Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus 777 Color Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

This is a dandy printer, fast, prints good-looking pages, but if I had it to do over again, I would choose another. The problem is that each cartridge has a chip in it, making generics next to impossible to produce, and it would appear that the ink capacity gets stored in the cartridge's memory somehow, because you can't refill these using the conventional refill kits -- the printer still won't recognize them as full.

Run out of color ink? Then you can't print in black either, even if there's sufficient ink. This would be a thing, I would think, that could be changed in firmware, and I wish Epson would release a firmware update.

And, just as other reviewers have mentioned, the cartridges are expensive, and because there's no choice but to buy the Epson branded ones, they sell out faster than cartridges where generics are available.

I'll keep this printer until it falls down dead, since I've made the (albeit cheap) investment in it, but when I go shopping again, I'll be sure to check out the cartridge situation FIRST, and I recommend you do too.

Easy setup - had it printing in minutes. The USB port is fast and trouble-free. Print quality using glossy paper is incredible even with images from my lower-end Fuji Finepix 1400 digital camera. Text prints quickly (for an inkjet printer.) After months of frustration with paper-jams and errors from my HP Officejet, it is nice to finally have a printer that works! For the money, I don't see how the Epson Stylus 777 can be beat.

I have had this printer for close to one month and have been very happy with the quality. The printer was easy to set up and only took about twenty minutes to go from the box to my first printed page. The style is not the best in the world but the price and the print quality more than make up for it. The dpi was also the best out of the choices that had in the store. Overall I would recommend this product to university students and the person that prints the occasional page and wants it to look proffesional. One thing that you want to make sure you do is to order a cable so that you are able to set it up when it comes to you.

I have been using an HP printer for the past year. I needed another inexpensive printer for some smaller projects so I researched until I decided on this one. I am completely impressed with this printer! It has even better print quality than my higher priced printer. I am convinced that you simply cannot beat this printer at this price! It does have one flaw in that it can be noisy(not very quiet) BUT that is the only negative I can see. You can't go wrong with this one.........photos are great! Go for it!

This little Epson has excellent B&W and color printing for both graphics and text. Use inkjet "coated" heavyweight paper or glossy photo paper for photographs - they'll look almost as good as the photomat - and for high-resolution text. Regular laser printer paper wasn't designed to handle the ink that inkjet printers use, so the quality is not nearly as good. We use our printer for printing CD-R labels and making photo reprints mostly, leaving the text printing to our laser printer. Printing speed is very fast, with even a full-page color photo taking only a minute or two. The printer is noisy, though, both when idle and especially when printing - if you need to print when other people are in bed, put it somewhere away from bedrooms. Note that the Epson 777 doesn't come with a printer cable in the box - be sure to pick one up with the printer unless you have one at home.

I was initially very impressed by the print quality of this inexpensive printer. Though it doesn't claim to be a photo printer, I was able to print decent pictures with it using photo paper. That being said, there are three major drawbacks. First, it uses a lot of ink, very expensive ink might I add. While the printer itself is inexpensive, the per page printing cost is high because of 1)how much ink it takes to print an average page of text, and 2)that the cartridge is not refillable and there are no generic versions on the market. Second, it's loud, and I mean startles-you-every-single-time loud. Third, it's slow to spool and start print jobs. I'm running it on a Mac G3 with 128MB of ram via a USB connection. The printer will sit there and make tons of noise for a good 30 seconds before it starts printing. Overall it's okay for occasional home printing. If you consistently need to print a large number of documents, this thing might drive you crazy.

I own 4 other Epson products and have been a loyal customer for years. When I bought the 777 I didn't expect much other than an inexpensive way to produce color proofs. The printer did this just fine for about 90 days, when the mechanism driving the print head disintegrated.
Epson was prompt in sending a replacement (to the wrong address initially). The replacement printer was a factory reconditioned one, and has never had the print quality of the orriginal. Alas, it too has failed due to a terminally clogged print head-despite regular use, frequent cleaning, and the use of only bona-fide (pricey) Epson ink cartridges. Fortunately, the old 1520, 800. and 740i are still working reliably. If I didn't have half a dozen new ink cartridges left I would just toss the printer, but to avoid eating the cost of the cartridges (which well exceed the value of the 777 itself ) I'll be talking to the nice people at Epson America again about the thankfully still in force 1 year warranty. Buyer beware. :(

Overall I'd say that this is a decent printer. The speed of the printer is very quick, especially if you set it to the speed setting in the drivers. I would say comparable to a laser printer.

Overall the quality of the print outs is good. The high quality setting you can't really tell that it was printed using ink, although at this setting the printer gets slow.

There are two bad things about this printer though. First and formost is the ink that is required to print with it. My last printer, also an epson, it took me nearly 3 months to use up the whole black ink. Now, with this printer I am buying a new cartridge every month, and they are expensive, about 20 dollars each. Think you can get some generic cartridge or ink refill? Well you can't, believe me, I have looked.

The second thing is the noise. Of course if noise really doesn't matter then I guess this isn't bad. Just saying though, you can't use this printer around someone sleeping, you will wake them up (since I have been waken up by this printer).

The Epson 777(i) will accept only Epson OEM print cartridges. Epson has installed a chip in its cartridges that defeats the use of aftermarket cartridges. I believe this is the sole function of the chip.

None of the advertising I have read discloses this attempt to force printer owners to use only Epson cartridges. The sales people with whom I spoke concealed this (or they didn't yet know about it).

The issue is the expense of Epson vs. aftermarket cartridges. My daughter, a student, uses approximately two cartrides every two months....Buying aftermarket cartridges [is much less than replacing with the OEM cartridges] with the same resulting printer output.

Had this been disclosed, I would have purchased another model such as the Epson 880 or another brand.

My 777 is the best printer I have owned to date. The printer price is a bargain, and the quality of the printout is as good as more expensive models. If you're not needing real speed, this printer can't be beaten by printers twice their price.

My only problem? The T017 and T018 cartridges that they use. First, they are hard to find, at least in our area of the country. Most stores are still stocking the old S-series, and after a year I still can't find them in my home town. In cities of 100,000 to 300,000 within a 150-mile radius, I have found that the few stores that carry them are often out of stock.

....

They are available here at Amazon....I'm waiting for my rush shipment from Amazon. When the color is out, the B/W won't print either.