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Epson NX420 good and bad
Epson NX420 All-In-One Printer/Copier/Scanner
Review by Ken.Holloway2008 on 2012-04-24
Rating: 
SMYRNA, TENNESSEE -- We purchased the Epson NX420 to use at home as a wireless printer/scanner/copier and to take with us on road trips. It was very easy to set up, and the wireless works great with our Windows 7 home network. The unit prints clean crisp documents, and the ink dries quickly and dos not smear. The copier works okay with full 8-1/2 x 11 documents. It does not work so well with pictures, as it tries to resize the picture in automatic mode, but often cuts part of it off by enlarging too much. The scanner works well as to quality, but the setup isn't as straight forward, and we often can not find the scanned documents on our computer without considerable searching. And somehow it has created multiple "My Documents" folders in my "Documents" library. Even though I have moved everything and these extra folders are empty, it still will not allow me to delete them.
The portability is reasonably good, and we have taken it on research trips, and were able to quickly set it up and plug it in and go. When traveling, we connect it to our computer with a USB printer cable, and it works fine, going back and forth between wireless at home and wired while traveling. That's all automatic, we don't have to change anything except to select the printer either on the network or not on the network.
The worst issue is that this printer will not accept high capacity ink cartridges, and when one of the 4 cartridges gets low, the unit is disabled until a new cartridge is installed. It will not scan, print, anything until a new cartridge is installed. Mind you I said "low", not out. In fact there is sometimes as much as 20% to 30% of the initial ink volume left when it shuts the unit down. This is very frustrating and expensive. To replace all 4 cartridges costs as much as the printer cost new. Epson has faced a class action law suit over this very issue, as they are ripping consumers off. If it were not for that issue, this would be a great unit for the money.
The portability is reasonably good, and we have taken it on research trips, and were able to quickly set it up and plug it in and go. When traveling, we connect it to our computer with a USB printer cable, and it works fine, going back and forth between wireless at home and wired while traveling. That's all automatic, we don't have to change anything except to select the printer either on the network or not on the network.
The worst issue is that this printer will not accept high capacity ink cartridges, and when one of the 4 cartridges gets low, the unit is disabled until a new cartridge is installed. It will not scan, print, anything until a new cartridge is installed. Mind you I said "low", not out. In fact there is sometimes as much as 20% to 30% of the initial ink volume left when it shuts the unit down. This is very frustrating and expensive. To replace all 4 cartridges costs as much as the printer cost new. Epson has faced a class action law suit over this very issue, as they are ripping consumers off. If it were not for that issue, this would be a great unit for the money.
Comments:
Posted by ok4now on 2012-04-25:
Excellent post Ken. I previously had an Epson printer and liked the print quality and good photos. While I did not experience some of the problems that you have had I did have issues with the low ink cartridges. Yes it shuts down when there is still useable ink forcing you to buy more. This can get quite costly.
I now have the Cannon Pixma MG6120 which is the best printer I have owned. The print is excellent and the photos are lab quality. It uses 6 ink cartridges which cost about $70 at Amazon to replace. This will last me about 6 months because of light usage. For the past month two of the cartridges are showing "low ink." The printer still functions and will not shut down until they run completely dry. Costco has a deal where they will refill them with factory ink for $6.95. This is a true savings.
I now have the Cannon Pixma MG6120 which is the best printer I have owned. The print is excellent and the photos are lab quality. It uses 6 ink cartridges which cost about $70 at Amazon to replace. This will last me about 6 months because of light usage. For the past month two of the cartridges are showing "low ink." The printer still functions and will not shut down until they run completely dry. Costco has a deal where they will refill them with factory ink for $6.95. This is a true savings.
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