Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Update 3/2/10 - Felt it only fair to update to say that while this is still an excellent machine for the price, I have already moved on to another. I purchased the 310 in August 2009, and would've loved to have had the Artisan 800, but the price (around 300), issues (a large number of quality complaints, jams, errors, etc) and lack of some features (no scan to pc unless it was hooked up via USB, no fax memory, no fax from pc) - made the 800 a bad choice and something I didn't want to get when there was this 80 dollar AIO that had those features, even it was lacking in the photo print quality. Fast forward to 2010 and we now have an updated Artisan 810 that has improved quality and the features I want, and I caught it at a great price (reduced further with my amazon visa points). The best way to get what you want for the price on amazon is to put it in your cart and visit your cart daily - it'll tell you of any price changes.
Again, this is a great, low cost, AIO, with lower ink costs than the one I now have, and I never had the first issue with it. My primary printout consisted of recipes, pages from the internet, and greeting cards, and making copies of various items. Great for the home user, or low volume small office.
*** Original Review - Sept 2009 ***
Overview of my setup - Cradlepoint MBR1000 WiFi router (for mobile broadband) with 2 laptops and 1 netbook connecting via WiFi, all WinXP. I have one Vista pc but it's currently comatose so I won't be able to review the Vista compatibility (and more than likely when I fix it rather than reinstalling Vista I'll go to Win7). Epson 310 is connected via ethernet to the router, giving me a WiFi network printer without the price of a WiFi printer.
I don't expect an All-In-One to be perfect at any one thing. For the feature where I need something more perfect, I have a machine just for that (like my Epson V500 scanner for archiving old photos). If you want a high quality, suitable for framing, photo printer, this probably is not your machine.
What was important to me for an AIO -
Price - I'm not a heavy duty user, photo prints I like to order (it's cheaper, I don't care what kind of photo printer you have!), and just couldn't justify a $300 AIO.
Easy to use once it's setup - I have a tech-challenged husband. I'm a computer nerd and a programmer so I wasn't worried if the initial setup was difficult (but I'll say now, it wasn't, I could probably talk my husband through it even).
Scanner - not for archiving photos, I have a good scanner for that, but be acceptable for making copies of documents, faxing, scanning in documents, recipes, receipts, etc. I also sometimes need to scan in notes and email them to coworkers (for this I also required a scan to pdf option).
Print quality - again, not necessarily for printing pictures I'd want to frame (I have an R300 that does a decent job of that) but good enough for documents, including some with pictures, clear text, and true colors. I also want to be able to print decent greeting cards. I have a subscription with AG and print most of my cards.
Fax - fax memory, ability to fax from the AIO or from the computer, and again easy enough for hubby to use. He was never able to figure the fax software on the computer.
Copy - easy to use, quality should be the same as if I scan it, and reprint from the computer
I can probably get a better quality printing from something like the Artisan 800 or even the Workforce 600. The incident rate of issues, errors, jams, with the 800 though was too high, no fax memory, and it's expensive to take that chance. The 600 was also missing features I wanted.
What I found:
Installation - I had no problems installing the Epson software on any of my machines, and even installed some of the bundled software that I wouldn't normally. Installation on the very first one took longer than the others, I assume due to initializing all the settings, but it was first installed on my slowest machine too - my 4 yr old HP, then my Asus Eee 1000, then my work laptop, a brand new Dell.
Fax - I have set the fax up but have not used it yet - it was simple, can set the headers up either through the printer screen or on any of the connected pc's. Faxing can be done from the AIO itself or you can fax from a computer - this was a key reason I purchased this over other AIO's. I have a phone line running to the fax, then a line from that to my main phone (4 handset cordless). I set it up to answer automatically on the 5th ring, as my answering system is set to answer on the 4th (this was recommended). Setting it up for automatic allows it to receive the fax even if a handset is picked up and hung up.
Printing - Noisy. When it first pulls the paper in it sounds "grindy". It startled me the first time I printed. There is a quiet mode, and it is definitely quieter (more normal) but also slower. The noise level is not enough for me to send it back and I'm used to it now, but could be a deal breaker for some. The quality - while I saw initial reviews on other websites by editors that the print quality was not as good as the 600, and said "buy the 600 instead", it's fine for me and I don't think the text quality is any worse than my R300. I would not buy this to print professional looking high quality brochures, for that type of work I'd buy something geared more to photo printing anyway. Speed overall is slower than my Epson R300 but acceptable.
Copy - I printed an article that had a picture of Lou Holtz on it. The quality was good, including the picture, on plain paper. I then put it in the ADF, and hit copy, hit "Color" and the copy was almost as good as what I printed. The only noticeable difference was it cut the header/footer off a tad on the copy (not the print output) but I have my margins on print output set pretty small (< .25"). So, I don't believe you'll get borderless out of copies. Notice I said I hit the "Color" button - to make a copy, once you hit the Copy button, you hit either the "B&W" or "Color" button. These are "Start" buttons that tell it to copy in either black & white or color. There are also options to reduce/enlarge.
Scan - Here's what I love that even my husband can handle. He's never attempted to use a scanner. I can put the item to scan either on the glass or in the ADF. I hit scan, and I have the option of scanning directly to a computer on the network (that has Epson drivers installed). The pc names that are on show up on the AIO, you choose the one to scan to, and it saves the scanned image automatically to that pc. I did notice that this requires a reboot of the pc for it to show up, after first installing the Epson drivers. You can change from that pc, the destination folder, and whether you want it to also automatically open a particular software (if you do, the default is Presto PageManager, one of the bundled software titles). I do have that setup on one laptop. Because we're always collecting recipes and I like keeping them on the computer, I especially like this so that when my husband sees one he likes, he doesn't stick it in a drawer where it's forgotten - he can go over to the AIO, scan it in and trash the paper one. It's also easy to scan using other software. Ex - I have MS Digital Image Suite on one of mine, and like I always did with the regular scanner, I choose the option to use my scanner software instead of the automatic scan. This allows me to tweak settings like resolution and not scan the entire screen. Scan quality is better than my old Epson scanner (it was a good one in its time but is worn out) but not as good as my new Epson V500 and I didn't expect it to be, otherwise I wouldn't have bought the V500. The V500 is what I'm using to archive old photos, some 100 yrs old. I personally wouldn't do that with the scanner on the AIO but the quality is still surprisingly good and I have scanned a couple of photos to quickly post on fb. Oh yeh, and the scan speed - also much faster than the older Epson, again surprised at how fast!
Ink - Whenever researching printers, always research the ink too, and its cost. People always seem surprised at how much ink costs the first time they have to replace cartridges. Yes, you can pay more for ink than the printer! The ink, because of the 2 black tanks, will wind up being a little cheaper in the long run than my other printer (6 color including black, cheapest was ~ 60). I print black-only when I can. I was a little surprised though that the 3 colors, plus the 2 high cap blacks, will run about the same as my 6 color printer. I don't know yet how long that ink will last me. I don't buy those refillable cartridges, or the substitutes from other companies - quality is never as good and you can ruin a printer that way so this is based only on Epson inks.
Overall - Good value for the money especially at less than 100. When I bought, amazon still had it higher but an office supply store had it for 90 and I got it there. I couldn't wait for it to go to 80 like it is at the time I'm writing this review! It is definitely worth 80 or 90, but depending on your feature requirements, any higher than that and you may want to look at the 600 instead. I am very pleased with this AIO and happy with it. I couldn't really give it 5 stars though I think the value factor is a 5.
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