I’ve no idea how much this printer would have been sold for at Sim Lim Square. But I imagine the $208 at Harvey Norman was good enough a bargain. Particularly considering that the trip to go down to Sim Lim Square would also cost something anyway (time, parking charges, ERP perhaps, etc). I did actually try to check out online, but it didn’t seem like Hardwarezone listed any prices for the printer, and a few other random online price lists I managed to skim through didn’t list the printer either.
The $208 was cheap enough that I didn’t hesitate to consider Harvey Norman’s extended warranty of $32 for two additional years (above Epson’s standard 1 year warranty). Considering how my CX5900 died, I think it might be worthwhile to invest in some insurance. I kinda imagine that printer manufacturers have designed their printers not to last, so that you’d be out buying new printers more often. That’s why it’s so cheap to buy a new printer, but you pay through “genuine ink cartridges”.
My wife is an Epson printer person. She only buys Epson. I don’t mind Epson. It is quite Linux friendly, so it would be a good choice for me too in the past when I minded a lot about Linux compatibility. Nowadays, I look out for Mac OS X compatibility. Epson is good in that department too.
I haven’t actually opened up the Epson Stylus CX9300F box yet. I’ll post again when I do get a chance to open it up and start using it.