Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus C84 Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(79)

 

 

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.

You would think a company like Epson would take a hint from what happened to the American auto industry when they made cars to last only until their warrenty ran out. They suddenly had to deal with people who would only trust Honda and Toyota. Most still do. With Epson it is Canon that has given consumers back the confidence that Epson lost. They have improved their low end printers AND dropped the price.
Here are the cons on this ESPON machine...
1. Fails suddenly and completely...warning signs include frequent head cleaning (which BTW can use up a third of your black ink in a heartbeat). When mine failed it started printing grey scale pictures in GREEN. I reloaded the CYAN ink because it was low and then it would print only in YELLOW. Go figure!

2. It runs through ink like crazy and often refuses to print when the ink is low. You have to replace cartriges that can still pass the "shake" test.

3. Ink costs about $65 dollars a set, which is about what I paid for the printer on sale. Epson obviously did this on purpose to make even more money off a cheaply made product. In the end I was paying more per month to feed ink to my Epson then gas to my car, even at $2.60 a gallon.

Pros:
1. As stated it works really well for a few months of light duty.
2. Its pretty.
3. Best of all, the USB cord and the power cord from this unit don't go bad and can be plugged directly into the back of your new CANON PIXMA series photo printer. Gee, how cool of them to anticipate my purchase decision.

The USB cord is the only thing the EPSON has that the CANON doesn't. All kidding aside. This is a cheap peice of trash. Don't even think about buying it and don't touch it used.

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.

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.

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.

It's not only the product that is defective, but the whole attitude of Epson company that is upsetting to me.

I don't have a problem with defective products as long as the company stands behind it. Companies make defective products from time to time, that happens, even a reputable company get into that trouble. The bigger problem is how Epson responded to it. They didn't only try to keep the problem secret but even lie that the problem doesn't exist.

I wish I had read all the comments in the review before I bought two packs of color cartridges. If I knew it, I would have bought another printer probably another brand. I think I should feel lucky, mine had lasted two years unlike other people saying a year to year and half.

Here's the myth Epson want you to believe. "Printer head clogs if you use ink cartridges anything other than Epson" The truth is even you use nothing but Epson genuine cartridges, it still clogs. I have used only Epson genuine ink cartridges.

First thing I did was sending Email to Epson. The rep. sent me a reply explaining how to clean and nozzle check which I had already tried several time. Naturally, that was my response in next Email. Their reply to that was, to send the printer to authorized repair shop and have them take a look. Having other printers before, I knew where this was going. Meanwhile, I searched the web looked for the reviews and if other people had the similar problem. Boy, did I ever. At this point, I knew I had a total lemon. Looking back now, I also saw that the Epson reps. answered my Email must have been aware of this but just were playing dumb.

I sent another Email with address of this review site. They said nothing about the review just sent me a phone number to call.

First time I called, they connected me to the tech support. I explained the problem then she told me that they were aware of the problem C84 had, and that they can't do anything about it. She also told me I should talk to customer service, so I did.

The person I talked to in customer service, he must have gotten hundreds of the same calls and played very calmly. From the tone of the voice, he seemed to know everything and how to respond as told by the company. First he denied that C84 has a problem. Then I told him of the other user's complaints on the web and asked if he wanted the address. He turned down my offer, saying he doesn't need to see it. Then in no time, he started saying "If you are not happy with the printer, I'll make you an offer. Current model C88 we are selling at $80.- on Epson store, I can give it to you for $69.99 and......."

Does this make sense to anybody? Denying everything about the defective product and all, why he need to make an offer? I couldn't believe there's an Epson CEO who gets paid millions of dollars to make such a cheap policy and a customer service rep. who gets paid to lie.

I had enough of it and turned down the offer. Yes, I told him that I'll post my negative review against C84 all over the net.

What I suggested Epson was to post a message regarding C84 problem in Epson web site so other people won't have to waste money on future cartridges purchase, not surprisingly that was denied. So the next best thing I can do is to let people know in other place of the net.

I don't recommend not only this particular printer but purchasing all Epson brand products.

I previously had two other Epson printers and had been a loyal customer for a long time, not any more.

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??????????

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.

I bought this printer to print work documents as well as pictures. At first it worked fairly well. Not top quality photos but colorful and alright. After I replaced the color ink cartridges the color stopped working. The test print page shows color but the pictures and my reports come out in a grainy black and white page. I am very dissapointed and even more dissapointed when I got no help from the company.

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.