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More…The Epson Stylus C120 color inkjet printer has something going for it other than a low price, namely blazing text-printing speed. That speed seems to come at a cost, though, both in inks and in print quality.
Epson Epson Stylus C120
- Lab Tested
- How We Test Printers »
Pros
Very fast at printing text
Cons
Feathery, grainy prints on plain paper
Minimal features
Bottom Line
Your best bet for speed on the cheap, but its plain-paper quality suffers.
Epson Stylus C120 Inkjet Printer
Epson Stylus C120 Review, by Melissa Riofrio May 6, 2008
Printing plain-black text on plain paper, the Stylus C120's tested speed of 15.6 pages per minute was out of this world for an inkjet. It left even the fancier and far more expensive HP Officejet Pro K8600dn in the dust. In its price range, the next-fastest printer currently is the Lexmark Z2420 Wireless--and that unit was over 5 ppm slower in our tests. The Stylus C120 returned to earth when printing graphics, posting average-level speeds.
The results of the prints, however, were somewhat disappointing. On plain paper, text looked a little feathery around the edges and lacked the desirable deep-black, crisp quality. Photos seemed naturally colored but grainy. On Epson's own paper the images improved considerably, but they still had a grayish or slightly faded cast. The Canon Pixma iP2600, in comparison, managed better quality over all paper types.
Epson calculates cost per page using a standard suite of four-color documents. Based on those tests, the printer's ink costs are high, nearly 16 cents per page. Simpler documents, such as plain-black-text pages, will cost less.
The Stylus C120's design is typically--and unfortunately--minimal. You unfold a panel to open the rear input area, but the extension (without which the paper would flop over) is hard to see. The output tray--another series of extensions, from the front--is prone to bending. The control panel has three buttons with symbols rather than word labels; each also has an LED status light. The lights turn on, turn off, or flash to indicate various things, almost none of which are clear unless you read the documentation. The Epson Status Monitor, an on-screen dialog box that shows ink levels and plain-English status messages, helps.
Epson's documentation seemed a little careless. Neither the setup poster nor the HTML-based user guide offers an up-front overview of the printer's parts or control panel. Most of that data is hidden in troubleshooting files at the back of the user guide, or dealt with in the course of discussing other topics. I also found a small factual inconsistency, which I might have let go except for the fact that I've encountered the same sort of occasional error in other Epson documentation.
The Epson Stylus C120 is just like any other low-cost inkjet printer: You have to weigh its better and worse parts. In this case, the printer may be amazingly fast, but its print quality and design, and even its documentation, all involve some compromise.
--Melissa Riofrio
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PCWorld Lab Results
- Rating Breakdown
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77
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56
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77
- See Complete Lab Results »
Performance Comparison with Similar Printers
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Performance
| 300dpi Line Art Image (secs) | 9.7 |
| 4 by 6 Color Photo (secs) | 17.42 |
| 4 by 6 Grayscale Photo (secs) | 18.28 |
| Color Output Quality | Good |
| Color Photo Quality | Superior |
| Grayscale Output Quality | Good |
| Line Art Output Quality | Poor |
| One-Page Webpage (secs) | 26.79 |
| Sports Action Shot (secs) | 60.42 |
| Ten-Page Word Document | 49.94 |
| Ten-Page Word Document (secs) | 49.94 |
| Tested Color Speed (ppm) | 2.6 |
| Tested Glossy Photo Speed (ppm) | 1 |
| Tested Grayscale Speed (ppm) | 3.3 |
| Tested Lineart Speed (ppm) | 6.2 |
| Tested Text Speed (ppm) | 15.6 |
| Text Output Quality | Fair |
| Three-Page Word Document | 30.54 |
| Three-Page Word Document (secs) | 30.54 |
| Two-Page Excel Document | 48.73 |
| Two-Page Excel Document (secs) | 48.73 |
Text Printing
| Text output quality | Fair |
User Reviews
Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
User Reviews From Around the Web
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Reviewed by: frederickefrogg
Strengths: I bought 2 of these very inexpensively at an on line auction site. I paid $30.00 for each delivered,still in the original unopeNed box. No,they were NOT refurbished, just owners selling them.
Weaknesses: They seems to take about 2 minutes to "warm up" when you start them, after that they works fine. I sold the enclosed ink cartridges for more then I paid for each printer and went with CISS systems.
Overall: I bought these printers because they were cheap and I needed 2 printers. I would never pay more then about $35.00 for 1 of them, including the cost of shipping. The printer market offers too many choices to have to pay more. They are worth the $30.00 I paid for them, but they use ink at an ALARMING rate. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!
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Reviewed by: deshwasi
Strengths: Fast, Great Print, Small size
Weaknesses: none
Overall: This is an excellent printer from Epson with the same great quality prints and photos that they are known for. its blazingly fast (supposed to be one of the fastest around). its not noisy and footprint is small too. inks are a bit more expensive than canon but still reasonable. great all-around printer
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Reviewed by: trackrebate
Strengths: Fast printing, nice quality
Weaknesses: Expensive ink
Overall: The printer has pretty reasonable price. It uses invidual color cartridges. The printing is quite fast, and the quality is also good. The only problem is that the ink drains fast (maybe just because of the starter cartridges?). It is a little expensive to buy a new set.
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Reviewed by: pageerling
Strengths: You can replace only color that's empty.
Weaknesses: Slow printing. Poor paper feeder performance. Poor ink milage.
Overall: The preliminary function to actual printing is slow in setting up. Rear stand-up paper feeder is erratic very noisy. I have printed very few pages and the black is already half empty, the color one fourth empty. So far not performing as well as my HPs When I first received the printer it did not work at all. After many hours with on-line support and telephone support they finally agreed to send a new printer. It setup and worked immediately. They did not send me a shipping label though, and I had to pay for return shipping. I called and they agreed to reimburse me but I had to mail a hard copy of my receipt, they would not accept a fax. I did finally get my check.
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Reviewed by: apple799
Strengths: Good price, fast printing, good print quality
Weaknesses: Loud while printing
Overall: Overall I'm happy with this Epson C120 printer. It is low cost, and prints very very fast, but little bit loud while printing. The print quality is very good. It comes with individual ink cartridges, so it's cost-effective to replace only the color that is out.
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