This is totally off topic, but there is so much knowledge here that I
am hoping someone can help me with a not so fun problem I am having.
I need a new home printer, I will give some background in a moment.
The printer needs to print "decent" photos for proof sheets and home
snapshots. All professional printing I have done at a lab.
The printer needs to print on CDs/DVDs.
The printer cannot be an HP, unless someone knows something that
counters my experience, as my experience is that the cd/dvd print
software is absolutely horrible, no flexibility, you cannot change
fonts or font size, or move text and images around. You are locked
into their print layout.
Over the past 6 years, for home photo printing and cd/dvd printing I
have used Epson printers. The first one was a very basic model that
lasted about 5 years, not one problem, until one day my computer
announced "your Epson printer has reached the end of it's life cycle."
and that was the end of that.
I then purchased the Epson Artisan 700. I absolutely loved it. Not one
single problem with it. Until, one day, after not quite 7 months of
usage, it simply would not feed any paper other than plain white
paper. Nothing. Epson's customer service was/is non-existent, and I
returned the printer to Sam's Club for a full refund, as I had
purchased the Sam's Club warranty for a very minimal fee. As is often
the case, no one in town sold the Artisan 700 anymore. This was on
September 27th of this year.
I had/have 2 entire sets of cartridges full of Claria ink, the 99 and
98 series. The only printer in this town that used those as of
September 27th was the very new Epson Artisan 810 at Office Depot. It
wasn't even listed in their store yet, or out on the shelves, but a
salesperson had seen them come in and got one for me to look at. I
decided to purchase it. Well, today, it died the exact same death as
the Artisan 700. After an hour long phone conversation with Epson, in
which I was treated like a complete moron until they decided that I
just might be right about the fact that the printer wasn't working,
Epson so kindly (heavy sarcasm) offered to ship me a replacement. I
asked if it would be a new model or a refurbished one, and the
implication the conversation gave was that if they didn't have a
refurbished one, then I would get a new one. But first, I would need
to give them my credit card so they could charge me for the new one,
and then refund my money after they received my broken one in return.
I was no where near ok with that solution. I called Office Depot, was
told they had one in stock and that I could exchange mine. I went down
there, and the "one they had in stock" was the display unit that they
were not allowed to sell to me. (One wonders what is wrong with people
these days, but that's another topic for another day). After some
dithering, they decided they would refund me my money, even though I
had the printer for more than 14 days. (??!!) I had purchased the
extended warranty, so they wanted to ship it off for repairs, not
refund my money. The only printer they had that would do photos and
print on CDs/DVDs is an HP, again, the CD print software that comes
with the HP is horrible, in my opinion. In fact, all comments I can
find online about HP's cd print software confirms that opinion.
Anyhow...so here I am, stuck, with no printer.
Does anyone have personal experience, recommendations, warnings, etc
that I can consider?
You have no idea how sorely tempted I was to chuck that Artisan 810
through my front window, but this would have only caused me more
frustration. It would seem that one should get more than 3 weeks use
out of something one paid more than $300.00 for. I am rather
frustrated.
On another note, I have had two different salespeople tell me recently
that "rollers drying out and not working anymore is a real problem in
Colorado". Is there any truth at all to this?
If you bother reading this and replying, I thank you in advance.
A very frustrated Candace in Colorado.
Candace
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|