The hardware explored


Here you can take a visual tour of the C84:

The C84 looks purposeful, if not pretty.


A smoked plastic lid provides access to the ink cartridges when they are parked for inspection and replacement.


With the lid down and the extending paper rest folded up, everything is neat and tidy.


Here you can see how far forward a printed sheet gets.


The side profile shows that the C84 wastes little space behind it.


With the front rest retracted and folded, minimal depth is used up by the printer.


The four C84 ink cartridges are reasonably compact.


As you would expect, each cartridge snaps into its colour-coded home above the permanent print head.


Unlike previous designs, there is no need to tear off large strips of plastic to ventilate the cartridge upon installation.


The black ink cartridge is about twice the volume of each of the three colour ones, though it's more than twice the price. Note the gold contacts against the green circuit base. This links the printer to the on-cartridge chip that stores the activity log during the life of that cartridge. As soon as the quota is reached, the cartridge is disabled and you are requested to replace it.


There are just three controls on the printer itself, an on/off switch, pause/form-feed switch and a switch for parking the print head ready for a cartridge change. Each one is rubberised and has a small light to illuminate it when its function requires.


The smoked plastic paper rest can be detached, but there is nowhere neat to stow it.


For compatibility with older PCs and operating systems, Epson has stuck with the old parallel printer port. Below it is the more compact USB port.


The C84 and Durabrite inks - they were made for each other.