Epson Stylus Photo R1800 Inkjet Printer

I got his printer in Feb of 2006 b/c I wanted a large format printer...now in 2008 it will no longer print. And y? Well out of media, paper not loaded correctly. I have read the reviews and tried everything..but still not working. Two of my friends have this printer and one of them works fine..the other one same problem. Its very tempermental! I had a epson printer in 2002 and it did the same thing..after a year...then they sent me 2 more referbished ones still same problem. My sister has the epson C86 its aweful! it eats INK,,and the black ink cost 30 dollars! It makes lines through the prints and the text printing is terrible! I don't know what to do or what printer to buy. Then i called espon and they said they never heard of the "out of media, paper not loaded correctly problem" liars..all they have to do is check message boards like these.

I bought the R1800 as it was by far the most recommended for my printing needs. But within the first weeks it started to complain about media not being loaded properly and was struggling to grab onto any paper. I worked with it and patiently re-fed sheets when it acted up, but of course, it would then act fine for a few days (just so you wont call customer service...). Finally (at the worst moment, obviously) it completely gave up and stopped working completely. After going through the epson customer service steps, which I have to say are a bit tedious and the customer care calls a little frustrating (bad internet phone line to god knows where), epson finally agreed to send me a replacement. Needless to say (hence bad review), that one didn't work well for more than 2 weeks. So, now I'm on the third one, without any guarantee, they quote it as out of stock and therefore replace broken ones with, yes, refurbished ones. Not really the kind of warranty you would expect with a 600 printer.
Granted, the quality is great, when it prints, if it prints. Most of my colleagues agree with frustrations, most are having problems with them. But I somehow feel it should be more than just good quality, but also, stability, service etc. for this price tag. And consistency would be nice, i.e. not deciding to only allow plain paper for 2 days.
Like I said - A moody model.

You know how when you buy a car consumer reports now gives you an estimate on how much it costs to actually own it . . . well I hope someone would have told me about how expensive it's to own this printer. I have owned this printer for six months and have only printed sucessfully four 12 * 12 sheets and I am out of ink. Basically if you don't use it, the ink seems to dissapear. This is a very expensive proposition since 1) The replacement inks are expensive and 2) the printer won't work if one of the colors is out.

Also, if you don't use this printer frequently (several times a week), you have to do this cleaning procedure to clean the print heads so the colors will come out correctly. This is cumberson and time consuming. In comparison, my HP printer has never needed this much babysitting.

I wish I would have known this before investing so much money in this printer. My recomendation . . . stay away. Look for another printer that is one 1)easier to use and 2)cheaper to own!!!!

Overall this printer isn't bad for the out put is fairly nice.
However that being said if you plan on working with a mac on the new leopard you might encounter slight problems where you can't turn off the color balance completely and thus it is doubly applied and makes images look like crap. Even when you talked to epson they said on their's they can but when you try it on yours it's too dark for your calibrated monitor.
Then there is also the problem, once you've wised up and started using a pc to print, that if you turn it on and off, as Epson recommends you do, you blow through ink printing perhaps 10 images and needing more ink. Yes the convenience of only needing to replace individual cartridges is convenient however having to constantly buy them or keep them in stock is not.
So overall the print quality is nice, however spending two months to make it all work properly makes it most likely not worth your time or effort.

This printer is certainly capable of professional quality prints, but the headaches with JUST GETTING IT TO PRINT are endlessly frustrating. Epson keeps updating drivers but it never helps. I've tried their online support, called their support, and scoured the internet for solutions (only to find many other people equally frustrated and no workarounds for its extensive problems.

I will never buy another Epson product, I've already replaced my Epson scanner with a Canon, and the r1800 is going out the door for a nice new Canon printer.