- Premium photo viewer to easily select and crop photos
- Direct photo printing from memory cards or PictBridge-enabled digital cameras
- Brilliant, long lasting 6-color photo ink
- Borderfree printing in popular photo sizes
- Convenient individual ink cartridges
I brought this printer as a bet, as i can''t find any review on it yet.
This printer seems only an improved version of the R320 in term of preformance and quality print. But with much easier and better user interface.
What i like the most, the setting in the printer it self allow me to change the diameter of the printable surface of the cd. Some CD/DVD have 42mm hole of non-printable surface in the middle, but some only 21mm.
Btw, the built in color monitor is great too, unlike the R320 where every advertising i''ve ever seen has one but they don''t tell u it comes at extra cost, ''til u buy it.
Overall i''m very happy with this one, and its definitely worth the extra price. For all other pluses of this priter, just refer to the R320 review, its 90% similar ;)
Buy Epson Stylus Photo R340 Inkjet Printer Now
Paper Jam Paper Jam Paper Jam.
If you by this printer to print to DVD or CD you"ll see "Error..Paper Jam " in your nightmares. It might take 2-3 minutes to print a DVD but plan on another 5-10 fighting with this piece of @#$% printer each time. I bought two of these printers so this is no fluke.
Here''s the full story. Once a year I make from 500-1000 DVDs in the late sping / early summer. Since I do this just once a year I am not willing to buy a robotic duplicator for $2grand plus, besides, I can do a lot more for a lot less by loading up my 3 computers with 2-3 dvd burners. Most automatic system only have one or two. Anyhow for three years I used the Epson Stylus Photo 960 to print, one at a time to DVD. Sure it had a few problems here and there, but nothing cleaning ink off the tray every few months wouldn''t take care off. Well this year it bought the farm. Disc after disc it would smear excessive ink along the bottom of each disc. It would print perfectly up to this point. I could clean nothing to remedy this problem. Epson didn''t care, and there service center here didn''t care either. I''m sure it''s a matter of them being to embarrased to quote me an estimate on repair as it would probabaly at least equal the cost of replacement. Anyhow, I was ticked because I couldn''t get any help and the timing was really bad. But hey, I put probably at least 3000 DVDs through this thing for a lot less money than it would have been to out source or buy a high end professional automatic system. So I guess that''s good. Anyhow, I replaced the 960 with two R340s. I figured $300 is still a lot cheaper than an automated system and I can get my projects finished in half the time. Well first let me say I''m more than a little disappointed that this printer not only doesn''t print faster than my 3yr old 960, but it was actually SLOWER!! Let me clarify...I actually bought the first R340 three weeks before my 960 decided it was done. BTW I got about $100 in ink here for it if anyone has a 960 and is interested. SO anyhow I had the 960 and the first R340 working in the same room for about 3 weeks. The R340 took about an additional 30 seconds per disc to do it''s little in and out song and dance and then finally print, compared to the 960. The 960 was pretty dummy proof on feeding DVDs and took them in flawlessly. The R340 errors on feeding like every 3rd try.
This is a lot to read. I''ll cut to the chase. About 2 days apart from one another each R340 made there printed 100 or so DVDs mark. At that point the feed error and jam errors became constant. It would literally take 10 minutes of screwing with the printer to convince it to print. Eventually both refused to feed the DVD tray in and would flap up the little tray that holds the tray that holds the dvd and that tray would make an aweful noise as it rocketed out scraping below the other tray that for some reason flipped up. After tis happened enough times an error message popped up referring me to the manual which basicaly said if you see this error the printer is @#$%! Well the guy I talked to at Epson said there is defianlty a problem with the printer so they will send I replacement. Well, now that the same crap has happened to R340 #2 I don''t want the replacement! Before I call them on this second printer I will try to return it to the store. Clearly Epson decided the 960 was to good of a printer and that if anyone wanted to print on 100dvds or more they had no business buying one of their printers. Before any smart#$#% would say I shoulda bought a professional printer for such quantites, let me remind you that over the course of three years I put thousands of DVDs through the 960. No where was there any indication that I shouldn''t be able to expect the same from the R340. Printing on DVDs is kinda special and unfortunatly I think Epson is the only one that really makes a consumer one in the inkjet variety but tell me would you buy a regular paper printer if you found out it was only good for printing 100-200 pices of paper. No way!
It''s so disappointing to see a company start making their products so much less reliable.
Read Best Reviews of Epson Stylus Photo R340 Inkjet Printer Here
I bought the R340 to print CDs and DVDs only. If the disc loads correctly, the printer does a magnificent job, but as several other useres have noted, getting it to load is an arduous undertaking. The trick for proper loading is this: after you send the CD/DVD print file to the printer, the feed mechanism will push the tray back out about a quarter of an inch. You must quickly push it back in by hand, before the feeder grabs the tray again, or it will misfeed every time and generate an error condition. With a little practice, you get so that it will feed correctly maybe half the time.
A friend of mine has an R320 and he reports the same exact problem with his printer. Even though we both know what to do, it still misfeeds frequently. I''m sure Epson engineers could fix the internal software if they wanted to, but with no competetion in the CD/DVD printer market, there''s no incentive to make it work right.
Another problem: the printer software allows disk image to be "whitened" on the computer screen so that the picture can be aligned with the disc''s printable surface boundries. Whiting is there only as a visual aid to to the user, but if he forgets to turn the whiting off before printing, the image will be printed on the disc so light that it''s almost invisible! (If this happens to you, just turn the whiting OFF, push the carrier tray back in, and print the disk again. The darker image will directly overlay the lighter one, but you must be VERY CAREFUL NOT TO MOVE THE DISC in between.) Again, this minor bug could be easily fixed in the software by automatically turning the whiting OFF any time the PRINT command is received, but Epson simply doesn''t care if it works right or not.
All-in-all, I reluctantly put up with this printer''s quirky behavior because when it finally DOES work right, the results are beautifully printed DVDs and CDs. There''s a real opportunity here for another manufacturer to offer a CD/DVD printer that really does the job RIGHT, and steal the market away from an unresponsive Epson.
Want Epson Stylus Photo R340 Inkjet Printer Discount?
But not without "some" effort.
The problem was the printer driver that came on the CD appears to not to work with Mac OS 10.4.x.
Calling Epson for help is difficult, there''s a lot of button pushing involved and it seems like you must answer unnecessary questions endlessly before you actually get help. I think they would save time if they "just helped you" even though that might result in helping people who had the product more than 12 months. (A plus for Epson, the support person I "finally" spoke to was in the United States.)
As a Mac user, you probably only want two pieces of software from Epson. The printer driver (check their web site to see that you have the latest one), and EPSON Print CD. EPSON Print CD Is a decent program that will allow you to print to a CD or DVD, (you must use printable CDs / DVDs). Other companies also make a similar program at a fairly low cost.
Some people have a habit of throwing away the install software and just downloading everything "fresh" from a company''s Web site. Don''t do that with the Epson R340, for some reason the EPSON Print CD program is not available for download!
The approach that worked for me was to install the latest driver from the Epson Web site and then use the install CD to install the EPSON Print CD program.
If you register this product, be sure to indicate that your using a Macintosh.
A good point for Epson, the printer is made in the Philippines NOT Communist China.
Printer 5 Stars
Software 3 Stars
Support 1 Star
In general, this is a GREAT printer. The picture printing is very impressive when using the right paper, and the text printing is laser quality.
Now, on to the best, yet most frustrating feature of this line of printers, direct CD/DVD printing.
I too have had my share of feed issues with the Epson CD tray on several different printers (R200, R220, R340), but I have just discovered and solved the most frustrating of them, the one T.J. Vondrell is evidently having. The tray was being drawn in too far at the beginning of a CD print job, causing the subsequent ejection cycle to push the tray out UNDER the drop-down tray platform. I found that the sideways-mounted roller on the right side of the platform was sticking. The associated microswitch at that roller is what stops the initial insertion, at which point indexing using an optical reader commences as the reader looks at the white marks on the tray. When the roller springs back out as the tray clears it on the initial insertion, the tray is stopped, and the indexing begins. If it sticks, the tray just keeps on going out the back of the printer, and the printer generates all those frustrating error messages, not to mention the grinding sound of the tray coming back out of place under the tray platform. A VERY brief shot of WD40 using the provided spray straw to the roller fixed ALL tray issues with my 2nd brand new R340. I will now apply the same lube job to my other Epson printers. I hope this tidbit relieves a lot of frustration from you other Epson users. This is an easy fix, and one that Tech Support at Epson should be well aware of, but apparently isn''t, as I now have a new R340 sent as a replacement for my 1st one that was doing the same thing. I have emailed them, and I hope they post it on their FAQ page. This fix should apply to all Epson printers that have a similar drop-down CD tray platform.
P.S. As a rule now, I try to remember to give the tray a slight nudge as the CD print job begins. This should help extend the life of the somewhat weak roller system that pulls the tray in. I have a couple of well-used R-series printers that now require this assist, or the tray will not be drawn in.
Good luck all with this otherwise fantastic printer.
