The Voice of Mom

Although I am the first to admit that I hate change, I also have this thing with printers.  Well, not just printers, per se, but multi-function units.  I want them to do everything (and then some) and take up as little space as possible while doing so.  I’m always on the lookout for a new one that will best what I’m currently using.  My current model is the Kodak multi-function unit.  How did I end up with that one, you ask?  I saw it on an episode of The Apprentice last year.  What can I say?  I’m an advertiser’s dream.  But that’s just the sizzle.  While I may be attracted to sizzle, the meat’s gotta be more than decent too, especially if I’m going to change something (refer to previous statement: I hate change).  So when the folks at Epson offered their Artisan 800 printer for review, I was ready and waiting.

The GOOD:  When it comes to descriptor words for a printer, I’ll often think functional, reliable, and workhorse.  The word sleek never enters my mind.  But when I say sleek was the perfect description for the visual aspects of this printer, I’m completely serious.  As I took it out of the box, I was silently oohing and ahhing.  It really is a thing of beauty, which is a funny thing to saw when describing a printer, but ’tis true.  One of the features I noticed right away was the document feeder.  This one has a little door that pops up to cover the document feeder opening.  Love that.  I don’t know about your office, but occasionally dust and who knows what else sometimes falls into the document feeder, so this handy little feature, while something small, is really something quite big.  So now that you know how I don’t like change, I feel free to tell you that I am really quite inept when it comes to hooking up anything technologically related.  I usually call the IT guy at the office to come over and help me out, and when he’s not around, I make sure to label every cord I touch as I unplug it because otherwise, well, we don’t want to talk about otherwise.  My husband taught my six-year-old son how to work our DVD player “because if I tell Mommy, she won’t remember.”  Yeah, it’s that bad.  Oh, so the point?  I had just a little bit of anxiety trepidation when it came time to hooking up this printer, but honestly it was completely unfounded.  The fold-out directions (with clear pictures even!) were a breeze and in no time at all, I was being prompted by the LCD screen to set the date, time and various other features.  To say it was dummy proof would be an understatement.

The BAD:  The toner cartridges are all separate (i.e., one for yellow, one for cyan, one for black, etc.), six in all.  This has definite pros and cons.  On the plus side, some of your cartridges will outlast the others because you might use cyan way more than yellow, for example, so you might cut costs a bit there.  On the other hand, it’s a lot of little toner cartridges to have to play with and inventory.

MONEY MATTERS: The Epson 800 Artisan printer retails for approximately $300 and can be purchased at your favorite local office supply stores or online at various outlets, including Amazon.

The MOM VERDICT

Cate says: But how did it print, Cate?  I’m glad you asked.  Remarkably well.  Comparing Epson’s photo quality to those that are coming out of my Kodak printer, Epson’s were surprisingly better.  Crisp, clear, vibrant images and you have a lot of options to play around with when using the photo feature … like enough that you could kill your whole day with it.   The output speed when printing (38 pages per minute) was also quite admirable and I love, love, triple love the wireless aspect of it.  Even a technophobe like myself totally appreciates all things wireless.  I think what I love most about the printer are all the little extras that this multi-function unit has that its more traditional counterparts don’t.  Look, they’re all going to copy, scan, print and fax.  That’s a given.  But this one goes way beyond … it has cool photo correction abilities that will deliver you the best possible picture, you can print your photos directly onto a CD or DVD and even just print plain college-ruled or graph paper (I love that feature, as does my son).  It will print borderless prints and you can even print photos from your cell phone.  And now with the holiday coming, you can make your own greeting cards, family calendars and more.  I love that it’s a traditional workhorse of a multi-function unit, but with a little extra for your homelife use as well.  I’m all about those bells and whistles.  Go get ‘em.