Epson Stylus CX4200 Inkjet Printer

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.

I cannot recommend this printer. I second the reviews where one is not allowed to print B&W without 3 other functioning cartridges. My most serious problem is that after about a year of routine use, replacing cartridges when empty, etc, the heads on our printer are now clogged. They do not unclog with the head cleaning procedure because the darn thing is convinced its cartridges are empty. They are most certainly NOT empty, as we had just purchased a whole new set of cartridges. Arrrrgh! If I cannot get this printer to work pretty soon Im gonna unplug it and put it in the trash.

Have had this printer for about a year, scanner works great, printer worked great. Until now. Now it says the color cartridges are out and refuses to print in black & white without the color cartridges. Except the color cartridges arent actually out. Theyre about halfway full. Wonderful. Will never buy from Epson again.

I think it is a fantastic machine. I previously owned a more expensive epson photo printer with the 5-color ink tank and it was much slower and had all sorts of issues such as nozzle drying. I dont print every day and the inks in my cx4200 have never dried or clogged. Furthermore, they last forever--it has been 6 months since I purchased this printer and only now is my black ink cartridge showing a low level while my color tanks are more than halfway full. The individual ink tanks are a great plus for saving money. Its worth mentioning that the printer feels nice and solid and isnt glossy or cheap looking. Ive seen other comparable all-in-ones which are much bulkier or seem to have flimsy buttons and tacky coloring. The dark grey color of this epson is professional looking and simple. The standalone photo copying is awesome and very quick. Using photo paper, the copies are good enough to send to friends or family or to make postcards or greeting cards. The fully-automated scanning works like a charm and it identifies whether you are scanning a photo or document all on its own. I recently figured out I can create a .pdf document within minutes with the Epson scanning software, without having to upgrade my Adobe Acrobat reader. I use both a laptop running XP professional and an iMac G5 and can switch back and forth from PC to Mac with no problems. I would definitely buy this again and would recommend it to my friends. Best of all, if you buy this printer in combination with a digital camera, you get [...] back via mail-in [...] making the price very affordable.

This is a good printer/scanner when its working properly and you have ink. Its user friendly too. My first one quit working all of the sudden for no reason. It wouldnt produce any ink. My second one is starting to die as well and I just bought it this year (although it was used). The ink is pretty expensive too and it wont work unless you have ALL the colors.

I like everything about this printer. Ive bought several for home and office use. I like the flat bed scanner, and ease of use. I dont use it for photos as it really uses a lot of ink. I like that I can use the copier feature for black or color - even if the computer is turned off.

Great!

I use it for genearl use. Printing and scanning and it has served me well for 6 years and going.

Im sorry to say that this printer is a real lemon. Id not had it long, when suddenly it gave me an error message to replace the magenta ink cartridge, which I did, but then it wouldnt print saying that all the ink cartridges needed to be replaced. I had just replaced magenta, so I humored it and replaced them all with brand new Epson ink, and guess what! it still says they are all empty! it wont print now, and I contacted the epson customer service and they accused me of using bad ink. Its Epson ink Im using, and wasting money replacing brand new cartridges to boot!! Dont ever by an Epson. I have a friend that has another model, and when I called to ask to borrow her printer to print a document she told me it was not working because it was telling her it was out of ink even though shed put in all new cartridges! What a rip off.

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.