Epson Stylus Photo R2400 Standard Inkjet Printer

This is an impressive looking printer. It is well built and came well recommended from reviews on-line.
I have two gripes with the printer, one is that the gloss prints are not good by any stretch. My second is that the printer just hammers through ink like there is no tomorrow. In desperation I bought a Lyson bulk ink system at over £300 with 8 X 125ml tanks of ink I also fitted a waste ink tank. This intervention has reduced the running costs but it is still much more expensive and the gloss print quality is not even close to that of my old Cannon. The amount of Ink the printer throws into the waste tank is just unbelievable,,,, at times I could cry watching it print with the price of decent ink as it spits it unrelentingly into the waste tank. My experience with Epson has been an expensive lesson in what not to buy. It back to Cannon for me!

I got the printer because I can use compatible inks in it. I only do this because all the printer producers charge abominably large amounts for their inks. You can buy their genuine ink by the litre in America for relative small amounts but they charge huge amounts for their cartridges and try their best to stop the compatible firms producing the items at a price which is reasonable. I understand about research and development costs but this is profiteering in my opinion.
So I bought my R2400. So far I've been unable to see a manual about how to work the printer because Epson's downloads are protected by passwords. I haven't met this before even from Canon or HP who are equally keen to maximise their profits at the customer's expense.
So I'm trying to use the R2400, as it came to me in the post, with its instructions I've so far been unable to read.
And the printer has definitely got quirks! I've used Epson printers for nearly a decade but I've never met one yet that didn't list glossy paper in its menues of printer paper loaded in the machine. Also there are little menues telling me not to do this and not to do that, but the help screens are fairly hopeless at explaining why. I've only got this far, that is printing some basic images, (and rather poorly at that)because of my previous experience with Epson.
So what conclusion?
I don't at this moment know from my experience so far, whether this is a good printer or not. All the prints I've made, some on Epson papers, have shown strong light direction effects which makes them unusable. I know this can be minimised because I've seen beautiful results from the R2400 but I've no idea yet how best to achieve it.
Mechanically the printer seems to work well and appears sturdy, not as sturdy by any means as my HP 9180, but good enough for the purpose of printing.
It also sits well on the bench and is easy to connect and get into working condition, even without the instructions to do it.
I know from past experience that Epson will not help me to maintain the printer. They will expect any maintenance to be done by their appointed engineers and I shall have to find out elsewhere how to change the inkpads, keep the ink flowing and deal with minor problems. The photographers around me who have Epson printers regularly change them rather than facing the problems thrown up by quite ordinary maintenance needs, like changing the pads, or indeed the print-heads. I imagine that this suits Epson and it will work as long as they keep ahead of the field. I notice though that 'Which' is tending to recommend other printers in the main so maybe Epson will be brought down a peg or two before too long.
In the meantime I'm trying to make prints at a reasonable price and I bought this printer to help me get quality without too much pain. It's in the balance at the moment and I may finish up getting most of my prints from a professional printing establishment, which surprisingly is much cheaper than Epson or HP, without the pain of having to keep the things working!

was very suprised at print quality and especially the black and white prints you get from this printer