A few days ago, I purchased an Epson 2100 from a dealer in London and it appears to perform well. Yesterday I decided to produce some composites to form a mailer and calculated that I would probably need the following:
4 Matte black 4 Light black 4 Cyan 5 Light cyan 4 Magenta 6 Light magenta 4 yellow The cost of these inks in the UK came to �438 including VAT. At yesterdays exchange rate this is US $700. I wrote to a friend in the States who was was shocked at how much I was paying so he ran a search at B&H in NYC and discovered that the exact same inks for the US equivalent 2200 which is an identical printer would cost just $310. I went to the web site of B&H and discovered that even after paying FedEx charges and VAT the saving in ink would still be around $300!!! This morning I called Epson UK to enquire whether those inks would work and was told that although the printers are in fact identical there is a different chip placed in them so that the 2100 will refuse to accept cartridges labelled as 2200 therefore not allow US imported inks to work. Can you imagine not being able to load a roll of film in your camera or listen to a music cassette just because it comes from the States? This is blatant protectionism at its very worst and I think its time that photographers as a group in the UK rebelled against this sort of outrageous exploitation. Perhaps if a lot of us club together we can actually create enough bad publicity for Epson to change its ways and pay a fairer price. Ashley =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
