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Great Printer...but where's the USB cable

Customer Rating:
I just received my Epson Artisan 50 and started to hook it up when I realized that the USB cable from the printer to computer was NOT supplied. It is not shown in the instruction sheet so I assume they meant not to include it. Is this just me or is everyone else having this issue.
The printer uses an A-Male B-Male type USB connector. I had a lot of other USB connectors lying around...but not one of those.
Fortunately I dug through some old electronics goods and managed to scavenge one from some old equipment.
Why Epson decided not to include the USB cable is beyond me. It's like not including a power cable because they assume everyone has a power cable lying around.
So if you buy this, make sure you have a A-Male B-Male USB connector. Because if you don't have one, you are dead in the water until you've hopped in your car, headed over to the nearest computer store or Radio Shack.
It's OK Epson. You can charge an extra dollar for your printer and include the cable. It will save a lot of folks a trip to the store.
Once I got the cable and loaded up the software I was good to go.
I bought this to print on CD's and it works great. The machines creeks and groans and makes a lot of noise when its getting ready to print but the results are fantastic...even using the limited CD design software that comes with the supplied CD.
I couldn't figure out how to print on paper though.
I put a stack of paper in but the machine didn't want to grab any of them.
I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong and I'll figure that out later.
It prints great on DVD's and CD's and that's what I bought it for.
So 1 star for not supplying a USB cable...5 stars for a good print job....average 3 stars

Works well with cardstock, but photos print slowly.

Customer Rating:
I just bought this printer. I have printed about 35 test prints. I am happy with the printer so far. I bought the printer to print on glossy cardstock (12 pt. Kromecote). Cardstock will curl in many laser printers, and the curling can be severe and difficult to straighten out after the fact. But with this inkjet printer (as with most inkjet printers), curling is not an issue. Cardstock comes out flat. Feeding cardstock is a simple no-hassle process. (On my Brother laser printer, you have to hold each piece of cardstock and feed it into the machine one piece at a time.) My only minor gripe about feeding cardstock into the Artisan 50 is that you can only set about 50 sheets of cardstock in the feed tray. My biggest complaint is that printing photos is slow unless you opt for the lower-quality settings. I used the "Photo" setting and the "Photo Paper Glossy" setting. It took more than 90 seconds to print a single 8.5 x 11 sheet with a photo that covered 80 to 90 percent of the paper. (My Brother laser printer seems fast by comparison, printing the same page in about 20 seconds.) However, if print quality is not very important, you can churn out photos much faster (maybe 20-30 seconds each) by using the "Print and Text" setting with the "Plain Paper" setting.

On the high-quality settings, print quality was quite good, despite the fact that I was not using photo paper. Kromecote cardstock is not really intended for inkjet printers. Colors were noticeably deeper and richer than with my Brother laser printer. Though I was impressed with the image quality, I noticed that there was some mottling of certain mid-tone colors and textures. I tried experimenting with numerous paper settings and print quality settings but was not able to eliminate this mottling. A similar, and probably related issue was that some very fine detail was lost. In particular, very fine light-colored lines in the midst of a dark (but not black) background did not stand out crisply. I get crisper results from my Brother laser printer. Fortunately, my application does not require flawless print-outs. If it did, I would probably have to use Epson's photo paper. I found that when it came to photo quality, I got better results with plain paper than with glossy Kromekote cardstock.

A few other positives worth mentioning:
Printer is quiet.
Printer accepts 8.5 x 14 cardstock with no problems.
Set up is very easy (I used the USB cable option).
Ink seems to dry almost instantly on glossy paper (humidity today is 26%, with room temperature in the mid 70s).

Of my 35 test prints, about 25 of them were identical 8.5 x 11 prints. On these test prints, light blue (Cyan) was the dominant color, covering about 50 percent of each page. According to the on-screen ink cartridge monitor, I have used about 10 percent of the light-cyan cartridge that came with the printer. If that is true, I figure that I might be able to print 200 to 250 more similar pages before I need to replace the light-cyan cartridge. Of course, this does not include the possibility of print cartridge clogging or the ink consumed in the print cartridge cleaning process.

Overall this seems like a very good inkjet printer at a reasonable price. But, like most inkjet printers, it is slow when it comes to photos.

Epson Artisan 50: Excellent dye-based printer

Customer Rating:
Upon reading the reviews of this printer on Amazon, I decided to give it a go. I've used many inkjet printers and as a frequent tech buyer for homes and small businesses, I've seen a lot of different printers come and go. Most fall short of the superlatives I would attach to this one. It uses a bit less ink than previous Epson Stylus models, until you print photos. Then the gap narrows, mainly at the highest quality settings. It has been reliable on all counts, paper feed, printing quality and CD/DVD feed and printing. I like standalone printers over multifunction devices, and this one is a great choice for that role. The print quality is top-notch, even unbeatable, at this price range. It came with full capacity cartridges.

A tidy little workhorse

Customer Rating:
This machine is used for photography by a hobbyist and for office documents. I use a range of Adobe products (but not Illustrator, which was a concern for another reviewer) and ordinary word processing software. That's the background. It's the first Epson photo printer that I truly love.

It produces clear, vibrant colors whether on a printable disc or photo paper. Text on plain paper for inkjets is crisp. If you're a scrapbook hobbyist or create invitations, the ink bleeds on acetate and cotton fiber vellum, as I expected it would. Hey, I took a shot on products that weren't designed for inkjet printers, although in these modern times, all sorts of inkjet friendly palettes are probably readily available.

I definitely appreciate only having to change out the color cartridge that is empty instead of all the colors just because one has run out. And in fact, if you do run out of black ink during mid-print, the software offers the opportunity to mix the remaining colors, which create slate-gray text and that is fine with me. (I wouldn't do that for a photo image, though.) I can finish a document instead of being stopped in my tracks.

In earlier models, if the printer sat unused for as little as a few days, the inkjet nozzles would clog. It would take several cleaning runs to clear the clogs -- a wild waste of ink. I've had this printer now for over six months and it has been turned off for as long as several weeks and hasn't needed a cleaning yet. Technology, advancing.

The one thing that is just the same regards the drivers. My experience is that Epson products play well with others, and that continues to be true for this printer, too.

It's a little noisy -- not shocking loud -- when it comes to lining up for a print job, but once printing, it just zip-hums. Ordinary stuff. Could bother some people, I suppose. Put on a little music while you're working and you'll never notice it. Maybe it could be faster, but I'm not in a hurry. Instead of a moment, I wait for a moment and a half. And the lovely, sleek black casing is a dust attractor. If I were Queen Of Everything, I might design the printer with a matte finish. Maybe wouldn't repel dust, but I likely wouldn't notice it so much and really? That's all I care about.

Enjoy!

Great printer

Customer Rating:
I love it,it is so fast, great photos. I would buy another in a heart beat!!!