Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus CX8400 Color All-in-One Printer

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(59)

 

 

Well... I finally made the jump to a printer, scanner, and copier and I decided to make it an Epson due to the price and individual printer cartridges. I want to issue a very serious buyer beware though and I implore you not to take this lightly. I'm not one to complain very much but this printer warrants it. Let's start with the good first. This is a very attractive looking printer, it prints well (except draft mode could be a tad darker for my taste), and it scans pretty well (not very many options to scan into other programs though). Why do I give it a one though?

Well... I got this printer about 2 weeks ago. Since then I have not printed in color at all and usually print stuff in draft mode. Well... it turns out after 2 weeks that all three of the individual color printer cartridges are almost expended!!!!! 2 weeks of no use and I need to buy three new ones? I contacted the company to see what was going on and they told me it is due to the way the printer is designed. The cartridges "prime" even if you don't use them for the print job. 2 weeks of "priming" and I almost need new cartridges which are quite pricey compared to HP, Kodak, and Canon. Plus... when my color cartridges run out... even if I still only print in black... my printer will fail to operate. Plus... I heard you can't even scan when a cartridge it out. So... you are pretty much forced to go buy a cartridge. Plus... it is quite hard to use generic ink due to the way they designed the printer. Once you do succeed you have to click "ok" to prompts because you didn't use Epson ink. I hope everyone will heed my warning. This printer will quickly be very expensive.

I read the reviews about Epson printers and their ink cartridge issues but didn't pay attention.
I remember my Epson printers of years ago and their high quality print outs. So when I shopped for and all-in-one I gravitated to Epson and thought/hoped the reviews outlining the ink cartridge difficulties were just isolated cases. I got my Epson and two weeks later learned the horrible truth about their ink cartridges: THE REVIEWS ARE ALL TRUE!!!
The machine drinks ink like a drunken sailor. Yes, the printing is as good as ever. The scanner is good. The fax works well. But at what cost.

Before buying read the reviews. The ink costs are out of this world because they have obsolesence built into them.

I hate this printer. It drinks ink, and Epson has shrunk the cartridge size to TINY. You cannot find off-brand ink for it either, so you are stuck buying ink that is gone in a few days. If you want to print in color, forget this printer.

Although this is a very efficient printer/scanner/copier and very reasonably priced, it sucks up ink faster than any printer I've ever used --and it seems like I purchased a new HP printer annually. I naively thought that being able to replace single cartridges for each color would save money. WRONG!

Some of you may remember Polaroid cameras. Initially Polaroid cameras were extremely expensive until the company found they could make more profit selling their sole-source Polaroid film than they could by just selling the cameras. Fast forward 40 years and I give you EPSON printers -same thing. Epson can virtually give away the printers since you are forced to buy their ink at outrageous intervals/prices.

The fact that you can not print black only when that cartridge is full and any of the color carts are empty is also outrageous and can best be categorized as a rip off - shame on EPSON!

CAVEAT EMPTOR!

I have found the Epson CX8400 all in one printer to be a mixed bag. It was certainly reasonable for the price, and the print quality is OK. It is relatively easy to operate. (I have not done any photos yet). However, it seems very slow to me and the printer ink was used up quite quickly. I am told that the printer manufacturers do not give you full ink cartridges when you buy the printer, and perhaps that is the case here. It is certainly expensive to replace the ink, and I am worried about the cost of maintaining the printer relative to its speed.

Multifunction in a compact design. Decent print and scan quality, although the color photos are visibly inferior than that of a Canon PIXMA printer. The worst about this printer is that it really guzzles ink. Since I got it in first week of November, the only photos I printed were 3 letter sized prints containing 3 4x6 pictures each. Then the yellow and Cyan cart were empty! I emailed epson and was told that on the first time installation some ink were used to prime the print head. But future cartridges will yield more. Well, that maybe true but I certainly am not buying anything from this company anymore. I am currently waiting for some cheap inks delivered to me from one of the online ink sellers. If they works ok I will keep the printer for non-photo purpose. Otherwise it will be listed here among the "used and new", or thrown out.

I will come out right from the beginning and admit that Epson printers are wonderful when it comes to print quality. Photo prints can come out looking as if they were developed in-store, and the Epson Stylus CX8400, priced at under $100, is no exception. A scanner and printer in one, the price makes the CX8400 seem like a great bargain. However, behind this seemingly wonderful price tag is a nasty surprise, which you'll likely encounter after it's too late unless you heed my warnings and those of others who have reviewed this item.

The printer worked wonderfully for me until I started noticing something odd. My color ink was going down just as fast as my black ink although almost everything I've printed was in black. This made no sense to me, but I didn't really think too much of it and just bought a black ink cartridge when I received the low ink warning for every cartridge. Well, the day finally came when I tried printing something and received a message on my computer saying that the black ink was all out. Fair enough; I replaced the black ink cartridge and hit print one more time. A new message popped up saying I was out of magenta. Great, thanks for telling me, but I really don't care. Just print that paper I need to hand in within the hour. I tried just about everything to make the printer work, but it refused to do anything unless I replaced that accursed magenta ink cartridge. Later that day, I did a little research on Epson printers, and apparently, all of their models have this problem. I seriously cannot believe that Epson has the audacity to force me to replace every cartridge before allowing me to print again. I just want to print using black and white for goodness sakes, and Epson demands that I shell out over $60 so that I can get the color cartridges that mysteriously lose all of their ink. Do NOT let this printer catch you off guard. Do NOT buy this printer. Heck, do NOT buy any Epson printer at all. Epson needs a major reform on their practices.

Bottom line: AVOID THIS AND ALL OTHER EPSON PRINTERS LIKE THE PLAGUE.

I bought mine in Canada and was able to yeild about 106 pages of full color printouts before my ink was low. And I use a compatible cartridge that retails for $4.99 for each color the yield amount on these cartridges is 24ml here in Canada that is why I got so many pages of full color. The bad part is that it is a noisy printer but if you put a piece of thin sponge under it the noise is muffled. you can scan when there is no ink.. that is only if you are doing a copy or scanning to print then you can't but scanning to the computer shouldn't matter of how much ink there is. I have used Epson printers since the early 80's and have had no problems in the past. For all those who are having trouble make sure you read the manuall or go online like I did and find a patch that will render the computer chip in the printer to trick it into thinking the cartridges are full I use it and use my cartridges till the paper is blank. Hope this helps... P.S. When using photo paper get a low or no glossy finish as this uses less ink and use inkjet paper instead of multi-use since inkjet paper uses a coating on it so it dosen't absorb so much ink that is why I yield so many pages of full color it is a few dollars more but worth it! Thanks

The printing quality is great on this printer. Printing speed is good, the scanner is great. I've scanned several pictures and documents and had no trouble saving it to the computer. I've had this printer now close to 2 months. My inks are still close to full and I have not suffered any major or minor problems as of yet.

This is my second Epson printer. My first one lasted me 5 years without any problems. Age and wanting newer technology is the reason I bought this second printer. I don't print an enormous amount, so I don't use too much ink in a relative short amount of time. My first printer also had the capacity to use a lot of ink but I also could go extended periods without changing ink wells. I've always used the printer software to help control the amount of ink that is laid down by the printer so as not to use too much ink.

I leave the printer on regardless if I'm printing or not. This, in my opinion, also saves on the ink. By turning the printer on and off all the time will cause the printer to "prime" its ink wells each time, using alot of ink. By keeping the printer on, it tends not to prime each and every time you need to print a document which can help save you using up ink quickly.