A couple of years ago:
Using a line of Epson printers the past years, including the 400, 450 and, recently, the C45.The C90 was the straw that broke the back of this customer's loyalty to the brand.
Through the years I purchased Epson printers only for one reason, gentle on paper and user friendly, fairly economical to run provided you stick to proprietary ink cartridges.
An early attempt to use refilled cartridges on my Stylus 400 killed that printer, because the printer head failed.A new head was priced nearly 1000 bucks more than a new printer.
So that made me opt for a Stylus 450 after 2 years of good service this printer died a sudden death, for reasons still unknown.
A HP and Canon on trial to me did not satisfy my expectations so I opted for the lesser evil, the Epson C45.
I think with the C45 the rot seemed to have set into the quality of Epson printers.It went beserk after a couple of days.Fortunately I had done an online product registeration, which allowed me to get the problem fixed free of cost.But within a year it stopped working and is still at the service center.
This is not a stray incident because another C45 next door, purchased at about the same time too conked out a couple of days later.
One Year Ago:
The local service guy adviced me to go in for the C90, which he claimed was a great improvement over the C45.
Price was also not too much.
Use friendly, affordable ink cartridges, individual color cartridges so that you could replace just one color alone, user friendly, easy to use, gentle on paper.
The only downside was indefinite life.
Okay I was willing to accept that.
Brought it home and the shocks started from there.My attempt at online product registeration resulted in a message which claimed that the product was out of date, out of production or something and hence could not be registered.
The next shock was when I tried printing a page.
Previous Epson printers that I used seemed to operate on "Daily Wages".They were polite, took in the paper gently, took a few secont deciding what to do and finally did the printing at, what I would term as a majestic rate which was not harsh or not in much of a hurry.Even in fast economy that majestic gentleness was present.
This new C90 seemed to do the printing on'Piece Rate".
Before Icould even blink an eye it started behaving like one of those monstersfrom a science fiction movie.It grabbed that paper out of my hand, witha crash boom bang it excreted the paper.The only way to behave a bittame was to use Normal mode.In Economy or Economy Fast the monster tookover.So I was forced to stick to Normal.
If by chance your paper was inserted at a slant or loose, with the previous models, the C45 included, would just slowly scroll out the paper, make a few wheezing sounds with the blinking of the red light, a loose translation of all that being(I think)"So solly, paper put longly.No plinting possible, please put paper lightly and tly again"
But the C90? I think it rubs its hands in glee for the opportunity to destroy your paper.A slightly slanted paper will be pulled in before you can do anything, and the business letter that you were hoping to print comes out like the intricate work of a Kashmiri carpet!
Within days the printer was crying out for more ink so I went and got some more cartridges.This seems to be a regular thing now in my life, that is, buying ink cartridges.
I used to print labels for my Cds and Dvds earlier.Now I cant / don't.
The minute I put in a sheet of label paper, the monster seems to sense it! It chews up the paper and gets constipated.I had quite a job unwinding that paper from the insides of the printer.
All I get for my troubles is printer ink on my hands, and mangled Cd labels.So I prefer to write on the labels with a pen nowadays .
Once out of sheer desperation I called up the service center to see if they could do anything to get the monster out of this printer.They expressed their regret.And since the warranty was not registered, I could not claim a warranty.
The Sad Present:
So what do I have now? A printer ink hungry monster that chews up most of the paper that I feed it.The only thing I cannot understand is that it has not died yet.
If it did that I could go and buy another printer.
BUT NEVER AGAIN AN EPSON.
Enough is enough the C90 has definitely cured me of brand loyalty.
So good bye Epson, hope not to see you around for long.
*Update on print quality & other features:
*This printer gives prints of satisfactory quality only in Normal or higher modes.
In Economy or Fast Economy the printing is very very bad.
This is in comparison to the other Epson printers I have mentioned here.
So, unless the setting is in Normal print quality is bad.
I have found only one solution to this.
If I need to print any document, I change the font color to gray.
Then in the preferences I set use black ink only and normal.
This gives me what I might consider as economy prints.
But several times I overlook selecting'Use Black Ink only' and my color cartridge goes empty!
Who can be bothered to do all this every time you need to print a document.
Other features? I have not noticed any**.
