Epson Stylus CX4200 Inkjet Printer

I just threw away an Epson CX5400, which is very similar to this CX4200. It stopped printing due to a design defect - an ink clog that occurs in a tube that is very difficult to fix. The bottom line is, it will last 1-2 years if youre lucky. Whereas an HP or Canon will last for many years longer. If you dont believe me, see the reviews for the CX5400, which has been out longer and has had time to accumulate a lot of reviews.

Yup, if it wasnt for the ink glitch, I will be giving it better... Because of it, this product doesnt even deserve to have one star!

Have had this printer for about a year, scanner works great, printer worked great. Until now. Now it says the color cartridges are out and refuses to print in black & white without the color cartridges. Except the color cartridges arent actually out. Theyre about halfway full. Wonderful. Will never buy from Epson again.

Hi guys, I just got one of these printers for juts a few bucks. There are a few workarounds to the black and white printing issue. This may be helpful for those who have this printer. Heres a free program that will trick the printer into thinking it has a never-ending supply of ink: [...] Theres also an extensive blog post with solutions here: [...]

I just opened this product and am already irritated with it. Epson did not include a USB cable with the printer! Had I known this, I would not have bought this printer. What a hassle.

I, too, am incredibly aggravated that I cannot print with only black ink. I ran out of blue ink but all my other inks are full, and I just want to print a black & white document. The printer wont print at all even though I checked the various print only black printer options.

Great!

Im sorry to say that this printer is a real lemon. Id not had it long, when suddenly it gave me an error message to replace the magenta ink cartridge, which I did, but then it wouldnt print saying that all the ink cartridges needed to be replaced. I had just replaced magenta, so I humored it and replaced them all with brand new Epson ink, and guess what! it still says they are all empty! it wont print now, and I contacted the epson customer service and they accused me of using bad ink. Its Epson ink Im using, and wasting money replacing brand new cartridges to boot!! Dont ever by an Epson. I have a friend that has another model, and when I called to ask to borrow her printer to print a document she told me it was not working because it was telling her it was out of ink even though shed put in all new cartridges! What a rip off.

I WOULD GIVE IT A ZERO IF I COULD.ALL EPSON PRODUCTS ARE GARBAGE. RIP OFFS! They used to be a good brand but now that they have your attention and have cornered the market now they intentionally design cheap printers that suck as much print as possible. Its not the cost of the printer that matters but the cost to actually print a piece of paper!! Ive just done the math with this CX420 and its costing me about $10-$15 a page! Its also the cost of your TIME and your GAS DO NOT BUY AN EPSON PRINT.... ANY PRINTER!

I like this printer most of the time, but Ive become upset with one very poor design flaw: black-and-white printing is disabled unless the color ink cartridges have ink in them. As their website says, Q: Can the printer still print if an ink cartridge is expended or not installed? A: No. The printer will not operate if any cartridge is expended or removed. Its best to always have extra cartridges on hand. With this bizarre design, not only is it best to have extra cartridges on hand, but necessary. If you run out of any color ink, you can no longer print in black and white--very inconvenient.