Epson R300 CD/DVD Printer for $119.99 after rebates

[Rufio]

I was at Best Buy today, talking to the Epson girl.

I actually wanted to check out the CD/DVD printers there.

Anyway, The Epson R300 printer is going for $179.99 - $30 Epson rebate & $30 Best Buy Rebate. This makes it $119.99.

But you still have to pay tax in your state.

Anyway, I thought this was a pretty decent deal for this printer.

 

[Mac]

I have been considering buying a photo printer and have been tracking the R300 and HP 7960. This price appears to be the cheapest yet for the R300. Best I've found for the HP 7960 is $160 at Sam's. I'm tempted but can't decide.

The real draw for the R300 is the separate ink cartridges versus the combined multi-ink carts used by the HP. But, the HP seems to get such glowing reports regarding problem free operation. I have had several Epsons. Liked the results but seem to always have to run "nozzle checks" to unclog the nozzles. Have no idea how much ink is wasted. If that is a continuing problem with the R300, seems to negate the advantage of the separate ink tanks, unless you can select which tank/ink jet head to purge.

 

[FunkierThanU]

FYI There are a couple websites that have the same final price w/out the Best Buy rebate. I hate my local Worst Buy for always jacking w/ hot deals and not matching prices for anything.

$119 after $30 rebate

$120 after $30 rebate

The 2nd one has very good reseller ratings. Both of them say free shipping too.

 

[IanthePez]

The R200 is the same printer minus the card slots for less....That's the one I would look for deals on. If you want the card slots though, good price on the r300 here.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: IanthePez
The R200 is the same printer minus the card slots for less....That's the one I would look for deals on. If you want the card slots though, good price on the r300 here.

R300 has the LCD too... which to me is useless as are the card slots... I would always view/edit my pictures on the PC first before printing directly from a card.

Anyways, the R200 for $99 is an absolutley fabulous deal. Very good print quality at that pricetag, and CD/DVD printing to boot. Replacement ink is lackluster unless you buy Epson retail carts ($$$) and you need special hacked program to reset ink counter to 100% when replacing... damn fine pritner and nice price at $119 too

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: Mac
I have been considering buying a photo printer and have been tracking the R300 and HP 7960. This price appears to be the cheapest yet for the R300. Best I've found for the HP 7960 is $160 at Sam's. I'm tempted but can't decide.

The real draw for the R300 is the separate ink cartridges versus the combined multi-ink carts used by the HP. But, the HP seems to get such glowing reports regarding problem free operation. I have had several Epsons. Liked the results but seem to always have to run "nozzle checks" to unclog the nozzles. Have no idea how much ink is wasted. If that is a continuing problem with the R300, seems to negate the advantage of the separate ink tanks, unless you can select which tank/ink jet head to purge.

I used to work at an office supply store and while there we had a canon rep come in, we took a picture and printed it out on canon paper from 3 different printers, the Canon I960, the HP 7960, and the Epson R300. When put side by side I sold more R300 (and 200s because they're the exact same printer with out the card reader) The Epson looked so much better (no visible lines and great color) and on Canon paper none the less.

 

[Quasmo]

Originally posted by: Homerboy

Originally posted by: IanthePez
The R200 is the same printer minus the card slots for less....That's the one I would look for deals on. If you want the card slots though, good price on the r300 here.

R300 has the LCD too... which to me is useless as are the card slots... I would always view/edit my pictures on the PC first before printing directly from a card.

That would be the R300M

 

[Homerboy]

That would be the R300M

yeah your right... same dif.
Fro $20 screw the card slots... I jsut dont see when/where you'd print directly from card.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: IanthePez
The R200 is the same printer minus the card slots for less....That's the one I would look for deals on. If you want the card slots though, good price on the r300 here.

yah, I think newegg has the R200 for around $80 right now. I bought it when it was $90 or so. love it! the cd printing feature is awesome. I bought a 100-pack of Ritek 700mb CDr white inkjet printable discs on newegg for like $23 or so. they look very nice when printed. you can also get like 50 8x ritek DVD+R inkjet discs for $30 or so.

the printer also prints out excellent 4x6" photos. you can get a 100-pack of epson 4x6" photo paper on newegg for like $13 or something. I've been using it, it's nice. I think I might switch to HP brand tho, my bro bought an HP multifunction that came with some sample paper and the texture on the back is really nice.

I'm not super impressed with the text quality, however. it's decent, but the HP printers in my house look as good as laser. this definately has some fuzz, just a tad tho.

also check out neato.com if you want to do CD and DVD stuff. I bought some printable DVD inserts, some DVD cases, and their software from the site (Neato). It's pretty cool to print up your own complete CDs and DVDs with disc and package. oh and they also sell silver inkjet printable discs iirc.

 

[Rufio]

does silver or white inkjet printable discs matter?

waht is better?

THX

 

[spinn]

I bought a R200 from Microcenter when it was 20% off ($80). At the time, MC had a deal if you signed up for their credit card, they'd give you $50 credit for a purchase of $50 or more. What happen was that they actually sent me a check for $100 instead, making my total -$14. But I digress...the R200 does a great job of printing on a DVD/CD. Photo quality is excellent also. However, slower than a Canon I860. If you don't need the card slots, then go with the R200.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Rufio
does silver or white inkjet printable discs matter?

waht is better?

THX

I've never tried silver, but I have tried white. White is basically like a piece of regular white inkjet paper. I'd imagine the silver would add a neat effect to it, especially if you were just labelling a CD with text. I've been backing up all my major software CDs to inkjet CDr disc lately. For example, I can take my Windows 2000 disc, make a backup copy, then print out "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" on the top and the serial number on the bottom, right from my R200. I also bought one of those big 100+ CD cases to put all the backup discs in. They're all labelled nicely and it's reassuring to have a backup (some of my software is like $800+, like Rhino 3D and stuff, and now I can have them all backed up plus have an easy reference since I printed the titles on them...my handwriting stinks lol).

 

[Homerboy]

R200 is at newegg.com for $85 shipped.
Very nice

 

[plk21]

Originally posted by: IanthePez
The R200 is the same printer minus the card slots for less....That's the one I would look for deals on. If you want the card slots though, good price on the r300 here.

I bought an r200 a couple months back. Note that the r200 comes without a USB cord, and the r300 has one, but it is permanantly attatched. I personaly don't like permanant cables, and don't need to print directly from the card out of my camera, so I went with the r200. Couldn't be happier.

That said, this is a good price on the r300. It was $175 when I bought my r200.

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: plk21

Originally posted by: IanthePez
The R200 is the same printer minus the card slots for less....That's the one I would look for deals on. If you want the card slots though, good price on the r300 here.

I bought an r200 a couple months back. Note that the r200 comes without a USB cord, and the r300 has one, but it is permanantly attatched. I personaly don't like permanant cables, and don't need to print directly from the card out of my camera, so I went with the r200. Couldn't be happier.

That said, this is a good price on the r300. It was $175 when I bought my r200.

The R300 has USB2.0 and the R200 has USB1.1. How much difference does that make?

 

[NightCrawler]

I prefer Canon's because of cheaper ink and no chip reseting crap needed. The newer Canon's are awesome, I compared the pics and they looked the same to me when printing 4x6 photos.

Only one Canon has a CD/DVD printer on it though, I hope they include the feature in cheaper models.

 

[NightCrawler]

Originally posted by: KK

Originally posted by: plk21

Originally posted by: IanthePez
The R200 is the same printer minus the card slots for less....That's the one I would look for deals on. If you want the card slots though, good price on the r300 here.

I bought an r200 a couple months back. Note that the r200 comes without a USB cord, and the r300 has one, but it is permanantly attatched. I personaly don't like permanant cables, and don't need to print directly from the card out of my camera, so I went with the r200. Couldn't be happier.

That said, this is a good price on the r300. It was $175 when I bought my r200.

The R300 has USB2.0 and the R200 has USB1.1. How much difference does that make?

It does effect print speed when printing photos because there size and the USb 1.1 doesn't have the bandwidth to keep up.

 

[MIDIman]

Originally posted by: NightCrawler
I prefer Canon's because of cheaper ink and no chip reseting crap needed. The newer Canon's are awesome, I compared the pics and they looked the same to me when printing 4x6 photos.

Can anyone else chime in on this? I'm looking at getting a sub-~$100 printer, but I'm just so sick of paying for my current Epson 850's ink. Canon's seems to be considerably less costly. Especially interested in the new pixma series (i3000).

 

[NightCrawler]

Originally posted by: MIDIman

Originally posted by: NightCrawler
I prefer Canon's because of cheaper ink and no chip reseting crap needed. The newer Canon's are awesome, I compared the pics and they looked the same to me when printing 4x6 photos.

Can anyone else chime in on this? I'm looking at getting a sub-~$100 printer, but I'm just so sick of paying for my current Epson 850's ink. Canon's seems to be considerably less costly. Especially interested in the new pixma series (i3000).

There actually is a cd/dvd printing tray for the pixma series but there is some patent dispute so Canon cannot ship to people in the US. If you live in the UK you get the tray.

Probably pick one up on ebay.

 

[idgaf13]

Originally posted by: MIDIman

Originally posted by: NightCrawler
I prefer Canon's because of cheaper ink and no chip reseting crap needed. The newer Canon's are awesome, I compared the pics and they looked the same to me when printing 4x6 photos.

Can anyone else chime in on this? I'm looking at getting a sub-~$100 printer, but I'm just so sick of paying for my current Epson 850's ink. Canon's seems to be considerably less costly. Especially interested in the new pixma series (i3000).

I checked on prices for ink prior to buying my R200.
Found good prices at www.ink4art.com

I have done business with them in the past for my Epson C60 and all was good.

R200 replacement cartridges

 

[MaroonGuru]

Originally posted by: Mac
I have been considering buying a photo printer and have been tracking the R300 and HP 7960. This price appears to be the cheapest yet for the R300. Best I've found for the HP 7960 is $160 at Sam's. I'm tempted but can't decide.

The real draw for the R300 is the separate ink cartridges versus the combined multi-ink carts used by the HP. But, the HP seems to get such glowing reports regarding problem free operation. I have had several Epsons. Liked the results but seem to always have to run "nozzle checks" to unclog the nozzles. Have no idea how much ink is wasted. If that is a continuing problem with the R300, seems to negate the advantage of the separate ink tanks, unless you can select which tank/ink jet head to purge.

Avoid the HP 7960. I have heard other people talking about glowing reviews as well.

I got suspicious when I was reading a magazine for digital photography. It was talking about inks and inkjets. And for some reason the author kept talking about HP inks, putting them on a pedestal compared to others.

Well, if you read past the end of the article, you might then read that the author worked for HP.

This AD ran as an article in what looked to be a respectable photo magazine.

If you print on th HP 7960 and compare it to either the Epson R300 or the new Canon PIXMA ip4000, you'll see what I'm talking about. The colors I've gotten on the HP are dull. No two ways around it.

Epson Stylus Photo printers and Canon Photo printers use dye based inks for photos. These aren't going to be clogging on you. Epson Durabrite might since it is pigment based. But that's not in the Stylus Photo line, that's in the C series.

 

[NightCrawler]

Originally posted by: idgaf13

Originally posted by: MIDIman

Originally posted by: NightCrawler
I prefer Canon's because of cheaper ink and no chip reseting crap needed. The newer Canon's are awesome, I compared the pics and they looked the same to me when printing 4x6 photos.

Can anyone else chime in on this? I'm looking at getting a sub-~$100 printer, but I'm just so sick of paying for my current Epson 850's ink. Canon's seems to be considerably less costly. Especially interested in the new pixma series (i3000).

I checked on prices for ink prior to buying my R200.
Found good prices at www.ink4art.com

I have done business with them in the past for my Epson C60 and all was good.

R200 replacement cartridges

Holy Crap that is expensive, you can refilled a Canon for $15, that's the three individual colors and one black. It's a little more expensive if you buy a 6 color or 8 color but not that much.

 

[Homerboy]

the replacements for the R200/300 can be had on ebay for much less. There are TONS of them for sale I got my last 6 cart set for $40 shipped. THe ink/quality is pretty close to the retail Epson carts... its a little lighter in overall color but you can only tell if you put the 2 print jobs righ tnext to eachother. The physical carts themself seem a tad more "flimsy" than the retail Epsons, but who really cares about that.

 

[Mac]

As a result of this thread, I started looking at photography BB's and product reviews. After poring through sometimes conflicting info, I think I understand the "real deal" which IanthePez and Quasmo pointed out early on. Although the $120 AR is definitely hot deal for the R300, unless you've just got to have the card reader, get the R200. It is available at many places for less than $90 which is a net $30 savings over the R300 and no rebate hassles, either. Same print engine, ink, CDROM print, speed, quality, etc. (some posters say the R200 is faster, if only marginally). Heck, for $90, it's practically a no brainer if you are looking for photo printer that can deliver quality results.

The real surprise though was the high esteem that the Canon i960 seems to hold. At around $150 (about the same as the HP 7960), it is considerably faster than either Epson or HP, has individual cartridges and has excellent photo print output, better than HP and toss-up with Epson. Re my earlier questions on the HP, it may be a very good printer but it doesn't come out very well in comparison with either Epson or Canon.

Thanks for the op and follow-up posts. I learned a lot.

 

[KK]

Originally posted by: NightCrawler

Originally posted by: MIDIman

Originally posted by: NightCrawler
I prefer Canon's because of cheaper ink and no chip reseting crap needed. The newer Canon's are awesome, I compared the pics and they looked the same to me when printing 4x6 photos.

Can anyone else chime in on this? I'm looking at getting a sub-~$100 printer, but I'm just so sick of paying for my current Epson 850's ink. Canon's seems to be considerably less costly. Especially interested in the new pixma series (i3000).

There actually is a cd/dvd printing tray for the pixma series but there is some patent dispute so Canon cannot ship to people in the US. If you live in the UK you get the tray.

Probably pick one up on ebay.

I looked on yahoo couldn't find any printers or trays, except from germany. would any of the printers overseas be compatible with our voltage?

KK