Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus CX5200 All-in-One Multifunction

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(51)

 

 

I've had this printer for about 3 weeks and am extremely pleased. I've used it for text printing, copying, scanning and, more recently, photo printing. The performance has been terrific - I printed out an 8x10 photo that looks comparable to one produced by a portrait studio. For photo printing, it is critical to take the picture at high resolution, and to ensure that the printer is set to the proper settings (e.g. the "best photo" setting, photo paper setting, and several others.). While I've read reviews on other sites that complain about photo quality printing on this model, I think that following these guidelines and using good photo quality paper ensures good quality printing. Also, the printer does not seem to drink up ink cartidges the way others are reputed to, and has the convenience (and economy) of allowing you to replace separate color ink cartridges.

As a PC & Mac User, I haved used the Epson CX5200 for 6 months now and here's the info every ready needs to know about this printer....

1. Ease of Setup and Use. Just follow the instruction (yes fellow men, that means follow them to the tee!) and you'll be up in no time.

2. Print Quality. 9 out of 10. Good printing for Photo's but get the photo paper if you want to take advantage of the great pictures for home or friends.

3. Copy / Scan / Print & Fax (yes, you can fax). Copying a document is too easy as well as scanning. Faxing, is just as easy. If you have an internal modem (pc or mac), then you too can fax. Just push the scan button on the CX5200 and the software automatically takes you through the rest.

Overall, you can network this printer as well and this out performs most of the HP series (PSC 2100 2200 7150 7350 7550). Avoid the CX3200 and get this one...5280 x 1440 print quality, who can go wrong.

After reading the reviews of Epson c82 and learning about Epson's durabrite ink technology, I ordered this printer from Amanzon.com.
This printer seems to be big brother of C82 with multifunction capabilities. Compared to other multi function printers on the market, like HPs PSC 750/2210, this unit is pretty heavy and takes more desk space. But i just liked its looks on the first sight - it has extremely well build grey colored plastic exterior, and looks more like a small laser printer.
Setting it up was easy, plugged to power supply, popped in the 4 ink catridges, ran the software CD, followed the instructions, connected the USB line and in 7-10 minutes it printed the first test page. The page was printed extremely fast, but i wanted to experiment more. I put my favourite picture in the scanner and selected the color copy button and in less than 2 minutes it printed a very close copy of the picture. I had used ordinary paper for printing the picture and observed the colors-mix was more than what you would expect from an inkjet. It was just stunning! Just to confirm Epson's claim that the dura brite is water resistant, i splashed some water on the pictures and after 5 seconds wiped it off. No smudging was seen (and this was done on a picture that was printed on ordinary paper). So far so good.
I wanted to try some scanning. I put a copy of my check, pressed the scan button. It popped up scanning software window on my computer screen. I pressed the scan button and it scanned ! but the best feature about scanning was that the scanner automatically detects the size of the object to be scanned. So the scanned image of my check was just the image of check without any white boundries.

I am really impressed by this printer. To sum it up:

PROS: Extremely fast printing, Durabrite tech, high resolution, fast and accurate scanning, seperate ink tanks (can save money on ink), flatbed scanning.

CONS: No parralel interface (if that is important), no fax capability (but you can use it with your computer for sending/receiving faxes with scanning/printing features of this machine), it makes some cranking sounds at the startup (but the operation after startup is quiet), cannot get durabrite ink from 3 party manufacturers or 3rd party refills.

Overall Rating: This is the best Multi Function Device available on market today. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to print quality pictures, copier, color copier, good scanner.

this is my first epson product and I am more than happy with my purchase. The price for what you get is excellent. Scanning was simple. Basicly you put in a picture or face down book and press scan and the software takes care of the rest.

Compared to my last scanner (microtek) this is a dream. The software is intuitive and didnt require my going thru help menus to figure out. The unit, being multi function integrates with printing and that makes it easy too. Not to mention *not* needing extra cables and space to connect separate units.

The printing is quicker than my last printer (HP) especially in black and white. The printing speed isnt what I would call lightening fast, but it works well for me as a home user. Color printing is somewat slower. You can set preferences to do more *draft quality* prints as a preference. Something that saves ink and makes the print jobs go quicker.

The epson software comes up when you are printing and shows you how much ink you have left. In black, and the three colors... very nice. That you can buy the cartridges (the colors separately) is wonderful. No more waste.

The one drawback Ihave found is that I find it fairly noisy. Not necessarily much noisier than my last one but still I was surprised.

I have found that you can vary the print quality based on your needs. Rough drafts to presentation modes. I think a flat bed scanner is essential as you can not sheet feed things to copy that are from books.

This is a wonderful, and so far, trouble free unit. Well, worth the money (I paid a bit more than the current price) and it suits my purposes very well

I needed a new printer for my iMac running 10.2.4, and liked the features of the Epson Stylus CX5200. I liked the idea of having the scanner, copier and printer all-in-one, allowing me to preserve very limited desk space.
First impressions?

Fairly bulky machine. It is a tall unit (about 10" tall), and takes up quite a bit of room (17"wide by 19" long with trays extended). Still, it is less room than if I had to accomodate a seperate printer and scanner.

NOISY. Yikes! My last printer was an Epson Color Stylus 880, and this is very loud in comparison. This might be a consideration if you will be using this machine in a shared office space or a central home location. It is difficult to talk on the phone if the machine is printing.

Print quality and speed are excellent. No complaints about the performance of this machine. Terrific color copies and good-quality scans. As far as performance, I think all aspects of this machine work very well for this price.

One final note, the Epson Stylus CX5200 is very quirky with Mac 10 X. It is fine when you are running OS X, and also fine when you switch to classic mode. The problem comes in when you switch back to OS X. The computer stalls the print queue, and then cannot find the printer. I called Epson about this and they say it is a known problem, and the problem falls on Apple. No fix is expected. (I have to restart my computer to print if I return from classic mode to OS X. Not very convenient.)

Overall, good machine except for the drawbacks mentioned (size, NOISE, and OS X problems).

I needed to replace my aging Epson 850N printer in my home/office setting with a newer printer capable of better text and graphics. In addition, being able to photocopy things was an increasing need. Around the same time as the 850N needed to be replaced my Umax scanner was giving me trouble, so being able to scan documents was also added to the list. The printer also needed to be both PC & Mac compatible. The CX5200 fits all of the above. It is a USB based printer so sharing it means OS level printer sharing or buying an external print server. The scans are clean and exact. The prints are awesome compared to my old (5+ year) printer. Scanning can be done either remotely or at the printers control panel. Paper handling is the loudest part of this printer, but that is relatively quite. The scanner is TWAIN compliant, so all the benefits of TWAIN supported apps fall into play. The printer driver, etc. are well supported in Mac OS X as well. An anticipated update this spring will provide missing control panel support. All in all this looks to be an excellant home printer for the money.

This is a pretty good printer for what it is worth.

It copies really well without a computer.
It in "Best Photo" glossy mode produces brillant colors.
The installation was also pretty easy.
Scanning is excellent and fast.

Caveats:
Loading paper is an issue depending upon the type. It would sometimes take in more than one sheet. Or you need to reposition the paper cause it wouldn't load. The sound of the loading is quite loud.

Printing in Best photo mode would take about 3 minutes for an 8x11 inch sheet of paper.

Paper setup does not account well for 4x6 5x7 or wallet size photos so the pictures are off.

I have had the printer for a month and a half and used up almost half of my ink cartridge with modest usage. But this is expected from buying an ink jet.

The software provided is quite difficult to use to manage and enhance your own photos. In some areas is dead easy but if you stray from the path (clean up red eye or some touch ups) you can't. Borders are limited and it forces you to "upgrade" online for addtional border options.

Bottom line is I do love the printer. But the warnings are from my experience but I can work around all these issues. But if they are issues to you I would avoid it.

Just got this printer multi today, set up a breeze, install 15 minutes maybe. Am impressed with the scanner speed and quality and had read all the reviews here and elsewhere... glad I bought it. Great little machine fast, like the individual inks and best of all after fiddling with it for about 10 minutes I figured out you can set the paper choice to mat heavy weight and the loud noise is reduced to normal sounds of any other printer. It must be that by selecting heavy paper the feed doesn't just jerk hard to get the paper inside it pulls easier but not any slower it seems. And certainly my concerns about the noise were alleviated. We have a small office and it could have been a distraction.

I haven't put it to any hard tests yet but I think I'm going to remain pleased.

Try one for yourself but fiddle with all the settings and I think you'll be happier - it's not a plug and play right out of the box perfect idiot proof multi but it's worth the effort to change settings until it works like you want it. Scanner quality os great, color printing is excellent when you select all the high quality settings.

I have a new born baby, so my primary requirement was photo printing. I bought this as a replacement to Lexmark 3200 and Umax Astr 2000U scanner.

I also have some very old B&W (40 years old) photographs with lots of blemishes. I wanted to restore and make copies of them since I don't have negatives or extra copies. I tried Kodak's picture machines at drug store. The output was lousy from the black and white picture. I was told in the photo lab, that a professional restoration of the photos would cost me $...per photo. I have several of these photos that require restoration, so it would easily run somewhere near $... I thought it might be a good idea to try this machine for restoration, since it has good scanning capability (1200X2400).

After unpacking the unit, I tried color copy feature with a portrait picture of my kid in a glossy paper. It was ok with the color scan. Then I tried the old black and white (2X3 size) and enlarged it to 4X6. I was taken aback by the quality of the copy. I have no way to describe my happiness that the copy was much much better than the original with no blemishes that i see in the original. It was perfect. I guess I recovered the cost of the printer right there. It is truly amazing with subsequent enlargement to 8X10 too. Now I have a portrait of my parent's photo from a small 2x3. You cannot beat the color copying capability of this printer too. It offers many professional options (like enlargement, photo paper, paper size etc) right out of the box without the need for a PC. You don't need to run to a professional photo lab to restore old photos, you can do this right at your home. Isn't amazing!!!.

Setting up the system with PC is not that bad. I'm little bit disappointed with the color photo priting. May be I didn't try all the options (matte paper etc) like other reviewers mentioned here.I may be expecting too much from a inkject printer!!? I was in a dilemma between this printer and Epson 825 photo printer. It uses 4 different color cartridges as opposed to 6 in 825 printer. I figured that it should not make that much of different as 825 is 5760x720 this one 5760x1440. Also 5200 uses dura-brite 825 doesn't. On top of it the high end canon photo printers use 4 cartridges like this one with beautiful results. As you see, I was torn between 825 and 5200, finally ended buying this one for its all round performance.

So far I'm very satisfied with this machine. I just got to try different setting with photo printing.

This is by far a wonderful machine..I love Epson's software - HP can't even come close to it. Multiple cartridges are economically a good thing. VERY fast printing! Nice simple interface on unit. All around quality. Minus, you ask? If you've read other reviews you know what I'm going to say..the initial clunk at the beginning of printing. Not sure what the real deal is here..but let's say I've printed quite a bit from it in the short amount of time I've had it and I haven't hit and don't perceive to hit any paper jams or paper feed errors, which I've had numerous times with my HP630 Ojet. Hope this was helpful. I don't think anyone can go wrong buying EPSON. Quality is there.