Epson Expression Home XP102 Small in One Printer with Scan and Copy

I bought this because I saw how cheap it was and thought "That's a good deal!" It isn't!

You can not currently buy any generic printer cartridges for this printer, only Epson ones and they are really really expensive.
They are also small.
One black cartridge has lasted a week and I'm only printing out 10 postage labels a day. The other cartridges are saying they are low as well but the only thing they have printed which was colour was the Royal Mail logo which is a bout 1 cm square!

If you buy this printer you will spend 10 times as much each year buying ink cartridges to go in it. It is a completely false economy to buy this printer.

Go and find cheap ink cartridges first and then buy a printer that takes them, do not buy this one.

Once my supply of ink has run out I will throw this one away.

One thing often overlooked when buying a printer is the cost of keeping the thing going once purchased. Research is done, reviews are read, and naturally the focus is on the quality of print, functions, reliability, etc. Often questions like "how long will my ink last and how much will it cost to replace it ?" are forgotten. In my opinion this is a big mistake as the actual cost of buying the printer turns out to be minimal compared to the amount that you will spend over the years on ink replacement. The manufacturers know that once you have their printer they have effectively 'got you', basically they can charge astronomical amounts for replacing ink because you have no choice but to buy it. That is why companies (like Epson) make there printers very sensitive to other makes of ink, they know that ink can be produced at a fraction of the cost but want to ensure that you have to buy from them. I can't speak for other makes of printers but this has certainly been the case with my Epson printer and I would never buy anything from Epson again. The ink cartridges only last a short time and to replace are very expensive, even on Amazon. A couple of other negative practices are firstly; a lot of their printers will not work if just one of their cartridges runs out. So for example if your 'Cyan' runs out it may not matter too much as you only want to print in black & white. Unfortunately the printer won't let you just use the black ink until you have replaced the other colour. Secondly, and in my opinion the most scandalous; when you purchase an Epson printer it will (as it states) come with ink. What you don't realise however is that the ink cartridges are specially made and only contain a tiny amount of ink just to get you started. So you are almost immediately digging your hands in your pockets and giving them more money. This kind of sums up where Epson are in relation to their customers, although I suspect other manufacturers are working along the same lines. And there is no law against them doing this, or no regulations for them to state ink cartridge costs or how long they last. My advice would be as follows; avoid buying an Epson, include the aforementioned aspects when doing your buying a printer research and finally, printer owners should use 'word of mouth' to bring into the open the hidden costs of running their printers be it positive or negative. Only that way, when reputations are being affected, will the companies stop using their customers as 'Cash Cows'.

Performs well - it's amazing how printers can be sold for less than a set of replacement inks. Colours are crisp and sharp. It does not appear that any generic cartridges are available yet for this printer, but generic cartridgesand re-fills aren't always what they are cracked up to be. This printer runs well in Linux (Mint 13). Also tried it with XP and Windows 7 and it seemed fine, but I much prefer to stick with Linux and the advantages it brings with it. As usual, Amazon's service and price was excellent!