Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus C82 Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(25)
1 star:		(67)

 

 

This is one of the finest printers for photography on the market today. This piece is inexpensive to buy and relatively inexpensive to own. Each color is in a separate ink tank. They are affordably priced. The best feature is the new Epson ink that is used in this printer. It uses a pigment ink instead of a dye. Pigment inks adhere to the top of the paper as opposed to sinking in to the paper. The new ink is virtually waterproof. I witnessed an Epson representative pull a page out of a printer and submerge it in water. . . like a minute after the printer was finished. . .It was amazing. The paper was waterlogged, but the ink was unharmed. On photo paper, the ink is supposed to last 75 years!

You will never see a pixel on a photo when the picture is of high enough quality. Epson photo paper is probably the best out there. This is a great printer for the price. This would be a great printer for twice the price.

Like most inkjet buyers you probably desire everyday printing and super quality photo prints (in one printer)... but don't wan't to be burdoned with the high cost of owning/maintaing a 6 color true photo printer.

Yes the 6 color printers work great (I also own an Epson 875DC that is being replaced by the C82), but the ink cartridges drain ink faster than a gas guzzling SUV. THUS leading you to desire 2 things:
- larger ink tanks
- separate color ink tanks

Dedicated color ink tanks in a 6 color machine will put you into a very expensive printer (Epson 2200 etc)... so let's change lanes a bit.

Ok you want separate and big ink tanks... so lets go down to a high end 3 color machine like the C82 and here's what you get (and lose).

What you get:
- Speed, it's a fast printer
- Instant dry ink.. no more soggy photo pages
- separate ink tanks which appear to be about TWICE the capacity of the competing Canon (i850 etc)
- BRILLIANT photo prints on semi-gloss or matte paper (especially Epson Colorlife semgloss paper)
- Ability to print great photos on regular paper
- Really nice text

What you lose:
- Super Glossy prints.. the ink dries on top of the paper which is essentially coating OVER the glossy finish.. so these prints while not terrible will not pass muster.

- Selection of photo paper. I've found the BEST paper for this printer is Epson Colorlife semgloss paper. It produces a nice shiny finish.. but is not bumpy enough to degrade your picture quality.

Bottom line... If you want a printer that can do it all.. from documents to digital photos this printer is an absolute winner.. IF you can concede yourself to semigloss/matte photos and live without high gloss prints.

For me this was an easy sacrifice... who needs 50 kinds of photo paper cluttering their desk anyway... find the one paper that works and stick with it.

Also to be noted.. Epson printers use a print head that is part of the PRINTER not part of the ink CARTRIDGE. Making the Carts slightly cheaper, but you must be more careful to avoid clogging your print heads (be sure to turn it off).

Absolutely love the quality pics this printer puts out. The 5760x1440 dpi makes for lab quality printing of digital photos. Although a bit slow in "photo enhanced", it's worth the wait to see the brilliant color and resolution. The only problem I've had has been paper feeding. Using Kodak Medium Weight Soft Gloss, the feeder has had trouble "grabbing" the paper, and will usually feed in 2 or 3 sheets at a time. I just throw the blanks back in and get back to business. Thickness level can be adjusted however, it just hasn't been that much of a problem for me to attempt adjustments.
At this price, you can't go wrong. As an amateur photographer, I am more than pleased. With a good digital cam and prints like these, I can't justify going back to film.

This printer gives great results. It is a little slow and is noisy when it first starts, but nothing big. What amazes me is the ink. It is almost completely waterproof. Even submerging the paper in water for over an hour produced almost no running on regular paper. This printer also comes with full cartridges of all the colors, and uses seperate cartridges for each. Nice touch when usually they give a starter cartridge. I also liked that it was both USB and parallel compatible. Too bad it didn't come with the cables. Highly recommended for the price range.

This is one great inkjet printer. The text print is absolutely flawless, just perfect. Photos are equally good as well. One tip to remember when printing photos with the Stylus C82 is never select the Glossy paper setting when using actual glossy paper. Under the "Glossy" paper setting the printer uses only 3 out of the 4 colors available, so the pictures look "flat" especially if there are a lot of dark images to develop. Black is omitted under the glossy setting so the printer will make black using red, blue, and yellow, hence the flat look. To get around this make sure you select the"Matte" paper setting. This will trick the printer into using all four colors regardless of the type of paper you are using.

We got this printer at an excellent price, finding that the color prints were quite good.

However, there are things you must keep in mind before buying this model, even if it's at a good price or refurbished. First, the ink is expensive, although DuraBrite looks and performs wonderfully. Additionally, you must have ALL the ink cartridges - black, magenta, blue and yellow - in order to use the printer. If you run out of one color ink - too bad - you'll still have to get a replacement cartridge in order to continue printing. Even when printing in black, the printer uses small portions of the color inks (this is direct from the Epson site), so keep a full set of all four cartridges handy.

The C82's unique approach to print heads mean that they are much more likely to clog. Of all the printers out there, this one is least worth the risk of using a ink refiller. When we last replaced the cartridges, it still would not work properly, even after running the utility and "head cleaning". Investigating with a flashlight, it required thorough cleaning in a tight space, declogging the blue head, which had chunks of dried ink around it. Tweezers were out of the question, so I used the bottom of a meat thermometer (any slim, firm stick with a pointy head might do), wrapped in a dampened coffee filter.

Last but not least, Epson's support is very, very weak. A recorded message tells you that, should you be out of warranty, you will be charged $9.95 for the service help - this in addition to the toll call you must make to Epson America. Unfortunately, there's a good chance that you'll have any problem with the machine *after* you've had it for a while.
Anecdotally, when we had trouble this time around, we checked out Google, and found some bulletin boards where others had similar trouble with the print heads. Some had used refillers (injecting ink into the used cartridges) and reset the "smart chips", then found that the print heads were more likely to clog with injected ink, and that Epson wouldn't fix or replace their machines. Your mileage may vary, depending on your rep, but in our case, we called twice before figuring out that we'd have to clean the print heads manually - the first time, our rep interrupted us as we explained what we had already done, then told us our cartridges were "defective" and to return them to the store. It had nothing to do with the cartridges, and everything to do with the C82 being clogged.

This printer has filled its predecessor's (HP laserjet) place on my desk quite well. Although the sound at startup of a print job made me jump the first time(!) you get used to it and can live with it after hearing how quiet it is during printing and seeing how crisp and clear the output is. The loud sound (as mentioned in other reviews as well) is just the paper feed mechanism grabbing and aligning the next sheet of paper. It does it well - after months of printing on it I have not had a paper or envelope misfeed once (unlike my Lexmark).

I thought I had to have a laser printer for clear b/w printing but this affordable printer proved me wrong. And the color really is amazing too - using high end photo paper my digital images come out looking like they came from the lab. It takes a couple of minutes to print 2, 4x6 shots on 8 1/2 x 11 at the highest output - but I think it's worth the wait. It is a lot faster at regular quality settings.

I had a Epson Stylus 700 Photo printer a few years ago but when I got a new computer it went out. I was disappointed since it printed such great photos. I went out and bought a lexmark since it was all I could afford at that time. I was highly disappointed that it didn't print photos well at all. So for Christmas 2002 I did some research and found this Epson Printer at Best Buy. I tested it out at the store with plain paper then found a package of open photo paper and tested with that also. I was very happy with the results and ended up recieving this printer as a gift for christmas. I take pictures of my niece and print them out on photo paper and put them in her picture album since this printer does so well in printing photos. This printer was reasonably priced for a photo printer and does so much better than a cheap inkjet printer. I will defintely stick with epson from now on.

The print quality of the C82 is superb. But, the C82 has the print head built-in rather than part of a new cartrige. What that means is that WHEN the print head dries it will clog rendering the printer useless. Repair costs almost as much as the printer itself. Use Epson cartridges, follow the installation directions to the tee and you still can get a print head clog, air bubbles in the cartridge, I was told. Do an Internet search on 'Epson C82 not printing' and you will meet those who have already bought the C82. Epson's recommendation to me was to buy new cartridges, $60, then a cleaning kit, $10, that and a lot of my time. Next printer will have the print head and cartidge as one piece.

Like most of the reviewers for the C82, I too have seen the great print quality followed by the clogged print heads and subsequent useless pages of missing colors and blotched pages. The only difference between most others and me is that I have not yet become smart enough to quit purchasing these Epson inkjet doorstops. I am on my 4th Epson inkjet printer. Each time they start out great with quite nice prints and beautiful photos, but always end in clogs and wasted money on overpriced ink cartridges that never solve the clogging problem. I have thrown at least 6 of their new $35 cartidges out the window with my collection of broken printers.

Wasting $20 to fix a problem would be fine, but $30-70 spent on a single or set of cartridges that does not fix the problem is very irritating.

I hereby resolve that Epson has received my last dollar of contribution to their apparently poor R&D funding effort. The door is now open to HP, Canon and any other company that can produce a reasonably good printer that can last longer than 3 sets of cartridges.

Please learn from me and thousands of other disgruntled Epson customers and buy something else!