Customer Reviews

Epson 99 Color Multipack with Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, and Light Magenta Ink Cartridges for the Epson Artisan 700 and Artisan 800 Printers

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I just bought the Epson Artisan 800, which I will review shortly. I have not made up my mind as to whether I will keep it or not. I have gone with Epson for years and the quality of inks is unsurpassed in the industry. I usually print 8x10 prints. In testing the printer there were several software glitches that made it print more prints than I told it to.
The ink works stellar on Costco premium photo paper that I personally like more than Epson. It is cheaper and dries faster and looks as good. This ink produces professional quality prints. Epson has done it again.

Nonetheless,it is immaterial what these lab test claim. What matters is what happens in real life. I am not going to make a print that is draft quality which is what alot of these tests do. I am making fine art photos.


Here is the glitch...I printed 5 8x10's and 3 4x6 with margins. My light cyan is 2/3rd's gone. The high capacity black is 1/3 gone and light magenta is 1/2 gone. That is roughly $15 Epson prices or a little under $3/ print. Costco for an 8x10 is $1.79 and 11 1/2x 14 is $2.79 The Epson eats ink like candy. I suspect that the prices for prints are much cheaper commercially.Obviously custom prints are going to be higher. So it comes down to convience and creative control. When the cost is almost 2x what a commercial lab charges, it may not be worth it.


Price: Amazon beats Epson by $3 on the 5 pack and if you have super saver then it is money in your pocket. Epson beats Amazon by $4 on the black and if you buy 3 or more inks there is free overnight shipping. Interestingly the high capacity black which they sell the most of is $2 more than the other colors.....go figure.

Caveat emptor- Epson was found to have made the electronics on it's printer cartriges reflect empty cartridges when they were not empty so buyers would have to buy more ink cartriges. We all know Epson makes money selling ink. Printers do not make big bucks, ink does.I received a bunch of coupons that supposedly I could enter the numbers into their website and get free ink. The number never worked, ergo no free ink.

So that is the ink story. I think I am going to check out the Canon all in ones before I decide to keep this Epson. The last I saw Canon had come way up in quality and the inks are cheaper.

This Epson 99 Color Multipack is quite a bargain, when you need replacement ink cartridges for your Epson Artisan 700 or 800 model printer. This multipack includes all 5 standard capacity color cartridges (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, and Light Magenta), but does NOT include a black cartridge. Purchasing the multipack will usually save you anywhere from $5 to $10, over buying the cartridges individually, depending on where you buy it from. If you need a replacement black cartridge, you will need to order the #98 Black separately.

All of the cartridges in this multipack are the Epson #99 standard capacity type, which are claimed to yield approximately 500 pages each, based on the ISO/IEC 24711 and 24712 standard for ink jet products. Of course the page count will vary, depending on the amount of ink coverage of each particular color you use on each given page. In comparison, the #98 high capacity color ink cartridges are claimed to yield approx. 855 pages per color, based on the same ISO test standards. Black is only available in #98 high capacity, which is rated at about 545 pages (it is assumed that more black ink is used per page than color ink). This Epson 99 Color Multipack, as well as the #98 black cartridges are available at most online and local retailers. But as of this review date, the #98 high capacity color cartridges are only available for purchase directly from the Epson website.

The Claria ink in these cartridges is boasted to produce photos with unsurpassed richness, depth and clarity, and is also smudge, scratch, water and fade resistant. Epson claims that this ink, when used in combination with Epson Premium Photo Paper, produces better quality photos than you can get from a photo lab. As for my personal experience, I have found this ink to indeed produce very rich and vivid color photos, which look at least as good as I can get from a local photo lab. What amazes me is how quickly this ink dries, when used on Epson Premium photo paper. After the photos print, at the highest print quality settings on my Artisan 800, I can touch the printed side of the paper within 15 to 20 seconds without smudging. Within 2 to 3 minutes the ink has dried enough for normal handling. In comparison, when I print at highest quality settings on my HP OfficeJet 7310, using HP Premium Plus photo paper and HP Vivera ink, I have to wait at least 15 to 20 minutes before I can even touch the printed side of the photos, and a couple of hours before the photos can be handled without extra caution. I have also tested the water resistant claims of the Epson Claria ink, and do find that it is resistant to slight amounts of moisture. Please note the words "resistant" and "slight" in that last sentence. If a small drop of water comes in contact with the printed Claria ink, and is allowed to dry without touching or smearing it, the photo will show little to no signs of discoloration or damage to the image. However, if any part of the image becomes saturated with water, or if the drop(s) of water are smeared in any way, you can definitely see signs of discoloration and/or color smudging/smearing. When I tested my HP Vivera ink in the same manner, even the slightest amount of moisture introduced to the prints would cause obvious damage to the images. Therefore I can personally back the claim that the Epson Claria ink, as used in the #99 cartridges, is modestly water resistant. The claim of scratch resistance is also true, unless a very sharp or pointed object is dragged across the print. So for normal everyday handling, this Claria ink seems to stand up to a moderate amount of abuse without the photo being ruined. I do not have the means to test the fade resistance claims, so I guess I have to take Epson at its word in this area.

Another thing I would like to point out, regarding my previous experience with Epson Claria inks, is that it does not tend to dry up and clog the print heads nearly as easily as I have experienced with the HP Vivera ink. I have an Epson Stylus Photo R380 Inkjet Printer, which uses Claria ink cartridges, and I can let the printer sit, unused, for several weeks, and still get perfect printing results without having the run a cleaning cycle on the printer. This makes me believe that the Claria ink cartridges will remain good, when left in the printer for extended periods of time. It also shows that Epson has designed a good method of sealing the print heads very well when in the parked position.

I am extremely impressed with the #99 Claria ink cartridges, and find this Epson 99 Color Multipack to be a great bargain. At the time of this review, this multipack provides all 5 main color cartridges for less than $10 each, here on Amazon.com. To me this is a very good price for such high quality ink. I highly recommend this multipack to anyone who owns or is purchasing an Epson Artisan 700 or 800 model printer. The Artisan series printers are great products (see my review of the Epson Artisan 800 Wireless Photo All-in-One Printer), and this Claria ink, when used with Epson Premium photo paper, is the perfect companion for these amazing printers.

I read the reviews concerning the Epson ink cartridges, specifically for the Artisan 700/800 series. Amazon's current price for the color 5-pack is indeed among the best prices I've seen for that 5-pack. However, consider this: The Epson website sells the 5 "high capacity" cartridges for 1.77 times the price of Amazon's regular-capacity 5-pack. The ISO yield ratio for the high versus regular capacity cartridges is 850/500 = 1.71, very close to the above price ratio of 1.77. Thus, you pay about the same price per unit of ink either way, but if you go with the high-capacity cartridges, you will not have to replenish nearly as frequently. As prices change, this argument may not remain valid, of course.

I was setting up my brothers new HP Premium Printer and the HP tech told me to make sure I match and use HP photo paper with the HP printer. He said that the HP ink this printer used is specially made to match HP photo paper. He said that if your HP printer prints on Epson paper it will look awful. That's funny, I thought, since I had just Purchased an Epson Artisan 700 Printer recently and I was extremely disappointed in how bad the ink looked on the HP paper I was using. The Epson ink would not dry properly on the HP paper and was easily smeared. After talking to that HP Tech, I gave my brother all the HP paper I had and went out and purchased some Epson Photo paper. The difference was like night and day. ALL of the Pictures turned out just as good, if not better, than ANY photo lab I've ever used.
So stick with the Epson Photo Papers. By matching the ink to the paper it was designed for, not only will you get the best possible image, you'll also be using the ink in the most cost efficient way. I'm probably averaging around (50) 8X10 photo sheets per ink cartridge.

Any of our local stores cannot even come close in matching price for this ink set. Plus free shipping makes it an even better deal. Just with that the black was included with this.

Up until recently I used 3rd party ink cartridges from G&G on my Epson R300 in my business. When I upgraded to the Artisan 700 I read that there was some sort of 'copy protection' within epson carts rendering 3rd party ink cartridges unusable on more recent epson printers. Rather than risk being stuck with a bunch of 3rd party products, I plunked down my cash on official epson ink. And I'm not unhappy, surprisingly. When you calculate the cost of each cart you find that it's not such a bad bundle price. Plus, even though we print a lot of stuff here, I find I'm replacing the carts *less* than when I was using g&g. The prints themselves are much crisper, and that could be down to the newer printer, but also the ink dries instantly so no smudging on printed discs as we used to have and full color prints are immediately dry.

All in all - happy with the multipack (shame black is not included though so one star off for that). Don't mess around with 3rd party carts or refill kits; save yourself time and hassle and get the Epson 99 5 pack - recommended.

This is great ink. Although the price is better on Amazon than most other places, it is still too expensive. They need to sell the larger capacity 98 Epson ink cartridges in a multipack like the 99 cartridges.

I have owned Epson printers for nearly twenty years along with HP and Canon. I thought my Epson R200 did a great job but this printer is fantastic. Sets up easily. I set mine up with USB, Ethernet, and Wireless without a hitch. My only complaint.....No decent manual, not even on the CD. You get a small booklet with the printer that doesn't even mention CD printing. In order to get the user guide you have to go on line to read it, without any provision for printing it out. All in all I'm very pleased with the performance.Epson Artisan 835 Color Inkjet All-In-One (C11CA73201)

this was a relief to get at the price i got. in my area it would have cost almost double. it was quick shipping as well

The first website I go is Amazon.com, usually can not beat the prices, quality and fast shipping/delivery, which is usually free with a pruchase of $25 or more. This purchase was exactly as described and the best price I could find.

Everyone should shop Amazon.com before purchasing elsewhere!