent years. Buyers beware of the new C86 printer as well. Same basic printer. Same basic problems.

2 An Early Death
Went through a set of cartridges. I replaced them and bought another set. Unit died as soon as it was too late to return that unused ink to the store - it worked less than a year.
No Epson, no more, no way!

3 Too bad I could not use 0 to rate this item!
I was sold on the Epson Stylus C84 while shopping for a printer. The other Epson I had for 1 year broke down. I also had to keep in mincd what would be compatable for my pc (another issue!). I do alot of print archieving and wanted quality prints. This seemed to be the most logical solution for it's price and ability. It also had a double black catridge to last longer than the slim ones, I was told. Like one of the reviewers here wrote, you cannot use the black only when printing.

It does take aproximately 6 months before "the curse" takes place. Ink not evenly flowing and clogging up the printer with no way to clean and fix it. It becomes tempermental and prints when It wants to print! But most importantly, it costs approximately $60 to replace the ink every 4-6 weeks! It would be cheaper to buy an Epson printer every time the ink ran out instead of replacing the ink! And by the way the Epson printers work, you would also be better off!

Not sure which printer I will buy next, but Epson lost it's chance. The company could send me one for free and I would return it.

4 I would rather burn my money than use it to buy this printer
I bought this printer because i wasn't looking for extremely high quality, i just wanted something to print out the occasional color print and mostly black ink spreadsheets and documents. it turns out that when one color ink runs out, YOU CAN'T EVEN PRINT IN BLACK INK ONLY!!!!!! Why should i have to spend money on color ink i am not going to use just so i can print stuff in black ink??????????

5 Epson C-84 stylus printer
I was very pleased with the quality and performance with this printer. I've had it about 8 months now and it won't work at all. I put all new cartridges in and ran out all the ink trying to unclog the print head. How do they get the ink to come out during the cleaning process but not on the paper when trying to print something. Epson has poor tech support that they try to charge you for. This printer is a waste of money! Don't buy! Trust me, don't buy an Epson C-84.

6 DO NOT BUY THIS OR SIMILAR EPSON PRINTERS
This is the second one of Epson's printers that I have had in less than two years. They will work fine and print very well for some period of time, but then, unexpectedly will stop printing in some or all of the colors. I had a C82 and then I bought this printer to replace that one that stopped working one week after the warranty was up. This one stopped working after 7 months. If it had been the one printer "breaking" I would have just thought it was a bad example, but two in a short period of time leads me to believe that there is a faulty design in their printheads that allows the ink to dry up in the printhead stopping the printer from printing. I have called every number at Epson trying to get them to just give me my money back and letting them know how bad their products are, but all I can get them to do is send me a new printer. I made sure and let them know that I thought that the new one that they send me is going to be faulty as well. And the warranty on that one will only be from the original purchase date of the broken one...what a terrible deal. Now I am stuck with a printer that I know is going to stop working again within some period of time probably after the warranty is expired. The tech support guy also had me run enough cleaning cycles on the printer to run down all of my ink tanks...so now I will have to buy four ink tanks as well.

BOTTOM LINE: DO NOT BUY AN EPSON PRINTER

7 Great while it lasted...but not for very long
This printer went on the fritz exactly one week after the warranty expired! I see from the review below that this has happened to other customers as well. We were very pleased with the printer while it was working, although it does eat up ink cartridges quickly. After one year of mild use (printing once a week or so) now it doesn't print any black ink. It would probably cost more to fix the printer than it did to buy it, so I think it's time to look for a new printer, and I don't think I'll be buying an Epson next time!

8 Stay away from C84
This seemed like a good value when I bought it. And it worked fine- at least for a while. But after 13 months of very limited use, it konked out-- yes, that's one month after warranty ended. And Epson wanted $10 just to talk to me. Skip it-- my Canons and HP's have held up better. Forsyte.

9 Don't Waste Your Money
I normally don't like to write negative reviews... but feel customers should be warned about this printer.

Purchased this printer in late September. By early October it would occasionally misfeed. Tonight the problem was so bad that the printer was pretty much useless for printing several pages of lecture notes for class.

Don't fall victim to the craze to buy cheap printers. You'll pay ridiculous prices for ink and will have a printer that won't last.

Case in point, my Hewlett Packard DeskJet 500, bought new 15 years ago, still works. I will be connecting it back to my computer after I finish this review and disconnect the Epson.

The software for the Epson is not well designed, and the printer goes through ink like there's no tomorrow. One jam may damage the internals so badly that it eventually stops working correctly, as in my case. Printers should accept jams and be resilient enough to keep on working once the jam is cleared.

Spend a little more for a quality printer that will last. While not totally out of the "cheap" pricing realm, the Canon I900D that I bought my wife at the same time I bought this printer has very nice software, prints far better quality text and pictures, and has not had one problem.

10 Bought two-both died!
I loved these printers at first. But like so many others the printheads jammed. One lasted a little over a year, the other ten months. I am getting the replacement for the one in warranty but not the other. How many loyal customers have they lost with this little number. They need to just give you credit on a better printer, but why would they? We just keep making money for them by buying cartridges and running cleaning cycles. Don't buy this printer!

11 Excellent photos, crisp text
Photos - In the past, I used the Ophoto service to print digital photos - but not anymore. Ofoto did a good job, but this printer is just as good, or maybe better. No one can believe my photos don't come from film developed at a photo shop. I've printed 8x10s on this printer that look better than 35mm enlargements. (I use a Sony cyber shot 5 megapixel camera, which I also highly recommend) You must use the right paper (glossy photo paper) for quality photo prints. You can use regular paper to run off disposable type images (for the kids school projects etc..). When you use regular paper the images are still crisp, but they tend to fade in a few weeks

Text - I also have an HP laser printer. The text from the Epson is just as crisp.

There is a BIG drawback to this printer - the INK. The printer doesn't work at all when one color runs out. When the low ink (red) light comes on, you should check to see which color is running low. You can replace just the color that runs out, which is nice. But replacing all of the ink is more expensive than the printer! I paid $60 for the printer [...] and I just bought new ink for about $75! I only needed one color, but I figured I should buy them all at one time since 2 other colors were running low.

Overall, this is a great printer - but the ink is so expensive you need to watch that the kids don't "waste" it.

12 Replace the printer not the ink
So I have been using epson printers for several years now. I agree that the Epson Philosophy appears to be sell the printer at a minimum profit, and clean up on the ink sales. I do not do a great deal of printing. Maybe a half dozen photos a year, and occaisional text printing. For the price I am happy with the performance of both. As to the ink, I have found a solution that works for me. Ink lasts me 9 months to a year, and you are usually looking at 50-60 dollars to refill with Epson ink. When my last 2 printers have run out of ink, I find a newer model for sale re-furbished for usually about 40-50 dollars. I buy the re-furb which comes with new ink cartridges. I now get the benefit of newer technology, and new ink cartridges for the price of new ink. I can also sell the old printer for a couple bucks to help offset the cost. It helps combat the Epson ink price bite.

13 Bad luck??...
I received a C84 as a warranty replacement for my C82...which was also junk. The C82 worked fine for a little under a year. After spending more than it was worth on ink cartridges to clear a plugged head, Epson sent me one of the C84's. Immediately after setting it up and printing a test page, the paper started jamming. Epson tech support shipped yet another replacement. Printer #3 refuses to recognize two of the Epson supplied ink cartridges. Trying cartridges left from printer #2 proved the same issue. Tech supports response...send me two more cartridges. If this does not work, they will send me printer #4. Today, my cartridges arrived. I opened the package and found one, and one on backorder. I tried the one...same issue.

During a season when printing family photos is essential, I have spent this one tearing my desk apart replacing printers, and repackaging/returning them.

My review?? The Epson C84 is cheap junk just as it's predecesor, the C82. Tech support is awful. They blindly follow a script and are not allowed to use their own intelligence to make a good decision. Buy at your own risk.

I will not be requesting printer #4. I have dealt with tech support far too much on their product already. I will be shopping with their competitors.

14 Ink Costs are way too HIGH
This is a horrible buy! I have had this printer for less than a year and I have had to replace the ink cartridges monthly. If I do not get the double black cartridge, I have to replace the black cartridge every couple weeks. I do not do a lot of printing and I have yet to use it for photos. The cartridges run between $25 and $32 each and there are 4 different cartridges. I am going back to the HP, it may cost a little more on the start but the savings in ink are going to be worth it!!

15 Great Printer for the money spent,
I bought this printer almost a year ago, it seemed great until now. When used properly it prints amazing photos on the Epson premium glossy photo paper. No one could tell I printed the images, everyone thought they were developed. Recently the photos became bad with line spaces. May be it is the generic print cartridges that might be ruining it don't know. After clearing the heads still get horizontal line spaces. Or it is running low on ink. Seems to be a pretty good printer for all other printing documents, no lines there(after one year).

16 ink coast is not the only problem
I have bought this printer about three years ago. It worked great on any photo paper I purchased. Just this passed summer they must of changed the ink, because I was getting cracked paint effect on the photos. I called Epson to find out that You can only use dura bright photo paper and nothing else. so the ink is not only costly, the paper is to. The quality is very good if not better.

17 This printer generally sucks
I got this printer a few months ago to replace an HP Deskjet 880C. I got this one because it had a rebate that made it well-priced. It was fine for a while. Not good. Just ok. Printing was ok. It's not very fast. It takes a few seconds (sometimes about 20) before it starts printing and it makes some noises while "getting ready". Once it starts printing it is usually fast. But the total time it takes from pressing the print button to getting the page does not impress me.
Well, today I was not impressed at all. I bought 4 new ink cartridges. They are quite expensive. After I replaced the cartridges, the printer wouldn't print. After doing some online reading, it seems I have, like many other people, a clogged printhead. I've run the printer through multiple cleaning cycles
but it does not improve. I just spent a few hours and 65 bucks to turn up with a dead printer!!!
My HP Deskjet 880C worked fine for years. The ink cost less. It printed as good as this "supposedly higher resolution" printer. It was quieter and faster.
Well, that's my last Epson. My next printer will be an HP or Canon. My Lexmark experience was just as bad as my Epson experience.

18 Good If you want a short-term printer
Buy this printer if you are looking for something cheap to use for one - two years. I had mine for 2 years and after 1 yr it stopped working properly as soon as my warranty expired. This printer got minimal usage from me as well. It was cheaper for me to buy a new one than get it repaired. I am shocked that Epson would create such a poorly engineered product as I have used Epson Color printers at work and they always had good quality.

My printer said it did photo quality color, but it was always pixilated.

The ink cartridges were not cheap either and were hard to find.

19 A great printer!
I owned an Epson C-80 printer. I used it for a bit over two years and started having minor problems. I could keep it going, but I had to clean it too often. Also, I was going to have to buy ink cartridges soon. Finding it would cost me $80 if I were to try to have it fixed professionally, and considering the cost of the ink cartridges I needed, I decided to buy another printer. What did I buy? An Epson C-82. Why? I got the new printer for $49 because it was on special, and it contained $65 worth of ink. And I bought the same series Epson again because I like the quality of the pictures so much. I delight in running off pictures and sending to my family and friends, so I use it a great deal. I go through a lot of ink and photo paper, but it is worth every cent. I haven't seen another printer that I would take over my Epson. I believe my first one might have been a bit of a lemon, but not lemon enough to cause me to switch. If I needed another printer now, I would buy the Epson C-84. No question about it. And for that guy who uses generic ink, that's his problem. I buy my Epson cartridges, all four of them, for $48 at Sam's. I don't think the generic can be all that much cheaper.

20 Pretty Good Product So Far
Granted, I have only had the EPSON Stylus C84 for about a month. But so far, the printer seems to work okay. The item was graciously provided by my employer, so I did not have much choice as to which printer I could use.

Considering the price of under $60.00, the printer seems to be a good bargain for the money. The print quality and speed seems to be fine. The only complaint I have is that the printer takes a while to set itself up for printing once you plug it in. This has taken some getting used to since other printers I have owned had quicker setup times.

As indicated by other reviewers, the ink cartridge replacement can be pretty costly. Due to the short time I've had the printer, I have not encountered this situation. Therefore, I am not in a position to judge the cost and how long the cartridges last compared to other printers.

All in all, the printer seems to be a good product for the short time I have had it. Only time will tell whether my current review will stay the same.

21 Decent Low-End Printer - Nice Photo Prints
This printer came free with my PowerBook, so even if I got a penny worth of value out of it, I got more than I paid for. Indeed I did. This is a good little printer.

Having owned products from HP and Canon, I've always been curious about Epson. My preconception about HP printers has come to be that they are reliable and fast, but don't print the most brilliant images unless you pay quite a bit. My preconception about Canon printers has come to be that while they print beautiful images, they are slow and not the most reliable. Surely things have changed since purchasing my HP and Cannon printers, but this Epson seems to split the difference. So far, it has been as reliable as any HP I've owned, though not as fast. It has proven more reliable and faster than my Canon while printing images that seem to be just as good. As an aside, I get better photo printing results using HammerMill Jet PrintPhoto than with Epson's own expensive DURABrite photo paper. Unlike either the Canon or any of my HPs, the C84 will also print borderless photos in 8x10 and 4x6 sizes - a pus.

In terms of ink usage, it seems to be right on par with any of my HPs. The Canon seemed to burn through ink like crazy when it wasn't allowing it to leak out all over my desk. I do like that it has independent color cartridges as I always hate replacing the relatively expensive HP color cartridges knowing that, more often than not, all of the colors haven't been exhausted. For me, individual color ink cartridges were one of the selling points of the Canon. Unlike the Canon, the Epson seems to be retaining the ink in its cartridges instead of dumping it onto my desk. I found that I can buy a multi-pack of all four ink cartridges for about the price of just one black ink cartridge for my HPs. Just replace each individual cartridge as required - no waste.

For something that I got without having to go through the trouble deciding to spend my money on it (researching competing models), this printer has impressed me as being a reasonable deal.

22 Great until replacing cartridges
The first moment after putting in the generic ink cartridge there was a message from the epson driver that the printout might be "different' by not using genuine epson. Correct: the printouts became terrible, smearing, etc.

I have used generic ink before, no problems.

I just replaced the black ink again and this time also replaced the color ink carts. Of course I cleaned the heads several times and checked the alignment.

This time the generic black ink prints perfectly, but the colors are almost non-existent. Hmm, I'm gonna buy some more generic color and maybe the second round will work.

23 Graphicdesignstudent
This computer is a good deal,for doing the minimal stuff like priniting some from the internet ,spreadsheets,etc. If you want to see great pictures get a laser printer duh !!!or print them at a photography studio. How do you expect an ink jet printer to do that. My Ink lasted 4 monthes and proubly would off laster longer but i printed some graphics, so of course that took ink. its a good printer for you're home computer, nothing big like pictures.

24 Not a good deal
Don't be fooled by the price... this printer has given me nothing but fits. I'm an MCSE, so I'm used to dealing with software problems, but I've never encountered an ink jet printer this unreliable. Paper feed doesn't work 1/2 the time, and once it *thinks* the cartridges are out of ink, good luck on printing anything.

Aside from that, take a look at the cartridge prices (if you can find them). $35 for a black, $13 for each of the 3 colors. R-I-P O-F-F. We don't print very often (maybe a couple pages twice a month), and we ran out of ink in 6 months. The only photo printing we did was 3 4x6 prints on the trial paper that came with the printer. I had an HP 855C for close to a decade, and I remember changing the ink maybe 3 times.

I strongly urge you to find something else. Do not waste your time or money on this product.

25 Concern with reliability and ink
I agree with the other reviews concerning unit reliability and cost of ink. When the printer is working the quality of the output it good. After 10 months ownership, the unit stopped working properly. I called up Epson and they sent me a refurbished unit free of charge. However the replacement unit did not print at all. I call them back and they sent a second refurbished unit. This one did not work out of the box either---the printer head would not move. So I called them back third time and they are now sending a new unit. In short I have considerable concerns about reliability. In addition, I find the cost of the ink very high and agree with the comment around the high use of ink when attempting to clean the heads. I do not plan to buy an Epson again after this experience.

26 Good for a while
Beware of Epson printers! They get good magazine reviews and that's not surprising -- they are a nice compromise between fast, quality text printing and photo printing. They're not the best at either task but they do a decent job of both, and you can't beat the price. They're decent printers for as long as they last, which isn't very long.

Unfortunately, you are unlikely to ever learn this from a magazine review where they have them for at most a few weeks. I've had two Epson printers in this series die on me (C80, and C82) in the last 2 years and have encountered serious issues with both printers after 4-5 months of light to moderate use. My C84 just kicked the bucket too.

I've had the same issues that everyone else has with the printheads getting clogged and it taking many, many 'cleaning' passes before the printer works again. Each time this happens it burns about $20 worth of ink to fix it -- a very, very frustrating experience. I was startled to learn just how common this is. (I had several friends comment, "Oh, you too?" when I griped about the printer).

(Note, you can improve things somewhat by always remembering to turn the printer off when you're not using it, but it's a band-aid, not a solution. Epson has serious issues with their print heads clogging).

I called Epson today when my printer died and they wanted $10 to talk to me about it since it's now out of warranty.

I can't stand it anymore. Goodbye, Epson, hello HP.

27 1 star cuz it only worked thru one set of ink cartridges!!
I purchased this in Feb 03 and it worked fine and the print quality was great. Ink ran out and I replaced. I noticed the one of the nozzles was clogged and so i run the nozzle check, which I believe run a small amount of ink thru to unclog. Long story short, just when it looked to be getting unclogged, I run out of ink!!!! I whipped thru the ink in less than 2 hours of nozzle checking! I looked online as well and it seems I'm not the only one that had nozzle problems. I've tossed this guy in the trash and purchased an HP 7550. It's older technology but at least it's proven and the reviews are good on amazon and CNET.

28 Ink Eater!
We have had this printer for about 6 months and although the print quality is good it drinks ink at an alarming rate. It is also substantially slower than the specs would indicate. This is in large part due to the draft quality of the output being almost unusable. Perhaps I was spoiled with the HP Deskjet who's draft output was sufficient for 99% of our needs.

So far we have gone through about 6 reams of paper and 2 sets of ink. At an average of 30 dollars a cartridge we should easily exceed the cost of the printer in the first 9 months.

29 great value
I've had this printer for over a year now. I'm a full time college student, so I print a fair amount of text, and a few photos. It's held up well long term, and I've had absolutley NO problems with it at all. That's abnormal enough :) Also, I work in an office supply store that sells this printer, and it seems to get generally good feedback from the customers I deal with.
I will say that for this price class, this printer is excellent. My only complaint is that it takes a while to warm up. After that,it prints fast, and it prints well. The photos off of this thing are amazingly good for an 80 dollar, textcentric printer; I've used them in presentations and projects. They're nearly photo quality.
The text is sharp, clear, and readable. Printing rates, with text are good, with the photos, it's a little slow but not much. If you print mostly text (and a fair amount of it) with occasional photos, this is a great buy.

30 New and Improved. . .
What I thought was the best printer on the market for high-volume, home use was last year?s Epson C82. When Epson released this model, the third in the C80 series, I was amazed. The Durabrite Ink that Epson has boasted in these units has been improved for the new model. It sticks much better to photo paper than the previous incarnation. It is still just as long lasting and it is still waterproof!

Perfect for the home office, the C80 series has always been used for high volume work on plain paper. The resolution has been very impressive and the output has been top notch. It is amazing how much ink can be stacked on a plain page of paper and not bleed through to the other side. These are all features of the Durabrite ink. While these features are still present in the C84, the fact that it can print pictures on something other than plain paper is impressive too. The C82 always printed the best pictures on plain and matte paper I had ever seen, but it did not react well with many photo papers until Epson came up with a paper specifically for Durabrite. It still wasn?t as good as printers meant for photography on glossy.

The C84 works on a 4-tank ink system. The black tank is rather large. Consumer reports rates this between 3 and 4 cents per page in black and white, well under 10 cents a page for color. This beats almost all of the printers in its price class.

If you are looking for a printer used for photo printing primarily, look toward the Epson R300 or R200, both 6 ink printers. If you are looking for a general printer that will print lots and lots for not a lot of money, and can print photos on the side, this is your printer. It really is good at what it does.

epc

31 Ink problems make this printer very expensive
The quality of the print is not a problem; it's good. But it's not good enough to neutralize the expense and frustration caused by the requirement to replace ALL of the ink cartridges every time one runs out.

When the cyan ink ran out, I tried to print in black only. It would not.

I replaced the cyan ink, and it still would not print. It indicated it needed black. Back to the store, and I bought a whole set this time. After replacing black, it called for the other two. Finally, after replacing all, it printed again--in black only or in color. The ink was Epson ink. Epson Help just figured they all ran out together. Even the first time, I knew they wouldn't all run out, by coincidence, at exactly the same time.

This has happened twice more now, and I am replacing the printer. It will be cheaper. I will not want to risk another Epson product, although I liked them a lot years ago.

32 Printed great at first - then died
I bought my Epson printer with my new PC. It was loud and jerky, but the print quality was good. The factory ink cartidges have almost nothing in them, so you have to replace them pretty quickly. When I installed all new cartidges my printer quit printing in black. I contacted Epson and they indicated I might have to buy new cartidges again. I searched on the web and found there are thousands of people who experience the exact same problem I have and Epson knows all about it, but they won't fix it. My Epson printer, new as it is, is now sitting in the trash. I put my old HP 722C back on my desk and have had no problem with it ever. I will never buy another Epson product again. And from what I've read of other user's reviews they feel the same way. Epson is junk.

33 Great Photo Printer without the bells and whistles
I am very impressed by the photo quality this printer turns out, even with generic ink. My 4 megapixel camera's pictures come out BEAUTIFULLY on photo paper from this printer. It doesn't have the fancy features that more expensive photo printers have (card reader, preview monitor, etc.) but it gets the job done. I went an entire semester of college (read: many many many papers) on the double capacity black cartridge it came with. It's also very quiet. I highly reccommend this printer, and don't be afraid to put generic ink in- it's cheaper and just as good.

34 Worked fine at first, then declined
The printer worked fine at first, printing beautifully. Set up was a breeze. I've had the printer for several months now, however, and I've noticed the print quality slowly decline.

I keep regular maintanence on the inkheads, cleaning and aligning them as necessary. I only use Epson ink, I've never refilled or damaged the ink cartridges in any way. I am unsatisfied with this product, and will not purchase another Epson.

35 My Epson Experience
My Epson Experience

Let me begin by saying that I have over ten years of experience with all things computer related. During that period I have worked in almost every aspect of computer support. I have personally cleaned out countless numbers of inkjet printers with q-tips distilled water and alcohol. I kept my own Epson 740 going for 5 years without too much difficulty. I only got rid of it because I had a client that was desperate for a printer that would accept a Mac serial port. Boy due I miss that Epson 740.

I bought a C82 a little less than a year ago, after reading good reviews. I assumed it would be built at least as well as the Epson 740 I was using before.

Even after ten months my C82 still appears in almost brand new shape inside and out. Heck, I've only used it about thirty times or so. I keep it inside of cabinet shielded from dust. Plus as a matter of standard practice, I turn off all inkjet printers as soon as I finish using them, and I always change ink cartridges as quickly as possible to prevent ink from drying out inside printers.

So was I ever surprised when my printer stopped working. It had worked fine with the first set of cartridges I had installed. However, as soon as I changed cartridges the printer stopped working. I tried cleaning it at least fifty times, but it did nothing to improve the situation. So I did the natural thing and googled my problem. I was shocked by the sheer number of search results.

After reading through the reviews at Amazon and the hundreds of messages at fixyourownprinter.com I've come to realize that Epson has built and continue to build a printer that is so poorly designed one must question their integrity as a company. To think that so many people would experience the same problem and that their only solution is to continue to send people refurbished printers until their warranty expires.

Oh, and the part that will really get you, is that they require you to purchase and install a new set of four Epson branded ink cartridges to insure that your currently installed cartridges are not what is defective. So before you can even have your printer replaced you must invest at least sixty dollars on ink. Of course they offer to send you new ink with the replacement printer. Still to ask me to sink my time, energy, and sixty dollars into having my printer replaced with another one, which will simply get me right back to where I began. I mean really, the nerve. Is this what our present day world has come to? Have we set ourselves up so that these large corporations can totally take advantage of us in this way? Is there no recourse? Are there no standards of business ethics that they can be held accountable for?

The experience has left me feeling unusually sad. Epson has made me realize just how much I am at the mercy of these large corporations. I mean, if you want to print, who else can you buy a printer from?
I know that even if Epson would own up to this, they would argue that they had to make the printers so cheaply to remain competitive. Without doing so they would go out of business tomorrow. We've heard all that before. Haven't we?

Still though, this printer is made by someone in a Chinese factory. I know I'm going out on a limb here, but I would guess that that person is not well paid. Perhaps they are even exploited to some extent or at the very least we could guess that they are taken advantage of to some extent. Then as they role off the Chinese production line, Epson sends these defective printers all over the globe, wrapped up in fancy magazine advertisements. People like me buy the printer, use the ink, put in new ink, discover it no longer works, call Epson, ship the printer back to Epson, get the refurbished printer in the mail, and . Once the warranty is up we move our broken printer into the garage for a year or so, and then throw it away. It all seems so pointless.

Don't think me a luddite either. I love computers, printers, and gadgets as much as the next person. It's just that it disgusts me that I am forced to deal with a corporation that is not held to any kind of moral or ethical principles. As long as they are making money and growing we think of them as a good thing, without worrying about who they are taking advantage of. What are we doing here? How can we let Epson get away with this? Really!

Well it's not difficult for me to say I will be boycotting all Epson products in the future. I mean I'm sort of doubtful of their quality anyways. Oh and I haven't even mentioned the very unhelpful tech support and customer service representatives that I called long distance at my own expense. What a waste! Really what a waste!

Sincerely,

- Mark Whitney -
Hollywood, CA

P.S. I know the solution is to buy myself a do-it-yourself printer cleaning kit. If you google it you'll see that many companies sell them specifically for the Epson C80/C82. However, if you try to buy one you'll soon discover that they are all sold out, as I mentioned before I'm not the only one with this problem.

36 My Epson Experience
My Epson Experience

I bought a C82 a little less than a year ago, after reading good reviews. I assumed it would be built at least as well as the Epson 740 I was using before.

Sincerely,

- Mark Whitney -
Hollywood, CA

37 ohhh, by the way ... C84 Printer Cartridges
Very functional printer for the home or office, but I read many reviews and NOBODY talked about the cartridges. If you are keen on refilling instead of wasting money on replacement cartridges, this is NOT the printer for you. The cartridges have computer chips in them that tell the printer when they are empty. You will NOT be able to print until the cartridges are either refilled or replaced or you buy an additional chip resetter for $10-$20

38 Very nice printer
I purchased this to replace my HP DeskJet 932C printer, and have been very happy with it. I am only using it to print photos and graphics, I have a Samsung ML-1710 laser printer to cover the text (happy with it too). I have found it best to have 2 different printers, one that does great with text, etc. (the laser) and one that does great with pictures and such (the C84). I have printed several pictures taken with my digital camera (Canon A70) and they have all turned out very well. I have showed them to several people and all have been impressed. It just does great with photos of all types. To get the best results you have to play with the settings a bit at first, but then it is nothing but quality prints! It is also best to use Epson's DuraBrite paper when printing photos for the best results. You also need to use the Epson paper to get the benifits of the DuraBrite ink, like the water and fade resistance. It also does very well with Excel charts and PowerPoint presentations. Unlike older Epsons (the Stylus Color 440 and 640 for exaple) this printer is very quiet too.

Now while I have not done a lot of text on this I did try printing out some text pages on it, and the quality is good, not "laser sharp", but then no ink jet is "laser sharp." It looks about as good (or bad, depending on how you look at things) as what other ink jets produce, so it will not replace my laser printer.

Pros:
Great photo printing
Quiet
Fairly fast

Cons:
None for for what I am using it for.

Over all I think it is a great printer and I highly recommend it! Especially when paired with a laser printer, like the Samsung ML-1710 (which can be had for a similar price as the C84).

39 Not interested in photo printing, just regular printing?
Try to buy an inkjet printer these days, and they all say they are "photo printers". Well, if you just need a printer to print word documents, or selections from webpages, etc... then this is a great printer. Fast and great quality text. Read further reviews if you want precise detail on photos. I don't print photos.

To me, printers are at their best when you don't think about them. File/Print/Number of copies/OK is all I want to click. And this printer just works. The documents look great.

I have two complaints- not about this printer, but about printers in general:

1) The hidden costs: When you buy a printer, you have to get cartridges, a printer cable (almost all printers don't come with a cable, make sure you get one), and I chose to get the Staples 3 year "no questions asked" warranty for 34 bucks. I never get these extended warranties for most things, but all the printers I have seen are finicky and you hear all these whirling noises and it sounds like there a million moving parts. You really can't repair them (it isn't cost effective), so I suggest to get the extended warranty in this case.

2) Control labels: The on/off button, ink button (the "drip") and others aren't clear (My dad put masking tape above the buttons and labeled them with a Sharpie). Note to printer companies: "Label the buttons so we can understand them!"

That's it.

Bottom line on this printer: Excellent printing of text and webpage selections. You won't even think about it, and that's a good thing.

40 Great Printer other than the easily fixable driver glitch
This printer seems to be great and prints a wonderful photo. I bought it to replace my very old Stylus 850 in my office. It is pretty quiet and prints fast. I do a decent amount of daily printing and it seems to keep up fine. The only problem I had was when I installed it on Windows 98, I kept getting an error and it wasn't acknowledging the printer was there. I removed my old stylus driver and status monitor and it fixed the problem and worked immediately after restarting my computer. So if you have any problems after installing the driver, and you have an old epson driver or status monitor, I suggest that you remove them and restart your computer and then check to see if it is working. I also installed another one on a computer with Windows XP. Just to be safe prior to installation, I removed my old Epson driver and status monitor and had no problem at all.

I highly recommend the printer for office or personal use.

41 Epson C84 is a rip-off
I purchased my Epson C84 because of of the advertised longivity of it's inks and because I've generally been pleased with Epson products.

I should have done my research before purchasing, however. While the printer only cost me $75 dollars, the replacement inks cost almost the same. For some reason, it appears that the inks run out about the same time, which would seem to counter the claims that separate inks save money.

And, upon inspection, I noticed two dotted lines running down both the long sides of my print.

When I e-mailed Epson, the explaination was of no use. When I finally ran out of ink, I packed it away.

42 Overrated
This printer is not that great. There are many bugs that exist with it and I feel that Epson must do a better job in creating these printers.
I bought this printer for its good price and high printing output. However, many times, I send documents to the printer and they say pending but fail to print and I must resend the documents many times before the printer actually prints them. Also, the print quality isn't very good. The actual speed is nothing impressive for the output even for documents printed on economy/draft mode. I sold this to somebody soon after getting this printer because I found it to be horrendous and I haven't been happier since. I bought a Lexmark and boy, my luck has changed.
In the future, I will choose Lexmark as I have had wonderful experiences with the quality and speed of the product. (Note: the Lexmark Z series are really great.)

43 Good Printer, but Watch the Ink Costs
Overall, this is a good printer. It was breeze to install and start using. The print quality of text documents and spreadsheets is great and can be improved by changing the settings at the expense of using more ink. And this--the use and cost of ink--is one of the most important factors to consider with this as well as other ink-jet printers.

Keep in mind that you are likely to spend much more on ink cartridges during the first year than the out of pocket cost of this printer. PC World (March 2004) estimated the black ink cost per page to be 6.4 cents. Assuming that you will print just 3 b/w pages per day, the ink will cost you $70.08 per year. If you also print high quality color photos, expect to spend even more.

I've had this printer for about 6 weeks and have already used up 75% of the "high capacity" black ink cartridge.

Please note that the USB cable is not included. This is not really an issue since you can buy it for only $6 also from amazon.com.

I would recommend this printer for those who need to print something occasionaly and are not heavy users.

44 Great Printer!
This printer produces very high quality photos, as well color documents. Easy to download and install software gives increased flexiblity for photos and documents. This is a great printer for all of your printing needs. I highly recommend this printer.

45 This is the best printer I ever bought
I have not had this printer long enough to give you a durability report. I find its output is crisp, it was easy to install on Windows XP Home, it is light weight, stylish, is a fast inkjet printer and easy is to keep dust free, operates flawlessly and overall does a great job. I hope to use it on a wireless network, which it is capable of doing. If you need just a printer I'd say this is the one.

46 Great Value
I was looking for an inexpensive photo printer. I had taken thousands of digital photos and never printed any of them! I just dont have time to go to a printing place, or even to deal with a place like snapfish, which incidentally, seemed like it could get pretty expensive. So I decided to give this Epson a try based on all the great reviews and on Consumer Reports liking this Epson series. I am extremely pleased. Set up and installation was quick and easy. I print my pictures through windows XP explorer and it is as easy as can be. My pictures are beautiful! I am amazed that I can produce these photos at home! I have heard this printer can get expensive to maintain, as far as paper and the special ink, but it still seems worth it to not have to go to a store or deal with yet another internet company. I couldn't be more pleased.

47 Excellent printer
My mohter got this printer for Christmas and she is very happy with it. It prints text quickly and accurately and and it prints graphics that are so clear that they appear to be from a printer that costs more than $100. The printer is quiet and aesthetically pleasing. The software that is included is easy to use and very helpful. If you are on a budget and want a printer that works great, I definitely recommend the Epson C 84.

48 Great While It Lasted!
I purchased my Epson C84 in September 2003. I was pleasantly surprised by the print quality - particularly the hi-res glossy photo paper color prints which truly were excellent! When it came time to replace the ink cartridges in December 2003 - three color and the single black - I went with generic (after-market cartridges) rather than Epson cartridges. Alas, now in January, I've started experiencing an apparently irreversible print-quality and page-coverage degradation; both color and black. I say 'apparently irreversible' because repeated print-head cleanings and alignments have made no impact on the print quality, and the printer essentially is now useless. I even installed the Epson driver on another computer and did some test prints, but could not solve the problem. I can't say for certain that the non-Epson cartridges are the culprit, or even a contributing factor, but the C84 worked perfectly before the generic ink-cartridge replacements. Fortunately, I kept my old, reliable Epson Stylus Color 980 which, after three years (including ALL-GENERIC ink cartridges!), still does a credible job. Bottom line: the Epson C84 is an excellent buy for the money; but, just to be on the safe side, stick with the recommended Epson-brand ink cartridges.

49 Surpisingly great printer
I received the Epson Stylus C84 for free when I purchased an iMac computer from Apple. Needless to say I was very skeptical as to the print quality, in particular for photographic use. Well, I must say I am more than pleasantly surpised. I have printed a number of documents which were fine. What amazed me was the quality of color photographic prints (I used Epson photo glossy paper for this). The colors are bright and realistic and the sharpness of the photos is incredible. It may not have all the bells and whistles of their more expensive models, but the print quality is the same. BTW - I have used both Epson and HP printers and have found the Epson line to be much more reliable and trouble free.

50 Careful with the Paper!
Best print algorithms yet, nice looking photos at even the faster 360 dpi, BUT....they still haven't got the pick-up mechanism right.

The Epson 900 and 980 had such a great pick-up mechanism - you could do a ream without a single missed page, but Epson changed it for the C80 and the C82, and that pick-up used to sometimes pull and squeeze multiple sheets through the rollers (several heart stoppages!) The C84 is a little different, and I haven't had a multiple sheet pull yet after several thousand prints, but sometimes it doesn't push the card stock sheets into place and will print a whole page on the roller with the intended page hanging. Or sometimes with a light-weight 20-lb sheet, it will not get a good grab and skew the page throught the rollers and jam in the mechanism.

Also - they shortened the tray input and output guides! Can no longer easily do a legal page (I stick a hard piece of cardboard on the output tray to hold any legal print-outs.)

Sooooo, I love the increasing quality of these CHEAP printers, but beware the paper-handling foibles.

51 Great little printer for the price
This little guy has one of the highest resolutions available today, and yet you cant beat the price.

Setup was a breeze on my Windows XP machine, but make sure you follow the directions (on an easy to follow chart) and dont rush to plug the printer into your computer right away. Win XP will detect the USB device the second you plug it in, so make sure you are ready when you do it.

Print quality is very good. We purchased this primarily because we wanted to save some money and print our own wedding invitations, save the date cards and the like. It handled the card stock we used perfectly, and the quality was outstanding.

Photos look very nice as well, but make sure you use high quality photo paper to achieve the maximum results.

The CD ROM included has all the necessary software for installation, as well as Epson's own Film Factory for photos. If you have Abobe Album, Photoshop or other similar programs, I would recommend you use those instead as they do a little better job than the included Film Factory.

My only complaint is that it does not include a USB cable, so that will set up back another $20.00 or so at your local computer store. But overall this is a great printer for the price.

52 Photos Look Fantastic
I was hesitant to buy this printer because of some comments I'd read at various web sites. For example, I'd read that the "DuraBrite" inks "can't do glossy". The CNET review, although praising this printer for all-around performance, doesn't give the C84 highest marks for photo quality and mentions visible dithering in pictures. After considering the printer's low cost, the low cost of ink for it, and the advantages of its pigment-based DuraBrite inks (water proof and long-lasting), I decided to buy one for photo printing. I also considered the higher resolution of the C84 compared to Epson photo printers selling for about the same price, and I took a chance that the higher resolution would compensate for the lack of the extra color cartridges "photo printers" use.

I think I made a great decision. The photos from this printer look fantastic. While it's true that you can't get >>super<< glossy prints from it, the prints on glossy photo paper aren't matte. I'd call them "semigloss", and I like them. I don't see any dithering problem, either. So far, I've used the C84 to print on Ritz Camera brand "Professional Photo Glossy Ink Jet Paper" (similar to Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper), "Epson Photo Quality Ink Jet Paper", plain paper, and the 2 sheets of "Epson DuraBrite Ink Glossy Photo Paper" included with the printer. Results are excellent on all these media - even plain paper. I haven't seen better results on plain paper. I even printed on the back side of the Epson Ink Jet Paper, and - I kid you not - it looks better there than on the front where you're supposed to print. The very slightly yellow back side adds warmth to the photo. There's no bleed through, so you can print on both sides of the Epson paper. I didn't try this on the plain copier paper because it was thinner, and you could see through the back too easily. I stuck a plain paper print under the water faucet and soaked it. As advertised, that had no effect on the ink. After drying, the paper was wrinkled, but the image looked fine.

I always put my best pictures in clear archival sheet protectors, and, behind such glossy plastic or glass, you'd never know the DuraBrite prints were not super glossy. Advertisements say the C84 can do border-free printing on "8x10" paper. I was pleased to discover that it can do so on 8-1/2"x11" photo paper as well. It can NOT print border-free on plain paper or ink jet paper - apparently, border-free printing requires thick paper - but it does get much closer to the edges than my old printer, leaving about 3/16" borders on the short edges and 1/8" borders on the long edges.

I'm a happy camper. Don't be afraid to buy this printer for photo-printing.

53 One of the best inkjets!
Epson C84 comes with a high capacity (900 pages @ 5% coverage, but about 500 pages in real life) black ink and 3 color ink tanks but no printer cable. The size is compact, it looks cool, has good build quality and installation was quick.

The print quality for text is very good for an inkjet (slightly better than Canon i320) and speed is pretty fast 5-6 pages per min (faster than i320). Both the photos printed on the supplied paper sample were annoying skewed (even after we made sure paper was put in properly). The quality didn't look impressive for photos.

Printer and cartridges have smart chips in them (as do new hp's). This will ensure that you can't put in generic ink but pay Epson each time ink runs out. Also there are reports that the printer declares ink over well before it really is. To make things worse Epson seems to use different cartridge models for almost every printer it makes (Canon & hp use same cartidges in many printers).

One good thing about C84 is that its very silent, even while printing. I guess this is about as silent as you will get with printers. Also the text prints look better than on hp, significantly clearer & blacker.

In short, if you want a text only printer get a Samsung (ML-1710) or Minolta (PagePro 1250W) laser printer for similar price. For good photo printers look at the Canon line up or even better get prints at local stores. Epson C84 is recommended for medium text printing & occasional photo printing.

54 Great Printer, Low Price
This is a great printer! It's very inexpensive; it doesn't use as much ink as my last ink jet; it's very quiet (for an ink jet); it prints photos very well; and with straight text it is very fast! Not much more you can ask from a $79 printer!

55 Glossy Photos
I haven't been able to get the glossy photo result when I print my photos. My HP works better at producing quality glossy photo finishes. All my photos with this Epson C84 look matted on the final product even though I use the Primium gloss Epson Photo paper and have the settings set at what I am supposed to. I am still talking to Epson and Best Buy to see if this is what I paid for.
Still for the price and how you use it could still be a bargin.

56 great quality, expensive ink
This is an awesome printer for sure. I'm really happy to get this one under 80 bucks. I'm a student major in graphic design. You can see how picky I'm when shopping for a printer. After reading a bunch of review of printers, I think this is the one since c84 has much better dpi and great ink colors.

The quality of prints are much better than what I get from Kinkos. Gosh! I'm so glad I don't need to go back to Kinko's for my school projects. The only turn-off is I found there are minor scraches on my prints especially when my prints have dark color background. Also, I noticed the c84 ink is quite hard to get and the price is at least 30% more espensive than other epson inks. I guess it's because it's durabrite ink which the color is truely much prettier than my old canon.

57 The New Jaw Droper its here EPSON STYLUS C84
I beleive no one has review this Item yet, so let me share my experience with all of you but when the final decision its come you are your own judge. Let's begin!

At first I was looking for a replacement from my old printer, I when to some many websites to find out which Printer are the best for my needs than I found the Canon i450 looks ok, everyonebody offer a good REVIEW on it than I when to a local retail store in my area I purchase it I pay for a total of $49.87 than I said what a DEAL right than I when home I try it, Pictures very nice detail, than I decide to browse a little bit more over the internet, I when to EPSON website and guess what I saw this EPSON STYLUS-C84 I compare the detail technical specification than I made my own final decision of course cost more money, than I read the whole page but I still not convince I try to find some reviews but no luck then I check on different online store to see how much guess what SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT, from every where than I when to Office Depot Store they HAVE IT two left I paid for it right away. The dollars differents is $27.00 including a after REBATE of $20.00 what a deal I took it home I try it and WOW DAMM AWSOME DuraBrite ink won't come out when is wet very sharp image compare with the Canon. So must have it I recommend it with no doubt.

A powerful performer, the Epson Stylus C84 offers the precision required to consistently deliver sharp everyday prints and documents. Brillant DuraBrite inks ensure water-resistant, light-resistant and smudge-resistant results for long-lasting photos,text and more. High resolution of 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi offers photo-quality clarity and detail. True border-free printing on 4" x 6" and 8" x 10" facilitates frame-ready prints in popular sizes. Black text print speeds of up to 22 ppm increase productivity, while convenient individual ink cartridges provide more cost-effective operation. With USB and parallel connectivity, the Epson Stylus C84 offers the ideal solution for any Windows or Macintosh system. Cable is not included.