Epson Stylus Photo 700

.../> If you buy official Epson cartridges it would cost a fortune - I just checked on the internet and the black cartridges is £16.99 and the colour one is £14.49 (strange the black is cheaper, but that's what it says!) However, I refuse to pay these ridiculous prices and I buy my compatible inks from www.aktivdirect.co.uk - currently 2 black and 2 colour for £15.99. I've used these inks right from the start and now as my printer is 5 years old, I ...
...inks has had no adverse effect on my printer or on the quality of the print.
The printer has a light which flashes red when the cartridges need to be replaced - but ignore that - keep printing until the ink actually isn't on the paper any more - which can be several days (or even weeks later!) The light seems to start flashing when there is still loads of ink left. On our old Gateway PC it was easy to check the ink levels as it came up as ... more

My printer is 5 years old and still going strong. 5 years is a very long time in technology and as a consequence my printer does look rather old fashioned now - but does that matter? Well, hopefully you will be able to make your own mind up by the end of this op.

Why this printer?

Well, this is the big admission - we didn't really choose it, we were concentrating on what PC to buy and just bought this printer with the PC. Our PC was a Gateway which we bought in the Gateway shop in Kingston, Surrey. We bought the exact PC we wanted and there were a couple of printers we could choose, but chose the one which had Photo in it's description in case we wanted to print photos - so in other words, there wasn't an ounce of investigation involved in our choice of printer!! It cost around £80, which was reasonable.

System Requirements

Basically, if your PC is less than 4 years old and runs on Windows 3.1 or above, this printer will work!! It requires only 16MB RAM and 10MB hard disk space. For a Mac it would need system 7.5 or above and 10MB or available memory.

Installation

Well, you plug it in first and then install the printer cartridges (more on that in a minute) and then after turning it off and your PC off, connect it to your printer. My Gateway PC had all the printer drivers pre-installed for me when our PC was delivered, so it basically worked straight away. However, when we bought a new PC last year, we didn't buy a new printer, so I had the fun of installing this printer on my new PC, so how hard was it? Well, it was a piece of cake. My new Dell PC recognised I had new hardware, gave me a selection of printers to pick which included my printer, and it was installed in a matter of seconds.

Ink Cartridges

To change an ink cartridge there is a button on the front of the printer with what looks like coloured raindrops above it which you press for three seconds (no I don't count them!). After 3 seconds the printer cartridges move out so that it's possible to get at them. There are 2 cartridges - black (S020093) and a 5 colour cartridge (S020110). You then just remove the old cartridge, and take the sticky label off the new one and put it in its appropriate cradle - again so easy.

If you buy official Epson cartridges it would cost a fortune - I just checked on the internet and the black cartridges is £16.99 and the colour one is £14.49 (strange the black is cheaper, but that's what it says!) However, I refuse to pay these ridiculous prices and I buy my compatible inks from www.aktivdirect.co.uk - currently 2 black and 2 colour for £15.99. I've used these inks right from the start and now as my printer is 5 years old, I think I can say with some conviction that using compatible inks has had no adverse effect on my printer or on the quality of the print.
The printer has a light which flashes red when the cartridges need to be replaced - but ignore that - keep printing until the ink actually isn't on the paper any more - which can be several days (or even weeks later!) The light seems to start flashing when there is still loads of ink left. On our old Gateway PC it was easy to check the ink levels as it came up as part of the printer options, but on our new Dell PC, that option is not available.

Paper

The printer takes up to A4, and there is an edge guide which can be moved along for smaller sized paper - to make sure it loads into the printer straight. I've had no problems printing on paper, photo paper, thin card, etc. However, envelopes are another matter. The last lot of envelopes we bought from Viking have a coarser matt finish, and these envelopes keep sticking in the printer and even bits have got torn off inside the printer. This is annoying, so I've now bought some labels and print addresses onto the labels rather than the envelopes.

Paper Jams

Which leads me nicely onto paper jams. You know when you've got a paper jam, all the lights flash like mad. First try using the page feed button and see if that helps. In my experience, my paper jams are more because I've managed to tear off a piece of one of the envelopes inside the printer when I've tried pulling it back out when the printer refuses to print on it! In this instance, I've tried using tweezers to pull out the remaining bit of the envelope, but I've not been overly successful with that tactic, and found the only way is to take the printer apart until you can get at the rollers and then roll them round until the offending piece of paper decides to resurface. I've had several of these type of jams (mainly because I kept trying with the same envelopes), and I've managed to get my printer working again. Please note that when you have a paper jam and you need to put fingers, tweezers, etc, in your printer - please make sure it's completely unplugged from the wall socket and your PC first.

Printer Maintenance

Occasionally, one ink fades and you know your printer heads need cleaning. If you go into the printer properties through Control Panel on your PC, you can a) check print nozzles by the PC printing a nozzle check pattern, and then b) actually clean the print heads. The printer will then whirr and make loads of noise and at the end of it you can print the nozzle check patter again to make sure the printer is now ok. The nozzle check pattern is basically a load of wavy lines in different colours and you want to check that there are no breaks or any of the colours are faded or non-existant.

Photo Printing

If you print on normal printer paper, photos come out with the lines a little blotchy, but if you print on photo paper - the standard of print is excellent - good enough to go in a frame. For a 5 year old printer where the technology in digital photography and printing has shot forward in the past few years, I think that's impressive.

My verdict

I've been very pleased with this printer which is shown by the fact that we didn't replace it when we replaced our PC. The fact that we use compatible inks means that it is extremely cheap to run. My only annoyance is not being able to print out the Viking envelopes, but I think that maybe the fault of the envelope and not the printer! So even though you can't buy this printer any more, if you come across one on E-bay or in a car boot sale, you may find that it's worth a second look (even if does look old fashioned!) 

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