A good, inexpensive inkjet printer - Epson Stylus C84 (C83 in Europe)

From: ERACC (junkmail_at_eracc.com)
Date: 05/28/04 

Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 17:28:09 -0500

Ok, so every printer manufacturer has some "caveats". The problem
with our old HP Deskjet 660C was the cost of replacing the all-in-one
color cartridge when only the cyan or magenta or yellow was empty.

So, I started a search for a replacement to the HP. I know of ***
feeding problems some of our customers have with even NEW HP inkjet
printers. Also I am generally very upset with HP over the cost of
their supplies. Thus I looked for brands OTHER than HP. I settled on
Epson for three reasons:

  1) Lots of the printers work "perfectly" or "mostly" according
     to http://www.linuxprinting.org/printer_list.cgi?make=Epson

  2) They have inexpensive printers that use individual color
     cartridges.

  3) We've used their dot matrix printers for YEARS hassle free.

I ran across the Epson Stylus C84 this past 7 days. I read up on it
at the Epson web site <http://makeashorterlink.com/?P54051B68>. Then
checked linuxprinting.org and saw it was in the "mostly" list. That
is good enough for me. I don't need all the "bells and whistles",
just a solid printer that isn't going to cost a mint to keep supplied
with ink.

The printer arrived early this afternoon. I removed the HP from the
system that we use as the print server. Installed the Epson using
Mandrake Control Panel and chose the C82 with CUPS+gimp-print 4.2.5.
This is a Mandrake 9.1 box, it had autodetected the printer as a C80
which is pretty close and is one of the recommendations at the
linuxprinting.org site. The print server is running CUPS and SAMBA
for the broadest possible print sharing in our office. No Windoze in
the office but I do take in sick 'doze boxen on occasion, thus the
SAMBA. :-)

I then went to the other desktop boxes that are running Mandrake 9.2
and re-ran Mandrake's "printerdrake" to get the printers updated. It
was so easy I think my 11 year old could have done this. Test print
worked and looked great. This printer has -near- borderless printing
with the drivers on Linux but won't do full bleed edge to edge prints
like can be done under 'doze and Apple boxes according to the info at
linuxprinting.org. Big deal. The printouts look fantastic, the C84 is
WAY faster than that 660C and it is very quiet. I am obviously quite
pleased with what it does do AND with how easy this was to set up.

I do things like this and find it impossible to believe that some
people actually think Linux is not ready for the business or consumer
desktop. WHAT are those people smoking? They need rehab. ;-)

Gene (e-mail: gene \a\t eracc \d\o\t com) 

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