Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus Photo RX680 Photo All-in-One Printer

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

Boy after reading the last few posts, I was worried when I bought one for my wife the "PhotoNut" However, the package arrived in perfect condition, I bought direct from Epson. All the pieces were in the box properly packed, we installed the software, simple, loaded the cartridges as indicated by the instructions, plugged into the USB port, printer was found right away. We tried the copy and enhance the color option first, WOW!!! I had a 15 year old collage group shot that hung on a wall and faded, the redo brought it back to life. Its not perfect, but WOW anyway

I love this printer. My wife spent hours last night playing with it and handed me a stack of really great looking prints this morning I was impressed! We currently have a HP Photosmart 1000 and a Epson Picture Mate Both still work fine, but the 680 takes the prize!!!

For those of you that have had problems, I don't know what to say, for anybody reading this, I really like it, so does my wife.

Good Luck to all

Pat S.

Summary: After using most of the features on this printer in 1 day, I'm very impressed with the quality and performance that I've seen!

Pros:
- Looks great
- 2 paper trays (never have to remove "normal" paper again)
- auto-duplexing (very convenient to save paper. automatically adjusts ink and "drying time" to avoid bleed-through and smearing
- AMAZING photo prints. I literally cannot tell a difference between these prints and photo lab prints (when printing high-quality pictures)
- good quality plain-paper prints
- easy to use built-in functions (the menu is very simple to navigate)
- scanner is quiet and produces good quality (must choose high DPI if you want great quality)
- very good user guide on the computer. explains everything in detail

Cons:
- Draft printing could look a little better (but then again it is called "draft" for a reason)
- loud noise made before each print (right when it pulls the paper)

Unknown:
- Ink usage. I've printed about 20 photos on 4x6 best quality, as well as probably 20 "normal" letter-sized pages (text+graphics). The only ink level that isn't 100% is Light Magenta, which looks to be about 99% :) Others have said that these Epson photo printers use a TON of ink. I'll find out soon if this one does too.
- CD/DVD printing. I haven't tried it yet.

Conclusion: So far, I'm extremely pleased with the purchase. I would definitely recommend this printer/copier/scanner to someone else.

I purchased this all in one printer approximately 1 month ago with some hesitation because of some of the other reviews. I guess as with a lot of things, being the first to purchase isn't necessarily a good thing. Fortunately I have had NONE of the experiences some of the others have had.

Mine was purchased from a store (during shipping products can get beat up). I pretty much pulled it out of the box, loaded the software, and began printing. In addition to the printing speed, I was amazed at the picture quality. There truly is a difference when I compare the images to those printed off a former HP 7700 series printer.

One thing I did notice is you pretty much need to use Epson paper. I tried using some Kodak paper I had and noticed that even after leaving the prints out for 8 hours the ink still smudged. That is not an issue if you use the Epson paper (it seems to dry almost instantaneously).

Printing on a cd was easy using the supplied cd tray. I also have had excellent results from scanning pictures and documents. All & all I am VERY satisfied. I was so satisfied I donated my old HP printer & HP scanner to charity for the tax write off!!!

If you need an EXCELLENT quality all in one printer, this is the one for you. Do some price shopping as there are some stores that were giving $30-$40 off, but definitely purchase this. You won't be disappointed.

My girlfriend just got me this printer for Christmas, and I love it. This machine cranks out beautiful prints very fast. It prints border-less 8.5"X11" prints, which is a plus. It's one of the few all-in-one's that do that, and it does it well. You can even print 4"X6" prints fast, as well as DVDs and CDs.

It worked great right out of the box. Install the drivers, plug the printer to the computer, and you're set. The drivers are the most versatile I've ever seen with an inkjet printer. You can even print double-sided prints with the click of a button with it's auto-duplexer (one very minor complaint i have is that the only paper that the auto-duplexer will accept is plain-jane inkjet paper... you have to re-load the page to print on the other side of it).

The Claria Hi-Definition inks are amazing. The light cyan and light magenta cartridges really make sunsets pop and renders skin tones properly.

You can print from an assortment of flash memory, and you can even scan a document directly to PDF to flash memory.

I'm very satisfied with this printer. As someone who works in the graphic design field, I'd recommend it to anyone.

When I bought this printer at a local office supply store, it was a fairly new model. Though I did quite a bit of online research before I purchased it, I did not find a lot of customer reviews available at the time. Since then, I see several have popped up...

I do love this printer, but the ink cartridge setup has been quite a challenge. I had no technical problems with the initial set of 6 inidividual Epson cartridges included with the printer. I ordered a new set of 6 "generic" cartridges online to save money since Epson brand can run around $19.95 each if you don't shop around.

The black cartridge was the first to empty. Attempting to replace it with a "generic" brand was unsuccessful. This printer is programmed with software that rejects anything but Epson. (I am told one can search for "driver download Epson RX-680" online and find a driver download that is not as "detailed" as the software included with the printer, but haven't tried it yet. It also should be noted that using another driver or non-Epson cartridges will nullify Epson's manufacturer's guarantee. However, if you purchase the printer at an office supply store that sells their own warranty, some will still honor their warranty even if you don't use Epson products.) ...By the way, once I installed a new Epson cartridge the printer worked fine...

So far I've printed several photos (which came out nice) and several documents. All the cartridges are nearly empty after about 3-4 weeks of moderate use. Ink consumption and cost is definitely the downside to this otherwise wonderful machine... Also, love the copier feature -- have used it several times. This machine can work independently and does not have to have the computer on to use it.

I bought this printer last week and received it on 11/30/07. I ordered it from the Epson Store. As I live in Ohio the shipping was super fast. Unfortunately, the printer wasn't so great.

The test printing with the printer is pretty bad. My text printouts are peppered with blown out, fuzzy text graphics. Unacceptable.

The photos, when using really good paper are really great; however, every printout that I created messed the pictures up very badly during the last quarter of the printing process. Also, the printouts would have small little dots of a color that wasn't in the source photo, such as, a drop of blue in a totally white area.

It seems as though the printer isn't holding the print medium securely enough. When I printed out 4x6 photos, and the printer got near the end of the printout, the paper would rock back and forth "clicking" on the right side of the printer. This is most likely the source of the problem with the printer.

I was going to return it and get a new one, but in Epson's fine print, they stated that I might end up with a new one or a refurbished one. I'm sorry but I didn't pay over $100 for a refurbished unit after I've had the unit for less than a week.

This is my first purchase from Epson and will likely be my last. I find it troublesome to get a product so unusable out of the box and I can't trust Epson to send me a new, working model. This could be a design flaw, or a problem with my particular printer, either way I don't want to go through the whole get/return/get/return process. I'm going to try the Canon MP610 and see if I have better luck with their printers.

Disappointing, as the unit has great promise, the scanner was fast and quiet, the parts of the picture printouts that weren't messed up look really great. I would recommend skipping this model and waiting for the next iteration; hopefully, users will fair better after quality control or the design has been brought up to a better standard.

I have not used this printer very much yet but on those occasions when I have had to print multiple pages, I have found the duplexing feature to be a great time saver. Previously I had to stand and feed each sheet individually, then catch it after printing, flip it over and re-insert it to print on the back. If you have 30 or 40 pages to print, this method is not only tiresome, it is time consuming. With the Epson, I just set the duplexing feature and go do something else while it prints. The print quality is not too shoddy either. The Copy feature does not produce as sharp an image as the page being copied. It tends to be a bit "out of focus" so to speak. I have found that by scanning the page into the computer, saving it as PDF, then printing it, I get a copy with quality comparable to that of the page being scanned.

This is the best printer I have ever owned. I own the Epson picture mate and have been very pleased with the picture qualities on both. I have owned Canon printers, both regular printer and picture 4x6 printer, and Epson by far beats their qualities. So far I cannot think of anything negative about this printer. Awesome, Awesome, Awesome!!!

I bought the RX680 and LOVED it... for about 2 weeks. I ran out of cyan ink, replaced it, printed 9 sheets, and it said I was out of black (as expected since it was low too). I replaced the black and it popped right back and said I was out of CYAN again! Also, it won't print transparencies as advertised. It stops and proclaims that the paper jammed. Don't buy it for the water resistant (as Epson says) ink. I let a sheet dry for 2 weeks, misted it with water, and watched it bleed and run! So much for archiving those beloved photos for 200 years! So far I've contacted Epson through their tech support web page 3 times over the last 2 weeks. I have had zero response except for the automated "thank you for contacting us" spam. In short, DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER OR ANY EPSON WITH "CLARIA" INK. I think they skipped testing these turkeys before they started shipping! (I would've given it 0 stars, but you have to give at least 1)

As anyone who has read reviews on this printer you will know that there have been issues with this printer and getting one that works. I can say I personally had a slight issue with my first one as it seemed to work when I tested everything but when I tried to print on a second disc a few days later it would not work and kept saying that the tray had not been set properly. However I returned it at staples where it was bought, and the new one I got works perfectly and seems to have similar image quality.

Now on to image quality I can say that when printing photos or CD's this printer does great, everything looks nice and clear and real. However I cannot say the same about printing on regular paper. I can say that compared to my parents HP C5180 printing any graphics will look darker and the colrs just aren't solid, printing a solid red object for example would have multiple shades of red. Also when it comes to scanning both printers I had the copies are lighter than the original and there are areas that come out even lighter so things look uneven. Yet when printing text things come out looking fine, not amazing not horrible, definitely legible.

Overall for the $115 it cost back when there were issues I would say that it is worth it, especially with the CD printing and duplexing features rarely found on other printers. However depending on your needs there may be other printers, I know the HP C5280 has CD printing but doesn't seem to have duplexing and costs $135 or less. Therefore look carefully and decide what you need your printer for as this printer may not be the one for you. However it is just fine for me.