A red is a red is a red, neither ruby nor vermillion. Whats in a name, shakespeare said and we take it literally.
We behave like animals when we talk, react or buy products. Sab khareed rahe hai toh achi hi hogi is what I have always heard from people and I wonder awestruck and with dismay.
No wonder, everyone has written negative about this poor lil printer from the epson’s stable. Epson anyway is not the most sought after printer although it makes the finest printers in the world. We love hp .. We love cannon, we love their substandard prints and their expensive cartridges .. (they can be refilled I almost forgot)
The main difference with hp/cannon and epson is that the epson printers have the head in the printer, so you refill and choke the head thereby throwing the printer. With the former you refill the cartridge and throw it away, no issues.
What you loose on in the former is just the print quality and nothing more .. It is ok with us. Oh yes, do we really print things that would matter if the resolution was better or the sharpness and colors were almost duplicated. For us a blue is a blue not sky or marine/aqua.
You never complain about the quality of epson products, you may complain oftheir after sales and I may agree, but one call to the epson office (not the dealer or the service centre mind you) and everything will be in order. This again is not epson’s fault .. It is indian mentality, lethargy n I dunno what more.
Enough of lamenting, lets see the printer. (I guess you will hear me lament on this in every review of epson I write henceforth)
The c41ux is a baby, its an infant. It is purely for home use where it is assumed that you will print aprox 10 pages of text with a few pictures in them per day and maybe 2-5 pages of color pictures once in a while.
We are not looking at a heavy duty printer from epson like the c82 where you can queue a job of 50 pages of 90% coverage color pictures on photo quality paper and switch over to doing other work leaving the printer unattended. We are not talking about an adult, we are talking about an infant who will eat the sheets if they are bent, who will whine if you make it walk more then its lil feet can and will feel tired if you dont allow it to sleep.
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The c41 is a usb or parallel port printer and is very easy to install.
The cartridges are comparatively cheap and the black cartridge comes in packs of 2 thereby further saving on cost.
The printer takes only a4 size paper and a max of maybe 9.5’’ paper width. Lenth can be customised as in all printers.
The printer software is quite efficient helping you with cleaning the nozzles n realigning the head to changing empty cartridges.
Printer uses t038(black) and t039(color) thereby giving 4 color printing. The printer prints well and the economy mode is also very legitimate and clear. However the economy mode quality drops once the cartridges are 75 - 80% empty. Another great thing with this printer is that you can print with black even if color is empty. Just select the cartridge from the software. This is bcoz whenever any printer prints black it also mixes the three colors to make black and therefore consumes a lil from your color cartridge also (remember the color wheel they taught us in school). The printer prints well if the correct settings are selected and an amateur also can pick them up with a little effort and some observation.
The printer easily prints 100 pages of black and the color depends on various factors like intensity, color used, etc and hence may vary from 40 pages to 80 pages (max I have achieved)
Overall the printer is a good buy for home uses where kids need to print their assignments, projects, pictures, etc. But beware ... Get them addicted to the epson quality and anything else will be a compromise
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