19 out of 19 people found this review helpful.
More pros than cons
Date of Review: Apr 3, 2007
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this printer for the casual photo printer for the pros of the printer outweigh the cons.
Initially I bought this printer over the comparable HP version because of the price. The printer has some short comings but overall I've been happy with the purchase.
Memory Card Reader - One of the best features of this printer is the memory card read which can read SD, Mini SD, memory sticks, Compact Flash and xD memory cards. This saved me the hassle of buying a card reader or connecting the cameras directly to my computer.
Photos - As a photo printer, the R300 is an overachiever. I've printed wallets, 5x7s, 8x10s and a few iron on patches and I've never been disappointed with the quality. I usually get compliments on the quality of my prints. I always use high gloss, high quality photo paper though so I can't speak to pictures printed on lesser quality paper. Print speeds don't seem to be as fast as advertised for me. I find that it takes about a minute and a half to print 4x6s and maybe 3 minutes to print an 8x10.
Media printer - The attachment that lets you print onto dvds/cds is another cool feature of the printer. You must buy special print dvds/cds that cost slightly more than the normal ones. Print quality on the dvds/cds are great but no where near the industrial quality you get from a store bought dvd/cd. I've had problems lining up the print dvd/cd tray. I line it up on the lines as instructed and the tray always errors on me. I don't use the arrows anymore and have become pretty good at guessing where it should be lined up.
Ink - The printer has 6 different cartridges. The black ink cartridge is the same size as the other colors. If you do a lot of text printing you will be replacing the black ink cartridge constantly. The black ink cartridge runs about $20 retail and the other 5 colors run in the order of $15. I wish I could tell you why the black in is more costly despite not being bigger in volume.
The printer has a nice little popup reminder when you start running low on ink. The R300 is heavy on ink usage and I would say you have to replace the cartridges for every 75 4x6s you print. I ran into an annoying glitch the other night. One of my ink cartridges was running under 5% volume. I usually print until the ink runs dry. The print heads needed cleaning but the printer won't allow you to clean the print heads when one of the cartridges is low on ink! This could have been disastrous if I needed the printout right away.
Ease of use - I find the printer to be very intuitive and user friendly to anyone that's comfortable with a pc. The printer software lets you troubleshoot problems and perform printer maintenance with ease. Changing cartridges is painless and only takes a few minutes.
Overall I like the printer and would recommend it despite a few bad quirks
