Tried it, bought one. Printed about 10 so far.
Pretty good deal on printer but Epson Ink is expensive.
Am hoping to use some off brand ink. Not changed ink yet.
MoNa

Where can you get it for $99?

That's what it said at the Epson site. $99.00 That's why I'm trying to get feedback. It sounds too good to be true. I've tried cheap ink, also from 'Meritline' and was happy with it except that the cartridges ran out before my ink warning signal went off. But hey, I got 6 black cartridges and 3 colors for the price of 1 color and 1 black from Canon. I changed from canon to these cheapies right in the middle of some picture printing and could not tell the difference. I'm no expert on photography, but I still could not see a difference. If you're not super picky, I'd give 'em a try. The stuff they sent me was called 'G & G ink cartridges'.

BestBuy®
amazon.com®

and a lot of other places.

i've printed off about 130 DVD's with mine in a 3 week period. Only complaint is that sometimes the CD tray doesn't like to be pulled in. A small nudge fixes that.

Oh, i'm still on my first ink set too (note: turnthe brightness down to -1. Save a lot of ink & can barely tell the difference).

Thank you Happy,
I was really sort of expecting lackluster reviews, but instead I'm becoming convinced.

I have an R300, which came out FIRST, believe it or not. I think that, for once, a company actually listened to its customers. In the case of the R200, it's basically a stripped down version of the R300 -- no card readers, monitor, digital display. It's a CD/DVD printer's dream -- front-loading & none-of-the-extras.

Also, I recently had a problem with my R300 and called in, thinking I needed to buy a replacement part. Without proof of purchase date, they determined I needed a replacement and set up a non-RMA swap that allows me to get the replacement BEFORE I send back the old unit. I've always been an HP person as far as printers go, but I can't turn away from that kind of customer service.

Yes, the ink is costly. If you do the math, you can almost replace the printer each time you need a full set of cartridges for the same price, but there has to be a generic out there that cuts it...

KH

I've only printed a handful of dvd's on mine, but I really, really like it. Yes the ink is expensive, but probably no more so than any other ink jet (though I don't know for sure). I make it a policy to only use vendor ink - canon ink for canon printers, epson ink for epson printers, etc.

$99 all over the place, I got mine from Amazon.

These printers are the real deal, and pretty much the only deal for disc printing on a budget. HF, thanks for the -1 idea. I have always left mine on zero but I'm going to give that a try. Have you tried any of the discs that let you print within 5mm of the hole? I think the Epson software supports it but I just can't get comfortable with ordering those kind of discs. Anybody used them before? I'm talking about these:

Hub Printable Inkjet CD's

I have printed on several of the discs that allow printing to the hole. I did a wedding video a while back and printed their wedding pic right on the DVD. Looked great!!! Printed on the R200.
These discs I use are the ProDisc (very inexpensive)...although I use a lot of Riteks too. But the ProDiscs allow printing all the way to the hole...(no stacking ring).

Source for cheap ink:

http://www.ink-refills-ink.com/printer-Epson-Stylus_Photo__825.htm

I saw them for $79 at CompUSA this week. Think I might get one of the 8-ink printers, though.

I've printed about 10 DVDs with mine at the default settings, and have been very pleased with the results. To economize on ink, will probably use the R200 only for DVD/CD printing, and a different printer for everyday stuff.

Even Staples had it last week, $99 with a $10 gift check by mail.

i use the r300 great results....cheaper ink on ebay....

I think I've been sold. Thanks everybody.

I bought mine at newegg.com. Even a better deal. Currenty $89 with 99 cents shipping.

Best price I found for epson ink cartridges was buy.com. When you can a complete set for the R200 you end up over $25 and qualify for free shipping.

For this, and similar ink-jet printers, how would you deal with the ink smear due to sweaty palms and the likes?

Buy a can or two of Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear #1301. I stack however many DVD's I've printed on a tall DVD/CD spindle and spray the disc then carefylly remove it to dry and spray another remove it spray another remove it. It protects the ink so it will NEVER smear and the acrylic coating makes the disc look like it was professionally. It increases the contrast of the ink. They really look beautiful. You'll see what I mean when you do it. Just have to get your spray pattern right so you get enough for a good light coating but not too much to make it run.

Will this cause problems down the road? Warpage, Yellowing, Shrinking? Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, I just don't want coasters in 5 or 10 years.

You want me to answer that? Ok, I'll get back to you in 10 years. Who can say for sure? I'm thinkin that the DVD's are already protected at least by the layer of printable DVD surface. Who's to say that the actual ink won't damage the disk after 10 years? No one can really answer these questions for now but there are a lot of folks using this process and I haven't heard of anyone with problems so far.

Me too. No problems printing on the Prodisks.

Of course you have to adjust the print mask area so it prints on the extra space, but the printer will do what you tell it to. I have printed on the plastic of regular DVDs while trying to fine tune the print area.