Customer Reviews
Epson R200 - Avoid this thing 
2007-09-27
I bought this for my office for the sole purpose of printing simple CD/DVDs.
It was always very awkward to operate. There is this detachable CD/DVD tray which lined up improperly probably 1 out of 5 times. I speak in the past tense because now it does not work at all. I guess you get what you pay for.
Great Little Machine! 
2007-07-20
As I read other reviews, I have to wonder if we're talking about the same machine?!?
I bought this in 2004, and printed over 25- 8.5x11's and 100- 4x6's... and have only had to replace the black & light magenta cartridges! Why can I get so much from the ink that came with the machine- and others are complaining about it "drinking ink"? That's $20 for two ink cartridges plus the cost of photo paper- still MUCH cheaper than having someone else print them by far.
I only use the printer for printing photos (which is what it's for)- and don't use the CD print tray. I guess maybe the fact that I only use it for photo printing and not text- is why I've gotten by with only having to replace two cartridges. I also use only Epson Premium Glossy photo paper- yes it's more expensive but the quality is awesome. Apparently it has something to do with how the paper absorbs the Epson ink- which is why other photo paper doesn't work as well- and why generic ink also doesn't offer the same quality.
Epson was sued over programming their printers to show 'out of ink' when the cartridge wasn't completely empty. I'm sure since that lawsuit, they will be working to improve their accountability.
Being a photographer, Epson has been highly recommended in photographic circles. After having seen the pictures that came off this inexpensive printer, I can understand why.
A TERRIFIC PRINTER FOR ALL USES 
2007-07-17
I have had this printer for 2-1/2 years now. It has never broken down, and I print tons and tons of items, from brochures, to pictures (lots of pictures) regular documents, and CDs, as I am a recording artist. Some people say it uses a lot of ink. No, it uses a lot of very small ink cartridges, and if you're smart, you buy them in bulk on line and I have found the cartridges for $2.20 each. The cartridges are small and there are 6 individual cartridges, so when it is finished with one color, you only replace that color. It seems like it guzzles ink, because it has small cartridges. It uses far less ink than any printer I've ever had, and I have never had a bad printing. It has slightly jammed when I over stuffed paper, but it has printed on everything. When I am patient and remember that it is a machine that needs to be maintained, I get fantastic results.
I simply can't say enough good things about this product. I am buying several of these as gifts for my family because they all hate their printers and have to spend upwards of $35-$55 for the big combination color ink cartridges. I buy my ink in bulk, and like I said, I get the cartridges for about $2.20 each. Who can complain about that? When I print a ton of things, I change them about once a week for each color, and of course I change the black 2 or 3 times. However, if it's only $2 per little cartridge, what's a better deal than that? Plus, if you take your empties and send them back to the company, they give you an extra 25 cents off each cartridge.
Those of you who are complaining, I simply am amazed that you don't love your printer as much as I do. It is a great product.
Problems with CD label printing 
2007-05-18
This printer does a nice job of printing CD labels when it works. The problem is it takes multiple attempts to get it to print such a label, burning lots of time. More often than not, it will report an error, stating that the CD tray table is down, when attempting to print the label. One has to cancel the print job, and start the process over.
On other occasions, the printer appears to go through some type of initialization process that moves the CD tray away from the printer, and thus miss aligns the marks on the tray with those on the tray table. The printer then fails to detect the CD tray, and reports the CD tray table is down and should be up. I didn't see these problem during the printing of the first 100 or so CDs.
It's been acting the way describe above for about a year, and I'm finally to the point where I can't take this anymore. It's burning way to much of my time. Attempts at getting help from Epson's online printer support department, concerning the above issues, have been a failure. If you only plan to print at most 100 CDs over the life of the printer, then this printer should do the job. Otherwise, I'd avoid the R200.
CD/DVD printing 2007-04-20
I bought one of these when they first came out a few years back and I am still using it today. To date it has printed over 300 CD's that I use for work. Yes it goes through ink quickly and it's best to stick with the more expensive epson ink. After market ink cartridges just don't work well with this printer. Ink consumption seems to be an issue with every printer in existence due to the high prices that the manufacturers charge. This is how they can afford to sell their printers at such a low price, they make it up on the back end through ink sales. Epson is no different in that regard and I don't believe this printer goes through any more ink than any other brand of ink jet printer I have owned. Printers are like cars, you have to find one that will work for your application, in my case I wanted high quality CD/DVD printing capability and I got exactly what I wanted in the Epson R200. I use the printer regularly and have never experienced a clog, I have however experienced ink blobs on my projects and occasionally find it necessary to clean the machine. This does not seem like anything more than routine maintenance to me. The most important thing to remember about this printer is that during the startup routine this printer will go through a series of noisy gyrations. One of the things the printer is doing during startup is a nozzel check. The best thing you can do for your printer is to stop and start it every day. This will prevent clogs and Epson recommends that you DO NOT leave it on as much of the nozzel clearing activities happen in startup. I have followed their advice and have never had to deal with a clog. It works for my application and I'd buy another one. I'd rate this a four because of the extra high cost of genuine epson ink cartridges wich you really need to make this machine perform correctly. The ink is considerably more expensive than most other brands, the best deal I've ever had is $65.00 for a full set I bought on ebay. Expect to pay somewhere between $75.00 to $90.00 for a full set at your local office supply store.
Brad
Great workhorse for garden-variety family/student printing 2008-06-09
I've had this printer for about a year and a half now, and it works great. My wife used it quite a bit as she was working on her master's in English. Seems like they grade grad-student papers by the pound.
I use it from time to time for photos, and to my untrained eye, they come out just fine when you use quality paper.
Epson probably doesn't appreciate this, but we got a continuous ink system for it that cut our ink costs to a small fraction of what we'd pay for regular cartridges.
From time to time we do notice gaps in the printing, but the nozzle-cleaning program that comes with it seems to take care of the problem. We run the program 5 or 6 times, then it's back to normal.
We've never used the CD printing function.
Overall, we love the printer, especially for the price.
Lousy company to do business with 2008-04-25
As far as a printer, its a typical cheap printer.
As far as the printer software goes, its typical Japanese software, lousy.
As far as Epson, I could vomit doing business with this company. After obtaining my $45 class action settlement relating to their ink cartridges, I used it to order new cartridges from Epson. Now the cartridges stop printing even though the ink utility shows about 20% of the ink remaining and a message at the top of the screen reading I have about 100 pages left. Reading on the web led me to remove the cartridge and insert it again. Viola, printing.
This is a really low-rent company. Why do business with them?
WARNING when buying Epson products 
2008-04-18
PURCHASE YOUR EPSON PRODUCT THROUGH AN AUTHORIZED DEALER OR FROM EPSON DIRECTLY.
This is not a review of this product, but rather a word to the wise... Two and half months after my purchase of an Epson 10000XL scanner through Amazon, it stopped working. Through the followup and tech support process I learned that, because I purchased through Amazon, the manufacturer nor the seller would honor the 1 year warranty. Epson's position is that Amazon is not an authorized seller and that they merely act as broker for what can often be re-furbished or second hand merchandise.
So, should your purchase break or malfunction, as mine did, you are out of luck with regard to warranty.
This lesson cost me $2400.00
Secretly costs a FORTUNE !! 2008-02-17
This printer, though a generally good performer, will cost you a fortune in inks due to some malfunction in the ink level sensors which drops all your ink gauges any time even one color is replaced. I estimate it easily wastes a minimum of 20% of my ink. Now, multiply that by $75-$85 every time you replace an ink set, and you are stiffed for alot of cash either intentionally or unintentionally.
Stay Away!
nice quality, but has other downsides. 2007-11-22
Good quality prints, no complaints there.
What I hate is how in stores you HAVE to buy one ink catridge at a time. You can't buy the al in one packs in sotres anymore... And even online you have to buy the black separately.
If you run out of color...you can't print black and white anymore, even if you check black ink only.
Another problem is print speed...if you want to print a single page its really slow cause it has to do all these tasks and checks before it prints. I thought Epson would have improved on this since the old days but it seems they stil do the same stuff. It can take quite a while before the printer actually gets ready to do whatever its trying to do. Not at all like my old HP which would print immediately.
