Epson Stylus CX4200 Inkjet Printer

This is a good printer/scanner when its working properly and you have ink. Its user friendly too. My first one quit working all of the sudden for no reason. It wouldnt produce any ink. My second one is starting to die as well and I just bought it this year (although it was used). The ink is pretty expensive too and it wont work unless you have ALL the colors.

Owned it about 1 year and made about 50-100 prints in that time. Then it stopped printing, saying cyan ink was out. Bought a new cartridge, same problem. Called tech support; thats where you repeat the online troubleshooting page you just finished doing, but in case youre really dumb, they read it to you. Bottom line, its a hardware problem, so they give you the phone number to the closest repair facility...of course, they give the FAX number. Then they bring you to their loyalty page. Loyalty is a TWO way affair...it requires Epson to make a good product so Ill buy another product. Im sure Ill be lining up to make another Epson product purchase...NOT!

Hi guys, I just got one of these printers for juts a few bucks. There are a few workarounds to the black and white printing issue. This may be helpful for those who have this printer. Heres a free program that will trick the printer into thinking it has a never-ending supply of ink: [...] Theres also an extensive blog post with solutions here: [...]

I purchased this printer 3 years ago. It is the biggest ink-sucker Ive ever known! I finally switched to non-OEM cartridges because I went through them so quickly. Ever time you turn it on, go to print, end a print job, turn it off--it would just use up ink. The sponge at the bottom was always completely soaked with ink no matter how often I cleaned it off and dried it up. I barely printed anything before it was time to change at least one of the cartridges, and, once one was due for a change, the other 3 werent far behind. Ive experience numerous paper jams with this machine. And who knows where its going to print on the page?!? The colors would also come out funny, ESPECIALLY if you used the scanner. I would scan an image and the colors would be completely different shades! And the quality really wasnt good for all the photo-printing features it boasts. Finally, my printer started making a funny noise last week--like a grinding. Nothing was dropped in there and the troubleshooter was a waste of time. After the noise, Id go to print and it acted like it would, but then itd start to feed the paper and itd just jam up on the right-hand side. I finally called tech support because I couldnt figure out what to do by fiddling around or using the internet. The guy finally said he couldnt help me and gave me the number and address for a computer repair place in town (at least I wouldnt have to drive too far). He told me to ask for an estimate and, if that was more (hint hint!), then he asked if Id consider looking at the Epson website. I promptly informed him that, if it cost anything, then Id definitely be purchasing a Canon and Id already been researching in the week I havent been able to print. So I called the number he gave me and was informed there was an upfront $50 diagnostic fee, which would kindly be applied to whatever charges thered be after the guy was done looking at it. For $50 I can purchase a well-reviewed Canon Pixma iP2600. For a little more, Im looking at the Canon Pixma MP470 (currently on sale at BestBuy for $79.99). So, after 3 years of hating my printer, it rebels for the last time less than 2 months before I start medical school and have all these other stresses going on. This was just what I needed to finally warn the world about this terrible, horrible piece of equipment!!! Time to go buy the Canon I should have purchased last time...

If one color of ink is out, it prevents all printing. Even if you have a full black cartridge. Thats ok if you want a printer that doesnt print I guess. The cartridges run out quick. The color cartridges get used up even when printing in black only. The scanner is good enough, but does not scan 35 mm negatives.

I have purchased a number of Epson printers over the years, but this one will be the last one I buy. I bought this printer because it had different carts for the inks rather then having a single color cart and a B/W cart like my prior printers. I figured this would make it more economical to print, but it actually made it more expensive! The cost of operating this printer has been very high, the ink carts (original Epson) have failed if I dont replace ALL of them at the same time! To add insult to the injury, the printer will refuse to print in B/W if there is no color ink. You cant even make a B/W photocopy even though there is a dedicated B/W copy button. This printer is nothing but a piece of junk and I imagine that all recent printers from Epson are the same.

This printer ends up costing a fortune in ink. It always prints with all the colors, even if you select black only, and it does not print if any cartridge is removed or empty. It always tells me my cartridges are empty when they are not. It runs out of ink after printing about 20-30 pages of low-quality, black-only. It never seems to have ink when I need it most, which is frequently very inconvenient and has caused me to decide to buy a new printer even though technically this one is still functioning fine. Perhaps mine has some kind of problem, but I would certainly not take the risk and buy it again - nor will I be buying any Epson for my next printer if I can help it.

I think it is a fantastic machine. I previously owned a more expensive epson photo printer with the 5-color ink tank and it was much slower and had all sorts of issues such as nozzle drying. I dont print every day and the inks in my cx4200 have never dried or clogged. Furthermore, they last forever--it has been 6 months since I purchased this printer and only now is my black ink cartridge showing a low level while my color tanks are more than halfway full. The individual ink tanks are a great plus for saving money. Its worth mentioning that the printer feels nice and solid and isnt glossy or cheap looking. Ive seen other comparable all-in-ones which are much bulkier or seem to have flimsy buttons and tacky coloring. The dark grey color of this epson is professional looking and simple. The standalone photo copying is awesome and very quick. Using photo paper, the copies are good enough to send to friends or family or to make postcards or greeting cards. The fully-automated scanning works like a charm and it identifies whether you are scanning a photo or document all on its own. I recently figured out I can create a .pdf document within minutes with the Epson scanning software, without having to upgrade my Adobe Acrobat reader. I use both a laptop running XP professional and an iMac G5 and can switch back and forth from PC to Mac with no problems. I would definitely buy this again and would recommend it to my friends. Best of all, if you buy this printer in combination with a digital camera, you get [...] back via mail-in [...] making the price very affordable.

The 4200 is slow printing, but reasonable in type appearance. Color is good. Seems OK so far. Replacement Ink cartridges are expensive.

This is my second one. The first one lasted about 10 years, but it is not used everyday.