7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
The more they change, the more they remain the same
Date of Review: Oct 11, 2006
The Bottom Line: Hasn't jammed or clogged but it's only day one.
First One Hour Impression: More extra icing on the cake for the RX580 compared to my now permanently clogged older Epson AIO and permanently paper jammed other older Epson AIO. I don't care about the bells, whistles and gongs on this AIO, I do care about the basic RX580 printer/scanner.
Here goes.
Same old dull, low definition Epson picture print quality, even at best print setting, on the RX580 as my previous Epson AIOs.
Can I prove "dull"? Well no matter what Epson names their archival pigment ink the Epson ink still does not have the deep rich colors or as sharp a print definition as my HP Deskjet 970CSe which uses HP dye inks. I think the new Epson ink name could be called "UnClaria Low Definition." Yes, I know the Epson archival ink will far outlast my life span but just the same the Epson ink is frankly dull compared to HP dye ink.
The RX580 paper feeding is just as noisy as my previous Epson AIOs. We are talking serious noise as the Epson printer grabs the paper.
Installing the Epson printer software was the expected adventure as well and I've done it enough times to now have experience. Uninstalled the old Epson drivers and software and installed the new drivers and software. Got the expected MS phone home error report after driver install just before hooking up the usb cable to the printer.
The RX580 scanner worked as expected with my Microsoft Picture It. Same old soft MS Picture It scans as with my Epson AIOs of old. I'm not blaming the scanner on this one because it might be the MS Picture It setup.
The big Epson RX580 surprise to me was the quality of the black text printing in normal mode. It was not boldly black and not very sharp. My lowly Epson C88 printer at work has sharper text printing in normal mode. This RX580 text printing issue is easily fixed by text printing in a higher quality print mode.
FWIW: I have found that life expectancy on Epson AIOs is measured in months not years.
