Epson Stylus CX4200 Inkjet Printer

I, too, am incredibly aggravated that I cannot print with only black ink. I ran out of blue ink but all my other inks are full, and I just want to print a black & white document. The printer wont print at all even though I checked the various print only black printer options.

Ive had this printer for just over 2 years. With light use, the cartridges last for a while. The problem is that the print head does not clean itself properly and now anything I print has a smudge at on the side of the paper where the print head changed direction (going back and forth). No amount of head cleaning fixes this problem.

I like everything about this printer. Ive bought several for home and office use. I like the flat bed scanner, and ease of use. I dont use it for photos as it really uses a lot of ink. I like that I can use the copier feature for black or color - even if the computer is turned off.

Not only will it not print without Color ink. It will say your out of color ink when your not. Im not just saying this out of frustration. If you pick up an empty cartridge, you can tell from the liquid moving around in it that its nearly full. If thats not enough I put it on a scale, 0.1 of an oz difference. Expect to have to purchase ink every other time you want to print something. As for functionality of the scanner and everything else, well that all works fine. The scanner is not very fast but it works alright. Its prints okay pictures.

it didnt work. I got my monery back

I have owned this printer for approximately 7 years. It has been very dependable and makes great copies. The only draw back is that it will not print black and white copies if any of the color cartridges are empty. This is because each time it prints, even in black and white, a tiny amount of color ink is used to prevent the nozzles from becoming clogged. Just a minor problem; I made sure I had replacement cartridges on hand. I would recommend this printer for the home office.

Im sorry to say that this printer is a real lemon. Id not had it long, when suddenly it gave me an error message to replace the magenta ink cartridge, which I did, but then it wouldnt print saying that all the ink cartridges needed to be replaced. I had just replaced magenta, so I humored it and replaced them all with brand new Epson ink, and guess what! it still says they are all empty! it wont print now, and I contacted the epson customer service and they accused me of using bad ink. Its Epson ink Im using, and wasting money replacing brand new cartridges to boot!! Dont ever by an Epson. I have a friend that has another model, and when I called to ask to borrow her printer to print a document she told me it was not working because it was telling her it was out of ink even though shed put in all new cartridges! What a rip off.

Wonderful!

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...

With the CX4200, every color cartridge must contain ink in order to print, even if you just want to use the black one. This product was created to oblige consumers to buy as much ink as possible, even when its unnecessary. Dont buy it. Please, dont buy it.