Customer Reviews

Epson Artisan 50 Color Inkjet Printer (C11CA45201)

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

This is a fantastic printer for the casual user, but can be problematic for critical uses.

This is the 6th Epson printer we've used. When printing out from Adobe Illustrator on all previous models, the size of the printout exactly matches the design.

When trying to print CD inserts on our new Artisan 50, booklets that are designed to be 119.5mm, end up being almost 125mm. May not sound like much, but once they're cut, they don't fit in the CD box. It's very slow and tedious to modify all our layouts that are on file.

Previous models capable of printing on CD's (such as the Stylus Photo R300) were dead on accurate.

The other annoying problem is that you can't print from Illustrator directly to CD any longer. That was a great feature of the R300. In the Artisan 50, you have to use their amateurish CD print utility.

We have purchase over 200 of these printers (even here at Amazon)
and they are pretty good - until you run out of ink.

The Ink can print you about 2-3 months worth if used every
other day or so. But our customers, including ourselves,
have had nothing but head aches when it comes to changing
Ink Cartridges. 47 Customers have complained it will NOT
ACCEPT 'GENUINE' Epson Cartridges. We owned 4 of them and
all 4 are currently wrapped up in their boxes ready to throw
out or send to a recycling center. All 4 printers
printed through 1 ink cycle - then they started rejecting all
ink replacements. We bought ink here at Amazon - rejected.
We tried the tech trick of pulling out the electrical cord,
and the USB cord, and it did accept 2 or 3 cartridges,
but eventually it started to reject all of them in time.
Keep in mind this printer has gotten fairy good reviews
the past year - some individuals are being successful
with the printer but we suspect many reviews were
written before their 1st ink cycle went dry.

We noticed that (after installing the printers) The Epson
software started accessing the internet (or at least trying
to). This was to block any 3rd party Ink cartridges - because
on one of the printers that WAS NOT on the internet - it actually
acceptable 1 black ink 3rd party cartridge. The rest were
rejected - even the "Genuine" Epson Cartridges.

Its difficult enough to have to purchase expensive
"Genuine" ink for these printers - but to have them
rejected by your fairly new printer is appalling. We
have over 46 "genuine" ink cartridges that have been
returned to us (we no longer sell the ink). We used
some of the "rejected" ink on our Epson R260 models
and R280 model (those printers accepted the ink)
simply because the R260, R280 and this model -
"artisan" 50 use the same ink cartridge.

Customers have explained to us this printer model
has difficulty on accepting new cartridges - no matter
where you purchased them. We have contacted
Epson by email, phone - even writing them a letter,
but they yet to even try to return our messages.
Customers who have purchase this model, and have
not been subjected by the cartridge problem are very
fortunate and we are happy for them.

Overall, Epson has made this printer so INK
CARTRIDGE RESTRICTIVE that it has made us
impossible to recommend to anyone or even
give out for free.

While printing through its first ink cycle, it did
produce fine photos and fairly good text docs,
but after the ink was done - it seems so was
the printer.

Update: We installed a CISS system on one
of the printers on Feb 1 2011: rejected.
On January 20th, the same model rejected
"Genuine ink" from a major store front. We
were fortunate to receive a refund on both
occasions. We aren't trying anymore. Epson
keeps ignoring our calls.

Daniel J. Tyler (WJGroup)

This is my first Epson printer. I've always owned HP but I was particularly interested in being able to print CD/DVD labels. I've owned this printer now for a couple of days and am totally pleased. The directions for getting started were easy, and I was able to begin use immediately. The quality of the labels are excellent, good color, looks professional and it prints quickly. I am not one to usually review products but this one, I found well worth the money, value, and am happy that I made the purchase. The only thing I'd change would be for the software that comes with the CD/DVD printer format, I wish it did more but I find it sufficient. I'd definitely recommend. Does well with documents as well.\\

I bought this printer to replace my dymo discpainter that has been nothing but trouble, and I'm thrilled with the quality of the direct print DVDs. The software isn't the best, but I can export my designs from my other software as a photo file and the epson print disc software prints it beautifully. I tried photo printing for the first time today and LOVE IT! I love the 5 ink concept - the images are so crisp. I've only had the printer for a week now, but so far I'm completely happy with it. The price was great too.

-Edit from 2011-
Printer still works lovely, but I've replaced this printer with a new wireless one. My only complaints are the price of ink and an issue where I tried to print black and white (text and a solid black graphic) onto a CD, and the printer refused to let me print because I was out of yellow ink. The software (Epson Print CD) wouldn't let me choose to print in just black and white to avoid the error message. This was very annoying, and sped up my replacement of the printer rather than the over priced ink. All in all, still love this printer.

It prints magazine quality pics - faster than my old Ink Jet. I like the fact that i can replace individual a color and not waist a whole cartridge because i ran out on just one color.

I said I'd never buy another Epson after the problems I had a couple of years ago (print heads clogged on 2 printers, could not repair even with ebay kits). But I needed to print 300 DVDs and the labels just are too cumbersome to use. So I got the printer. It has worked quite well out of the box, I'm on DVD #280 now and printing over the past 3 weeks with no problems.
The printer is very noisy when it starts up, however during printing it is fine. It seems to go a long way on ink - I am just now changing out the regular capacity cartridges the unit came with, with a full size DVD pastel image and printing. I probably could have stretched and done all 300 on the originals but didn't want to lose any DVD's due to ink failure.
The DVD slot works well - prints in about 3 minutes (burning my DVD takes 6 so it works out fine). Inserting the DVD slot makes you think you are damaging the unit, but that's the way it is designed. Seems like a strange procedure to power up the unit - pull out the DVD tray, put slot back on paper, power it up - wait - listen to the awful noises - then when it settles down, put the DVD tray back in position to go. When doing a bunch, you only do this once to get started. This is why I gave it 3* for ease of use.
So bottom line - nice quality, very noisy, but does the job well. We will see if the ink jams up like the earlier Epsons did to me after some time passes. Probably wise to print at least 1 sheet a month to keep things clear if not used for awhile.

I've used Epson printers with my Apple computers since the days of the Apple ][+ and MX80 dot-matrix printer. However, my last Epson (in the late '90s) didn't play nicely with my PowerMac running OS9, so I switched over to Canon until I recently had a need to print directly onto CD & DVD media.

I now have the Artisan 50 connected to an iMac G5 running Tiger. I'm using Disc Cover to layout my CD/DVD label designs and I was a little concerned that it wouldn't support the brand-new Artisan 50. Sure enough, it isn't listed as a supported printer, but it turns out that selecting "Epson Tray Type 2" works just fine.

In fact, nearly everything about this printer works as well as, or better than, the Canon Pixma iP4000 I'd been using 'till now. The 6-cartridge system produces stunning printouts on both optical media and photo paper, and it is very fast compared to the old printer. The only thing I miss is the Canon's automatic duplex printing, but for $99, I'm extremely pleased with the Artisan 50.

I have used the Epson 8 color wide format R1800 printer for a number of years, and it did an outstanding job. For the time being I have no need for a printer of that quality, and when the R1800 needed repair I decided to replace it. I chose the Epson Artisan 50 printer which is a 6 color printer restricted to 8.5 inch width. I was attracted by the price, its simplicity, and yet it still has 6 individual color ink cartridges. To be honest I was skeptical. Since the price of the printer with 6 fresh ink cartridges is about the same as a set of replacement cartridges for the R1800, I decided to give it a shot.

I was amazed. The colors are a little more saturated, but then many people like that, it was a little slower printing full color at best quality, but I do not print enough full color for that to be a problem, and on comparing prints made on the old R1800 there was little difference. Since the R1800 had a gloss cartridge, one of the 8 colors, the pictures were a little less glossy, but I doubt that the casual observer would detect the difference.

I did not test the CD print function, since I do not use it, so I cannot speak for the quality of that.

If you are looking for a smart looking, compact, easy to use printer that gives your excellent color prints, and works well as a letter printer, and you do not want other functions combined into one machine like scanning, faxing, and so forth; the Artisan 50 is a good choice.

I am not pushing Epson products, but I generally use the paper and ink of the same brand as the printer, so the comments I made are based on prints made on Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper with Epson ink cartridges.

I think three stars is quite generous. The printer puts out a decent print job but it is finicky as all get out. When you try to print a disk, you have to play with it for ten minutes before it will start. Then after the first disk, you don't just continue on, you have to play with it some more for each subsequent disk. The software displays a modular error window that you cannot dismiss (the 'Cancel' button does not work and the little 'X' in the upper right hand corner is disabled) -- nice touch. I'm writing this now because I just had to use Windows Task manager to close that dialog. The software is really bad stuff. There is an 'Online Help' button on the error dialog that you can click if you want but here is no help awaiting you so you might as well save your time on that.

As I said, the final product (disk or paper) is acceptable.

This is my first Epson printer and I have to say...I do love it! It was very easy to hook up and get started, basically plug and go. Wished it had come with its own USB cable, but at this price, it wasn't too big of a deal. Installing the ink cartridges was also a breeze. My old HP required some fiddling around with the controls after installing new cartridges to get them to align properly, etc. It took a lot of time and I think it also ended up wasting ink in the end. With the Epson, you basically just pop them in and the printer does all the work for you. Of course, if there are problems, it has a program to help realign them, but it looks like it's not required in the beginning.

To test out its picture printing capabilities, I printed a few photos on standard generic glossy photo paper. I have to admit, the quality is pretty amazing. The colors were so crisp and vibrant and completely true to what I saw on my monitor. My last printer, an HP inkjet, was more of an office-type printer and, although I thought its photo prints were pretty good, there was no comparison. I had used different settings on my HP printer to have best quality photos and all it really did was just burn up a lot of my ink. Using the "normal" settings vs the "best" settings, the pictures still came out looking the same. On my new Epson, I used the speed setting rather than the quality setting and they still came out looking better than the ones from the HP. I also really liked how the Epson ink dried almost immediately and resisted fingerprint smudges pretty well.

My next test would be to try printing photos on the Epson photo paper I also bought. I haven't used it enough to know how quickly a standard capacity ink cartridge lasts, but I intend on buying the high capacity ones anyway to replace them in the future.

I do recommend this printer. For the price, I don't think you can beat it.