Epson Stylus CX4200 Inkjet Printer

We were very pleased with our CX4200 through the first set of ink cartridges. It was easy to use, the print quality on text was good, the print quality on graphics was good. It installed without a hitch and worked with all of our programs. The scanner worked well. We were happy. But then after about 250 pages, it quit loading paper. It thought it was loading paper, as it continued to print by spraying ink inside of the printer. I tried different kinds of paper to no avail. We were using high quality HP paper too, not some generic low-grade stuff. Not one sheet ever got through it again.

This is my second one. The first one lasted about 10 years, but it is not used everyday.

I WOULD GIVE IT A ZERO IF I COULD.ALL EPSON PRODUCTS ARE GARBAGE. RIP OFFS! They used to be a good brand but now that they have your attention and have cornered the market now they intentionally design cheap printers that suck as much print as possible. Its not the cost of the printer that matters but the cost to actually print a piece of paper!! Ive just done the math with this CX420 and its costing me about $10-$15 a page! Its also the cost of your TIME and your GAS DO NOT BUY AN EPSON PRINT.... ANY PRINTER!

If one color of ink is out, it prevents all printing. Even if you have a full black cartridge. Thats ok if you want a printer that doesnt print I guess. The cartridges run out quick. The color cartridges get used up even when printing in black only. The scanner is good enough, but does not scan 35 mm negatives.

The 4200 is slow printing, but reasonable in type appearance. Color is good. Seems OK so far. Replacement Ink cartridges are expensive.

The printing only works when ALL the ink cartridges have ink - including pages that only require black ink. Here is how I found out: I just got a great deal on black ink for the Epson CX5400 that was clearence priced at Staples. I even bought an extra cartridge. After installing the black ink and then trying to print out a text document, I found out that the Epson company wasnt going to let me print text (black ink only) documents unless I also buy the cyan and magenta ink cartridges too. What a screw over! So I threw the Epson Stylus CX5400 in the garbage and will NEVER buy from Epson again.

Recently my low ink light went on in the middle of a project. I was not too disappointed - in fact I felt a bit smug because I had just purchased a half dozen black ink cartridges at a good price over the internet! So I changed cartridges and went on to continue my project. But the ink light was still on! I took out the cartridge, shook it, reinserted it over and over. I went to the Epson website to get a new driver. The new driver allowed me to see my ink status. The black cartridge was full, but the color was empty! In fact all 3 of the colored cartridges had suddenly become empty! How could this be? Im WAY too cheap to ever use color! I inserted my new black cartridges into the colored slots. No luck. Total loss. Trash can time. I will NEVER buy from Epson again.

It didnt have a USB cable in the package. That was the only thing that was a moderate inconvenience. However, its not worth getting worked up about. The printer is wonderful and the best part is that as soon as I hooked it to my computer, Linux recognized the printer and I was looking at a test page in seconds. As with any printer, I know all of those mechanical parts will eventually go bad, but Im looking forward to a year or two of really fine-quality prints.

Owned it about 1 year and made about 50-100 prints in that time. Then it stopped printing, saying cyan ink was out. Bought a new cartridge, same problem. Called tech support; thats where you repeat the online troubleshooting page you just finished doing, but in case youre really dumb, they read it to you. Bottom line, its a hardware problem, so they give you the phone number to the closest repair facility...of course, they give the FAX number. Then they bring you to their loyalty page. Loyalty is a TWO way affair...it requires Epson to make a good product so Ill buy another product. Im sure Ill be lining up to make another Epson product purchase...NOT!

I, too, am incredibly aggravated that I cannot print with only black ink. I ran out of blue ink but all my other inks are full, and I just want to print a black & white document. The printer wont print at all even though I checked the various print only black printer options.