Epson TX220

Our last Epson Stylus CX9300F met with a fatal paper jam a couple of days ago, so we were out hunting for a new printer this morning. I realize that AIO (All-In-One) printers have evolved to incorporate tons of many new features. Some features could be useful, like wired ethernet and wireless network printing, automatic duplex, etc. But our core requirements have not changed very much, and we would be sufficiently satisfied with a printer that could print, scan and copy.

But our choice could be severely limited if we were to add on one more requirement: compatibility with our existing supply of Epson 73N ink cartridges. We have about $150 wort of those cartridges. There apparently aren’t many Epson printer models left that still used this type of ink cartridges. We could get a cheap compatible printer now to use up our stock of ink cartridges and then upgrade the printer again later, or just to give up (maybe try to sell them away) on the ink cartridges altogether.

After some thought, we decided to go with the Epson TX220. It’s the cheapest AIO model that uses the 73N ink cartridges. The printer prints, scans and copies as advertised. Installation and setting up to print from my MacBook Pro was no-brainer. Just connect the USB cable, Mac OS X automagically detects the new device and downloads updated drivers. (Actually I expected it to just work right away, but I suppose since the update took place automatically anyway, it’s still a simple enough process.)

We did get caught by a little surprise over the ink cartridge compatibility. We have plenty of 73N ink cartridges, but we also had one set of 73 ink cartridges. It was the latter type that I initially tried to install. The cartridges were physically compatible (they could be installed), but the printer complained that they were unrecognized. I eventually figured out that 73 is not the same as 73N. This printer really needs 73N or 73HN cartridges.

In terms of features, this printer is basic. There are plenty of other printers to consider. Unfortunately, when we decided to use up our stock of 73N ink cartridges, our choice was limited.