Customer Rating: 
Summary: Worth the money!
Comment: This is my second purchase of an epson machine, the first one I had lasted me about 4 years before it finally started printing my photos with too many marks, but before you think that's bad, the printed paid for itself many times over. I do alot of photography and print many 8 1/2 x 11 borderless prints. When I would take my work to the photo shop it would cost me on average of $5-7 dollars for an 8 1/2 x 11 print. The old printer I had was an epson 825. It printed my pictures with great quality. As a matter of fact when I show visitors my pictures they find it hard to believe that it came from an ink jet printer. I bought the r320 because it prints dvd's and I have lot's of family events that I make a copy of our events, use the epson cd maker and make beautiful professional looking dvd's without the cost. As far as the ink goes it's not as bad as other printers. The photo paper I use is the kodak premium that I buy at Costco. I also buy the epson 4x6 and 5x7 borderless. Don't use hp photo paper on this one though! I returned a package of hp to the store, the quality was horrible on the hp! Hopefully this printer will last me 4 years like my old epson. I love epson, no problems with hookups, getting it to work etc. Works like a beauty!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great printer, here is a tip about ink costs.
Comment: I bought the Epson Photo R320 mostly because I need to print onto CDs for my business. It does a great job of that, although a bit slow at 2.5 minutes per CD. I only printed one photo so far. It is absolutely spectacular at printing photos with it's Print Image Matching technology.
But, one issue with any Epson is the ink cost. It goes through ink fast. I heard other people saying things like the ink cartridges are so expensive, it is like buying a new printer every time they need ink. Here is a tip, I found a lot of continuous ink feed systems available for Epson printers on the web that will allow you to print over 1000 4x6 prints for very little. I found some nice kits on eBay for around $80, with refill ink prices of $40 per set to refill their large tanks. There is also a lot of people selling sponge-free refillable ink tanks, which is what I bought. So, ink prices are no longer an issue to keep anyone away from Epson printers.
I now printed 300 CDs and am still using the ink cartridges that came with the printer. Some irritating things that I noticed so far: Loading the CDs has some software errors sometimes. When you load the CD, the machine pushes the CD carrier out by about a 0.25 inch. This action sometimes throws the machine for a loop and sends the carrier right out the back of the machine. No harm, but irritating to have to reload it sometimes and have the carrier hit the wall unexpectedly. Another issue is that the CD carrier sometimes has issues loading and requires a slight push to get it through some rollers. The issues don't happen very often, and it still prints the CDs with perfection each time so far.
Now, searching the Internet yeilded some interesting information. I heard the unit has an waste ink reservior monitor that disables the printer with a service lock in about a year of service. Epson does this to make you return the unit for a service replacement waste sponge. Excessive ink can cause a fire when if hits the power supply. It costs over $100 to repair. You can disable the use of the sponge by configuring an external collection bottle. There is information on the Internet on how to clear the service lock, and how to connect the external collection bottle.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ink almost costs more than the printer!
Comment: Yes, yes the printer works great and especially for the price. What is never mentioned is that the ink is contained in 6 special cartriges that hold barely a teaspoon of ink. At Office Depot I recently paid $110 just for the ink. Once the ink runs out this time its going in the trash.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Printer is great - Support stinks!
Comment: The R320 is a great printer. Vibrant color and prints on DVD media without a single problem.
However a word of caution to Mac users. You can NOT print out of Classic mode. There are some crazy workarouunds mentioned on Apple's discussion boards, but a "workaround" is not why you buy a NEW printer.
Epson refuses to support the "Classic" platform because it is an emulation. Ummm, tell me again why that matters!
Mac refuses to support the "Classic" problems because they want you to upgrade. Theoretically, Tiger fixes everything.
So, the printer is awesome if you only need to print in an OSx environment. If you are still using "classic" apps on a OSx system...keep looking. (The above apparently does not apply to older computers that can boot-up in OS9.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but buggy
Comment: The quality of the photos are great. However the printer often locks up when not is use for a while. Also found that any kind of magnetic device like a desktop speaker that is positioned near the left side of the printer will cause the printer to randomly lockup even during printing. The only way to unlock the printer is to unplug it.
Summary: Worth the money!
Comment: This is my second purchase of an epson machine, the first one I had lasted me about 4 years before it finally started printing my photos with too many marks, but before you think that's bad, the printed paid for itself many times over. I do alot of photography and print many 8 1/2 x 11 borderless prints. When I would take my work to the photo shop it would cost me on average of $5-7 dollars for an 8 1/2 x 11 print. The old printer I had was an epson 825. It printed my pictures with great quality. As a matter of fact when I show visitors my pictures they find it hard to believe that it came from an ink jet printer. I bought the r320 because it prints dvd's and I have lot's of family events that I make a copy of our events, use the epson cd maker and make beautiful professional looking dvd's without the cost. As far as the ink goes it's not as bad as other printers. The photo paper I use is the kodak premium that I buy at Costco. I also buy the epson 4x6 and 5x7 borderless. Don't use hp photo paper on this one though! I returned a package of hp to the store, the quality was horrible on the hp! Hopefully this printer will last me 4 years like my old epson. I love epson, no problems with hookups, getting it to work etc. Works like a beauty!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great printer, here is a tip about ink costs.
Comment: I bought the Epson Photo R320 mostly because I need to print onto CDs for my business. It does a great job of that, although a bit slow at 2.5 minutes per CD. I only printed one photo so far. It is absolutely spectacular at printing photos with it's Print Image Matching technology.
But, one issue with any Epson is the ink cost. It goes through ink fast. I heard other people saying things like the ink cartridges are so expensive, it is like buying a new printer every time they need ink. Here is a tip, I found a lot of continuous ink feed systems available for Epson printers on the web that will allow you to print over 1000 4x6 prints for very little. I found some nice kits on eBay for around $80, with refill ink prices of $40 per set to refill their large tanks. There is also a lot of people selling sponge-free refillable ink tanks, which is what I bought. So, ink prices are no longer an issue to keep anyone away from Epson printers.
I now printed 300 CDs and am still using the ink cartridges that came with the printer. Some irritating things that I noticed so far: Loading the CDs has some software errors sometimes. When you load the CD, the machine pushes the CD carrier out by about a 0.25 inch. This action sometimes throws the machine for a loop and sends the carrier right out the back of the machine. No harm, but irritating to have to reload it sometimes and have the carrier hit the wall unexpectedly. Another issue is that the CD carrier sometimes has issues loading and requires a slight push to get it through some rollers. The issues don't happen very often, and it still prints the CDs with perfection each time so far.
Now, searching the Internet yeilded some interesting information. I heard the unit has an waste ink reservior monitor that disables the printer with a service lock in about a year of service. Epson does this to make you return the unit for a service replacement waste sponge. Excessive ink can cause a fire when if hits the power supply. It costs over $100 to repair. You can disable the use of the sponge by configuring an external collection bottle. There is information on the Internet on how to clear the service lock, and how to connect the external collection bottle.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Ink almost costs more than the printer!
Comment: Yes, yes the printer works great and especially for the price. What is never mentioned is that the ink is contained in 6 special cartriges that hold barely a teaspoon of ink. At Office Depot I recently paid $110 just for the ink. Once the ink runs out this time its going in the trash.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Printer is great - Support stinks!
Comment: The R320 is a great printer. Vibrant color and prints on DVD media without a single problem.
However a word of caution to Mac users. You can NOT print out of Classic mode. There are some crazy workarouunds mentioned on Apple's discussion boards, but a "workaround" is not why you buy a NEW printer.
Epson refuses to support the "Classic" platform because it is an emulation. Ummm, tell me again why that matters!
Mac refuses to support the "Classic" problems because they want you to upgrade. Theoretically, Tiger fixes everything.
So, the printer is awesome if you only need to print in an OSx environment. If you are still using "classic" apps on a OSx system...keep looking. (The above apparently does not apply to older computers that can boot-up in OS9.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but buggy
Comment: The quality of the photos are great. However the printer often locks up when not is use for a while. Also found that any kind of magnetic device like a desktop speaker that is positioned near the left side of the printer will cause the printer to randomly lockup even during printing. The only way to unlock the printer is to unplug it.