Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus Photo RX500 All-in-One

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

My original review is further down, written a few days after setting up the printer. I'll now relate my 5-month experience.

The machine has been flawless. It's one of the best experiences I've ever had with an electronics device, and I am a gadget freak. I've printed approx. 30 greeting cards and 200 photos, from 4x6 through 8x10. Photos copy extremely well with the flatbed scanner, and I use it to make accurate copies of originals. For even better results, tweak your original photo on the computer and print it using your favorite image editing software.

You may rarely use the negative-adapter, but if you only have a negative and need a print, it is a godsend. High quality scans, for sure.

One ink cartridge just fell under 20% full (light Cyan), so the ink lasts a long time. You can find great deals on original Epson ink on the web (try Amazon first). I bought a whole set of refills on the cheap.

I mainly use it to print digital photos (4x6 mostly) from my Canon S400 Digital Elph, and to print greeting cards. I make remarkable cards for pennies compared to $2 - $5 at the greeting card racks.

Paper: Extremely high quality prints on Epson, HP, Kodak and Ilford Galerie photo papers. I love Ilford paper. You can find great deals online for photo paper. 200 sheets of high gloss for under $20. Don't penalize yourself on quality - get the high gloss.

I have a minolta 11x17 b/w laser printer, so I don't use the RX500 for most document printing. Toner is cheaper than ink, and laser is faster than inkjet, especially for long documents.

The Epson RX600 recently came out. Same as RX500, but has an LCD preview window. Handy if you print right from the digital card reader. You can get an external Epson LCD for as low as $18, so the extra $100 for the RX600 is a bit tough to swallow. Deals are popping up on the RX500. It's still the best value of any multi-function device.

*** Original Review ***

I was looking for a color printer, as I only had a b/w laser printer. Since I have owned digital cameras since 1999, it was time to get a photo quality printer. I Decided I wanted it to scan and copy as well. The multi-function device (MFD) was much better than in previous-generation products. It had to have separate ink cartridges (better value on ink), which ruled out HP, and almost everything but Canon and Epson devices.

After exhaustive research and showroom testing at a local retailer, I bought the Epson CX6400. Great value. It was a 4-ink system (not 6), but the DuraBright inks were getting pretty good reviews. I stayed up until 1am playing with my new toy. On premium glossy paper, the prints were very good. However, they had a matte, or maybe a semi-gloss cast to them, even on the best glossy paper. Other photo printers (Epson R300) delivered a glossier, crisper photo-processing feel to them. I could live with that for the price and features the CX6400 had. The 6-ink system was not in the cards for me if I wanted a MFD flatbed device.

The next morning, while reading the Sunday paper, I saw an ad for a brand new MFD by Epson. Just came out. It was the RX500. Here's the bottom line. It has the same 6-ink system and print engine as the beautiful-printing R300/M, and it is a flatbed MFD. Nirvana!

I exchanged the unit the next morning. Wow! The printouts are just like a photo lab with my 4 megapixel shots. Even my older 2 megapixel shots looked great.

You can do almost everything on the device without a computer, as it has card slots for almost every media type. When you print from the computer, the software lets you tweak the quality even higher.

Liked the Epson CX6400. Love the RX500. The RX500 is the best of both worlds...

The 4x6 prints look incredible on premium glossy paper, and very nice on plain, bright paper. 8x10 and 8.5x11 also look great - just like a photo lab. And you can print borderless prints, without perforated paper. Ideal!

Speed is pretty good. Larger prints, and highest quality obviously take longer to print, but it's well worth it. Surf the web while you are waiting.

The bundled imaging software (PhotoImpression) is easy to use and does a great job. You can go from a digital photo to a beautiful print in minutes. The amount of control is overwhelming, but fortunately the standard setting doa great job. Go with the default settings unless you have a special need. Just set the paper type and size, and you are off to the races.

It's faster start-to-finish when you plug your memory card directly into the device. If you have a few minutes to boot up your computer, you'll have more control and you can bump the quality up a bit. Honestly, it was hard to tell the difference, though. Tech specs say there is a difference in resolution, but if I'm in a hurry, I print without the computer.

The Rx500 also scans and prints existing photos very well, as well as a magazine cover I used as a test. New on this device (and an exclusive) is a transparency and slide scanner. I scanned and printed from a 35mm positive, and a film negative. The quality is outstanding. Now I can zip out a print from any old negative or slide I have stored away in boxes. Way cool.

The only "negative" or tradeoff, is that the ink will smudge if it gets wet. That's the price you pay for the 6-ink system. As long as you get your prints into a photo album, or under glass in a frame, it is a non-issue. I'll take the tradeoff rather than settle for lesser quality in a smudge-resistant ink.

Buy the RX500. You truly get the best of all worlds. A superior photo printer, with the convenience and ultimate flexibility of a an excellent scanner/copier...

I bought the printer at CompUSA at a good price[]. I wanted a photo quality printer with decent speed, and the multi functions of copying and scanning on a flat bed. We needed the latter functions around the house for work and personal paperwork, kids' homework, etc.

I narrowed my selection down the Epson CX6400 or the RX500. Both met my needs and got excellent reviews from consumers and experts, except that some consumers felt the 6400 gave sub-standard, non-glossy photo output on prem glossy paper. I researched this best i could and found that Epson seemed to address this with a new Durabrite-specific prem glossy paper, however i couldn't find anyone saying that this delivered as good prints as the RX500 or the R300 Epson. I liked the durability of the Durabrite inks of the 6400, but in the end went for the certainty of highest quality prints using the RX500 (which uses traditional dye based inks). My logic was that while the dye-based prints of the RX500 would be susceptible to light and water damage over time, they were no worse than any other photo printer using dye-based inks (95% of those which i researched and which received 5-star consumer reviews).

Am i sure i made the right decision?? Well part of me still thinks the durability of the 6400 prints might be nice to have. but the output and performance of the RX500 has been excellent, meeting all of my expectations. Easy to learn to use and setup. I was able to use it for printing photos at a family Christmas party, from multiple cameras using different memory card types (SD and XD), and was able to select specific photos for printing, from a range or single photos.

I'm a happy customer so far.

Tom

Like the other customer who wrote of Epson's greed, I'm here to tell everyone about how this printer is designed to rip off customers. The ink cartridges each contain a "smart" chip which is actually not smart at all. It simply counts how many times you print, and subtracts a certain amount of ink which was POTENTIALLY used, not ACTUALLY used. From other customer feedback, I have seen that Epson will tell customers a number of things: one, that even black printing uses a little bit of color from each cartridge (a blatant lie) or that the ink "monitoring" is necessary due to the delicate nature of the print head, which will be damaged if ink runs out or gets too low. As the other reviewer on this site noted, the printer will simply quit printing if even ONE cartridge chip says that the ink is too low. This happened to me, and I couldn't even print in black only. The kicker is that I had only printed about 10 color photos at most. There was no way my color tanks were empty. To prove it, I bought an aftermarket "chip resetter" and used it, and the printer was fooled into thinking the tanks were full again and went right back to work. I don't know about you, but I'll go with the Canon printers, who are just about the only major manufacturer to still use unchipped cartridges (for now) WATCH OUT for THIS WITH EPSON. There has already been litigation filed against them for engineering this "non-functionality" into their product. Don't let this company force you into playing their ink game.

I purchased this printer last week, and I have tried out almost all of its features, and everything worked well as promised. The quality of pictures I printed on Epson photo paper are excellant. It does use a lot of ink, but all good photo printers use a lot of ink. The text quality is good (just as good as any other inkjet printer). My printer read my digital camera card perfectly. The scanner does a great job. The ability to print from old negatives and slides was an important feature for me, and RX500 does a great job recreating pictures from negatives without any developing chemicals. It's also a great copier, and there is no need for your computer to be on when you just need to create a copy of something. The print speed is a bit slow, but it's probably fine for most home use. The Epson Software is okay, but you may find other software products that offer more features and flexiblity.

I considered the Epson RX600 printer, but with all my (...), the Epson RX500 printer was half the cost of the RX600. The only difference between the RX600 and RX500 is that the RX600 offers the Small View Screen and the ablility to hook your digital camera directly into the printer, but I prefer to view my pictures on my computer monitor before I decide to print them, and I can just as easily hook my camera to my front USB port. Also, I read on another website that on rare occasions this Small View Screen burns-out which concerned me. Overall, I am pleased with the RX500 printer.

Note: Epson printers sometimes have problems with clogged print-heads after 1 to 2 years (I encountered one myself), and the Epson clean features may not resolve this problem. Therefore, I also considered a HP Printer (which I have owned before and have usually been happy with) as the HP is less likely to have these print-head problems, but the HP2510 or HP2610 multi-purpose-printer cost twice as much as the Epson RX500 after all the (...), and the HP does not recreate negatives or slides. Also, on the HP, you have to change the printer cartridge to print good photos. Both of these HP printers offer a Small View Screen and also Direct Faxing, but on the Epson RX500, you must use your computer fax software.

First one I received was a lemon, grinding, screeching and didn't print 2 of the 6 colors. This machine could have been damaged during shipping (from Staples, Amazon didn't have it yet) as it sat in a truck for a weekend in NH when temps were in the 20s (supposed to be delivered on a Friday, was delivered on Monday). The new one I exchanged the lemon for at Staples works fantastic with my Powerbook G3 266 mhz Mac, I'm thrilled (older machine running OS 9.2), where I had continuous conflicts with my old HP 660C and where I continuously reveled in the idea of chucking it out the window (I'm donating it to charity instead). Prints are AMAZING from digital files. I was floored by the quality!! Scanning is great, but don't try to scan a digital print and reprint it out. It scans graphics better than photos. Copier works very well. An overall great product. I give it 4 stars because the first one was a lemon and I'm not sure if that is an Epson issue.

I've been playing with the Epson RX500 for a few hours and I'm delighted with my purchase. I'd been delaying the purchase of a printer because I couldn't choose from all the great models out there, and delaying the purchase of a scanner because I didn't have the desk space. Finally this came along and it allowed me replace an old printer, get rid of the memory card reader on my desk (as a multi-format card reader is built right in) and get a scanner in the same space.

So far the pros are:
- Great quality from the very first photo. For snapshots, clearly as good as a photo lab. And because printing at home allows you to tweak the photo to your liking, you usually end up with better photos than sending it all out to a lab, IMO.

- The scanner was ultra simple to use. I went around the house getting old photos out of their frames and scanned a half dozen test shots -- the results were great. It's fantastic to have some of my favorite photos now backed up and digitized, and I was able to easily touch up scratches and other problems with Adobe Elements.

- Set up was quite simple. The instructions were very clear, and the software loaded simply, as it should.

- The software that comes with the scanner is pretty good. If you're still using a basic photo editor or no photo editor, the Arcsoft package that comes with this printer is worth trying.

The cons?

- There is a lot of software with this package, and I still don't have all the defaults set as I'd like. For example, when I scan a photo and start to save it the Epson scanning program automatically starts up the Arcsoft Photo Editing software that came with the printer. However, I prefer to use the combination of Adobe Album and Adobe Photoshop Elements, and I have to manually close down Arcsoft so I can get the photo into Adobe, which is a couple extra steps that aren't needed. (I'm guessing there is a way I can set this up to be less annoying but haven't found it yet.)

Net -- this is a very strong, reasonably priced package for people wanting great photo printouts at home. If you haven't seen what a home photo printer can do in the past couple of years, you will be impressed with this. There are other good options out there from Canon and HP as well, but for a combination printer/scanner this struck me as the best combination of features in its price range.

This all in one is *very* different from all the others currently on the market. It is made for photos rather than for scanning documents.

It combines the R300 photo printer and Epson 2400dpi photo scanner into an affordable package that delivers great prints and high resolution scans.

I have had scanners in the past that would scan high resolution and create giant files with poor details. This is not one of those scanners.

I don't use the Epson software for photo editing or printing, so I won't comment on their usage or effectiveness. I really like Adobe Photoshop Elements for that sort of stuff.

You will need good photo editing software for cleaning up photos. Once you use high-res photo scanning settings, you will need to take time to clean up the dust on your pic. The dust is just a fact of life with high resolution scanners that are used in a home environment rather than in a clean room.

You will also need more ram for your computer. An 8x10 scanned at 600 DPI takes up approx 250mb of memory. I found my machine needed approx 1 gb to be able to process some of the scans at higher resolution -- especially if I wanted to have more than 1 pic open at a time.

Pros:
Super-duper prints on Epson Premium Glossy paper that capture crystal clear details.

Super-hi rez photo scans that really capture fine detail. A high-quality original scanned, cleaned up digitally, then printed out is indistinguishable from the original -- maybe even a little bit better depending on how good you are with Photoshop.

Very good deal for the money. Combine a $180.00 printer, $150.00 scanner, and $60.00 memory card reader into a $240.00 package.

Cons:
Limited life of non-water resistant inks.

Printer can take some fooling with the settings to get truly great details out of the pics. Once you figure out all the settings, and use good paper, the pics are spectacular.

Scanner takes some time fooling with the settings to get the colors and exposure correct. I have ended up with either overly saturated colors on some of the color correction settings, or too dark on the no color correction settings.

Does not work well with non-Epson paper.

I purchased my printer in April 2004, so at the time of this review I've had my printer for about 7 months. It is a very good printer for what it does.

As the name indicates, it is a photo quality printer. If you're looking for an everyday all-in-one you may want to go with HP for it's cheaper inks, sheet loading scanners and built-in fax.

The only CONS I've found with this printer is that it refuses to print if you've run out of any one ink, which is a useful feature so that you don't waste other inks but is minutely irritating when it's your primary printer. When paper jams in this unit, it is very annoying to get out becuase where you usually have to clear a jam (by lifting the scanner unit) is the precise location of the ink bay and the ink bay tends to shift back in forth several times as you're trying to get the paper. Despite other reviews, I'VE NOT FOUND THAT THE RX500 JAMS MORE often than any other printer I've ever owned.

I'm a particular fan of the card reader because in addition to being able to print photos using just your memory card, when the printer is hooked to your computer it acts as a regular USB card reader (one card read at a time).

I bought this printer strictly based on the reviews on Amazon.com. So much for that idea! The black ink runs: easily, and a lot! And worse, I have printed only two pages using color, and over the past month the pop-up screen that shows the status of the 6 individual ink cartrdiges continues to show declining levels for the 5 "unused" color cartridges!! They are now supposedly half empty!

Also, the "draft mode" is so faint, it is unusable.

The reviews forewarned how slow this printer is in set-up time. Believe it! It is also very finicky with the paper feed. I've had to clear several jams already. Guess I'm going back to getting ripped off by HP printer$. At lea$t I get a con$i$tently good re$ult for the high price of ink...

I bought this printer after doing a thoroug search on the net. I rate is as quite good, but there are things that could be improved.

Software installed great; it was fast, and not too big.

Copying photos as a stand alone is excellent, but I noticed some greenish overcast. But I intent to scan everything into photoshop first, so I can live with that.

OCR software is quite effective and user friendly. I already like this one.

Cartridges are quite expensive, and it seems to be going through them rather quickly, but still acceptable.

The scanner is perfect. It has more resoulution than I can use.

The software works quite good, and it's user friendly, but there could be some more explanation in the manunal - for example I could not turn on the "dust and scratches option" in the scanner software, but I have to try higher resolution and see if the function becomes enabled.

The only major drawback I noticed was the text quality - I compared it to the printout from my HP cp 1700 at work, and Epson does not even come close.... mind you, the HP is a pricey unit able to print 13X17 pages. Having said that, the print quality is decent enough, but I feel a bit dissappointed.

I am using a USB 2.0, but the time it takes to start printing is not too impressive (on the other hand, some files are huge)

the unit is compact, appears to be well made and mechanically works very well.