booya to epson, what exactly did they do that was so great then ?

Its the second time iv had a problem with my Epson 580 printer, 1st time they came out within 24hours and replaced the printer. Secondly they gave me technical support person-2-person via chat on there site. I just think Epson are top class and make great products that they actually give support for!

Nice Ive never had a prob with any of there stuff so ive never had to get tech support on anything.

I had one printer a while ago that died within 3 weeks of getting it. I just returned it and got a HP722C. That was 4 years ago and I never had a problem with my HP. But it's nice to see that yours worked out.

HP printers are good printers but theres one thing i dispise about them printers and that is that you have to have a whole load of paper in before it will pick the paper up. Pain in the butt but they are good printers.

What i hate about HP is that they dont include the stupid cable with the printer, like parallel or usb, so you open you shiny new printer and you cant even use it.

All the printers that I have setup have been that way, except for some HP LJ units that had a proprietary connector on the printer itself. Plus the boxes always had "DON'T FORGET THE CABLE!!!" bodly printed on them. Not that it mattered, because you were more interested in buying it than reading the box .

I mail ordered it so i had no chance of seeing the box.

You would think that you are spending like £100 or more on a printer that they would give you the cable to use it.

I think the idea was more of convenience and cost control for the user. In my case, I might want a particular length of cable that isn't the normal 6ft (2M) that you see in stores. The same thing would go for serial cables with external modems, as some people might want different lengths or already have cables, and would rather not have to pay for another one since the cost of including one with the unit is rolled up into the purchase price.

No, they should include one. If you buy say a deskjet printer, its pretty obvious thats its going to be for personal and not network use, ie its gonna be attached to a computer that is reasonably close.
 
They should have this included in the price already, and i dont see how you can say its for 'convenience and cost control for the user', its totally inconvenient and just makes it more expensive
 
They could probably get these cables for like 50p / cents, or less if they bought them in bulk.
 
chill

It's little details like this that make users happy with the service of a company. And it's really not appreciated when a large company like HP doesn't care about it.M4Carbine is right.It will only cost a rediculous amount to them to include the cable.Maybe the ordinary cable is too small for some people but the majority is happy with it.
 
Take an example of Nokia mobiles. All the phones use the same charger!(no i don't know about the first model that the company designed, but i know for sure about the past 4-5 years of Nokia mobile history).It's a little detail that maybe is not noticed but it's highly appreciated by buyers.

Actually...I have a problem with epson printers.
 
The printheads are not removable. I would rather have removable printheads than another lpt/usb cable.
 
Also...I know of some low end lexmarks that are about $100 cdn that come only with a color cartridge to cut down on cost. They can hold both black and color, but ship only with one color.
 
As far as I am concerned, the best support out there, speaking from a temporary worker at a repair/sale shop is from Brother. And their products rule!

The fact that epson's heads are not removable is not necessarilly a disadvantage. This means quality heads since they are lifetime, but it has the drawback that if they get too old and you need to change them, you can buy a new printer with the money that they ask for replacement(but that's after 4-5 years of HEAVY use).
I worked on both epson and HP printers and in general i've seen two things. Epson are excellent for colour printing and for heavy use like everyday printing. If you don't use them for a while though, the head needs cleaning which wastes a lot of ink. HP are very good for black and white printing, and you can also use it less often without having to clean the heads all the time.
 
In a few words, both companies have their advantages/disadvantages on their products. The sure thing is that they are both leaders on the printer market.

Quote:
No, they should include one. If you buy say a deskjet printer, its pretty obvious thats its going to be for personal and not network use, ie its gonna be attached to a computer that is reasonably close.

They should have this included in the price already, and i dont see how you can say its for 'convenience and cost control for the user', its totally inconvenient and just makes it more expensive

They could probably get these cables for like 50p / cents, or less if they bought them in bulk.

chill

As for me, I would just rather buy my own cable and not have some cheesy one thrown in there (especially if it's some 50 cent job ) and then have that cost rolled up even further.

I have actually ran into some relatively new epson printers that have clogged heads. Cleaning them all day does no good. But, in epsons defense, I dont think I have seen one grind gears like an HP does after a year of use.

my loyal epson 740 decided to give me grief last november. Upon power up, the head block would move halfway on the left, make a jamming noise and then it would return to its position on the right. The head block return with force enough to slowly move the printer about 2 cm every time this happened.
 
Needless to say, I thought, ok rest in piece baby, let's get a new one. The printer served me during all 4 years of my studies, during which i had printed off aroung 6,500 pages (honest!). I guees that's enough for a printer.
 
Upon calling epson support, i was told to return the printer blah blah blah, and that would cost me aroung £75 (i was in the uk at the time), plus shipping. They did advise me to do a master reset (press both paper and ink clean buttons and then press power), which did revive the printer for another week, until it started misbehaving again...the time for a replacement printer was high.
 
I decided to call them again just to report that the master reset did help a little and lucky for me, this support person tells me to get some machine oil and rub the metal axle that the head block moves on. I thought 'yeah right', but i gave it a go. I bought some crappy, no-name machine oil for £2, which was expensive enough to revive the printer. My 740 still reigns on my desk up to the present time.
 
In my opinion, it was a matter of luck. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but what if i didn't call them a second time? I'd buy another printer......being ignorant of the magic powers of no-name machine oil!! kudos to the guy i talked to last time at epson support uk - if you read this, thanx man!

99% of the time if a printer is acting up, a quick cleaning will do it. Not only the steel arm, but on some printers there is a "bar code" strip that can be whiped off. Also, the odd time, some rubber re-new on rubber rollers can help paper feed issues.

The EPSON 580 USB that I have did NOT come with a power cable (let alone an USB one). I initially thought (me n00b) that it draws its power from the USB port, duhh. LOL
 
So much for Epson...

Well clutch, you are the exception ;(, i would think that 95% of people buying a deskjet printer (or similar) would like a cable. Even if it costs them 50p, it doesnt mean its gonna be poor quality, just that they bought loads and got them cheap. (Authough obviously its not gonna be top quality, but hey, if it works it works )