Epson Artisan 710 Wireless Color Inkjet All-In-One Printer (C11CA53201)

• Unbeatable quality and speed - Ultra HD 4x6 photos in as fast as 10 seconds.
• Automatic 2-sided printing and 2 paper trays
• Restore color to old, faded photos
• Easily charge a cell phone or MP3 player without tying up an additional outlet.
• Print directly onto CDs/DVDs

I read review after review debating which printer I should buy for mostly photo reproduction. While not wanting to go to the large size, photo dedicated pro version....I wanted to stay under $200. It came down to the Canon Mp640 and the Epson Artisan 710. Reviewers were pretty much split between the two as positive and negative...What to do? Both have very similar features...wirless, scan, etc..neither of which had much to do with my decision. I finally just decided to take my SD card and have each printer print two or three of the same pic. I started with the Canon, and the print menu was easy and the print speed was great. The pics were very good, but at side angle, had a bit of a hazy quality. Uploaded the same images to the Epson....there was no comparison, photo lab quality through and through. There were areas of one image that were dark and undifined in the Canon print, but were detailed and exposed well in the Epson.

When you also look at Epson having a 2 year warranty vs. 1 for Canon, it says something. The real kicker is from my research, I had every intention of buying the Canon....but the proof was in the photos.

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This machine is just a hairs breadth from spectacular. The prints are beautiful, they come out fast, and the built in cd printer is a huge improvement over the old removable trays. Now, I''ve owned epsons for many years, of all different types going back to the MX-80.

If you buy this, you''d better have a deep wallet. At first, the 6 cartridges seems like a good idea. What isn''t clear from the beginning is that the charging cycle is ink-wide all 6 carts are initialized when you replace a cartridge, draining what appears to be about 7-10% of each cartridge in the process. If you replace one cart that is dead, with others that are less than 10-15%, you''ll find that all the "low" cartridges are "out" after the charging cycle!

But it gets better. To try and keep the heads clear and clean, the machine runs a fairly extensive cleaning/purging cycle when it turns on or comes out of sleep. I''ve had as few as 6-7 printing sessions of just 2-3 sheets per session on a full size cartridge set (all 6 about $80 of ink). I don''t print very often at home maybe once every ten days. That means it''s always running a (2-3 minute long) start up purge for each print session. After I got my first actual banding (which requires an ink-sucking cleaning cycle or three), I switched to a continuous inking system. The ink-drain has been confirmed, but at least now I''m paying a dime per cleaning cycle instead of a couple dollars and there''s no new-cartridge-cycle losses.

I think these machines just aren''t meant to sit unused. If you don''t print multiple times a day, most of your ink will be spent in cleaning. If you do print multiple times a day, you''ll get beautiful prints but you''ll go through a lot of ink. Either way, plan on buying a full set of carts every month.

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The Artisan 710 I have is a replacement for an Artisan 700 I originally purchased.

I will first address the customer service of Epson in regard to this replacement.

The 700 that I originally purchased developed an ink clog that would not clear after numerous attempts to clean it. I had registered the 700 so I was eligible for overnight replacement. I received a refurbished 700, but that printer was defective. (I also received a set of high capacity cartridges with it.) I called Epson, and asked to speak to a second tier tech. After relating my experiences with the two defective 700''s, the tech said that instead of sending another refurbished 700, I would be sent a new Artisan 710. She also agreed to send another set of high capacity ink jet cartridges since I had used up most of the ones I had in the original 700 while attempting to clear the nozzles.

My impression of Epson customer service is that they went beyond what is required in their warranty. Getting an upgraded printer was worth about $50 more than the original 700. The two sets of high capacity cartridges was worth almost $200. (I did get the regular capacity sets as well.) Overnight shipping with pre-paid return for the defective printers was also included.

Installation is much improved over the Artisan 700. Connection to a wireless network is simple. The 710 found my network immediately and it was just a matter of entering the encryption key.

Now as to the features of the Artisan 710. I have used Epson printers for almost twenty years. Each new model has provided the highest quality prints available possible with the technology available when it was introduced. The 710 continues that trend. The printer is quieter and faster than the previous models I have owned. The Claria ink produces beautiful images and is instantly dry when leaving the printer. Claria ink is purported to have a lifetime similar to commercial printing. CD and DVD printing is great if using quality media. I use TDK White Matte DVD+R and Verbatim silver CD-R printable media.

Scanning is simple, although I did have to run the installation disk a second time in order to make the scanner connect wirelessly. Scanning works with any program that supports Twain.

I have found that the 710 seems to use much less ink during normal printing than the 700. I got the 710 a little over a month ago and all of the (standard capacity) ink cartridges still show as almost full.

Some have complained that there are only a few sheets of 4x6 Ultra Premium photo paper included with the printer, along with one printable cd. This is enough to allow new owners to see what is possible with this printer. Previous owners of Epson printers, such as myself, already know which media they need. To include a full package of paper would undoubtedly increase the cost of the printer. It would also possibly be a waste for people like me who only print 8x10 photos. Like any product which relies on disposables, such as razors, Epson makes their real money on ink and paper. It is up to the individual customers to determine which of these disposables they need.

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We purchased many of these printers

in 2009-2010 about 150)3 from Amazon.

We don''t understand any of the 5 star

reviews unless their from Epson''s pocket.

Out of the 150 printers,

we kept 4 for ourselves (The rest

were for resellers).

Of the 4 printers all 4 have been troublesome.

1 went dead (No power) after just 2

months, other one went with blinking lights

"internal error" and it will not function

what-so-ever. Of The remaining 2:One is

still functioning but hassles us with "print

cartridges not recognized"

(with the original ink cartridges that

came with the printer). This printer fails

over day or so we partially resolved

the problem by pulling the power cord from

the wall and re-starting this cumbersome printer.

Finally, the final 4th printer (after working

fine for 4 months) is blinking the same error

message that the previous printer did.

This monster has bad quality control issues.

The paper tray is horribly designed and sits

far to close to the receiving paper tray that

is so flimsy, it broke off on two of our printers.

Paper jams are frequent on these printers, and

can only print on thin papers. Sometimes, it

picks up 4 or 5 sheets at a time (20 pound paper)

especially when printing jobs with multiple paper

requirements. The printer needs a baby sitter

if you send a print job consisting of more than 1 page.

The CD Tray is way too flimsy. Seems like it can

bend or break very easily very poorly

made and just bad quality for such a price to pay.

Internet Spying

When we proceeded to printing a job over 3 documents,

our firewall sent us a message (before printing)

"EEventManager Application is trying to access the internet"

When we looked it up it said "Seiko Epson". Now, when pressed

"print" why did it want to access the Internet? Umm...

Well, we blocked it, because we DO Know that Epson "updates"

your printer''s software to block you from using 3rd party

cartridges.

So to Epson: Why do you want to connect to our computers

when printing a simple document?

710 Cartridges

The 710 ink cartridges seem to last a bit longer,

but the printer spends much of the time

''cleaning'' the heads, that a good portion

of the ink (at least 7 per cent) of the cartridge

is wasted during its cleaning cycle.

The cycle seems to occur to every time

you turn on the printer so we

kept on most of the time (or sleep)..

so the cycle would not repeat so

often. One amazon review also noted that

the internal counter is ticking away everytime

the printer saturates the ink pads something

Epson never tells it customers that this printer

will completely shut down after the pads are

done (the reset software may not work), leaving

you without a scanner because once the printer

shuts down so does the scanner (we had this

checked and it has been verified by technicians).

Also on this last 710 we have,the scanner kept

scanning everytime we would turn on the computer -

automatically scanning nothing. Weird.

These printers are extremely noisy on

start up to print. The snaps, crackles,

and pops it makes before printing (sometimes

for a good 2 minutes) is enough to make the

hair stand up on you thinking if this printer

is commiting suicide. They are fairly quiet

while printing, though.

Summary: We can not recommend this printer.

The paper jams are far to frequent along with

its terrible cheap paper tray. Our employees

despise this model simply because it has

ruined gobs of clean white paper by jamming

and swallowing up 2 to 5 sheets at a time.

Daniel James Tyler (WJ Group)

I love this printer. The print quality and speed are excellent. Photos are amazing. Also the scan quality is the best I have seen, and if you scan a text document you can get great quality with only a small file size. I have used HP and Brother AIO''s that tend to always create huge file sizes in the range of 2mb per page of text and if you lower the quality to save on size, you "really" lower the quality. The only short coming is not having a document feeder, but you know going in that it doesn''t have one. You can set the software to ask if you have another page after it scans, so you can have multiple page scans. I have scanned in old pictures and they look great on the screen and I reprinted some on 4x6 paper that looked as good as the originals. They didn''t look as good at 8 1/2 x 11, but I expected that.

I have found none of the ink usage problems that another review mentioned. I can only speculate that there is a defect with that printer, as it is so far from my experience. I have had this printer for almost a month and have printed a few pages or pictures on most days. The cartridges all still have over 80% according to the printer''s ink status and no print quality issues.

My only real issue with Epson is with the setup. On two computers that run XP, it was great and easy and everything worked fine, but with a Macbook running Snow Leopard, it was a totally different story. First, you have to go and find the software on Epson''s website and Epson''s website is poorly designed. Then, the new software needs a lot of work. I have the printer wired to my router, and while it would print, it would not scan. I had to go in and change the setting in the software as it was set as if I was using a USB cable when scanning. Also, it would not duplex until I changed some setting. Lastly, the CD Print software on the Mac I found to be useless. On the XP it is very easy to quickly design your cover and the CD/DVD''s come out really great, but then I tried it on the Mac, and the software they provided was very onerous to use, with some time maybe I could figure it out, but it was just so easy on the XP, that I doubt I ever try to figure out the Mac. It was not very intuitive. I have to say that this is the very first time something was easier to do on a Windows computer than a Mac.

The scan straight to a flash drive is also a really nice feature.

Overall, I really like this printer and would highly recommend this printer to anyone using XP. I think (or should I say "hope") Epson will be able to quickly fix the software problems with Snow Leopard. I imagine they are having problems with Windows 7 right now as well, but I have no first hand knowledge on that. For speed and quality of printing and scanning, this is one great printer and even with the Mac, once I was able to work through the setup problems, it has been a real joy to use. I would get it again even with the issues I had.

Update: I have continued to have problems with Epson running on Snow Leopard. The Epson print drivers cause iPhoto to crash. Also, I am having problems with the printer getting an IP address from the router. I have never had this problem with other printer brands and I am no expert in this area, so I am unable to understand and correct the issue. The printer is wired to my router, but it requires a specific IP address in the Epson Scan Setup software on each Mac running Snow Leopard. When the router changes IP addresses, it messes things up for the whole network. I don''t have any issue with windows XP, just when I turn on a computer running Snow Leopard. After using this printer for almost 2 months, I would strongly advise against buying this if you have a Mac. I may retire this printer when the ink cartridges run out as I had to uninstall the scan function on all my Macs. Epson, please fix your Snow Leopard drivers and your website so it makes sense.