One might ask why anyone would want a dot matrix printer, with inkjet and laser printers available at very affordable prices. While I agree wholeheartedly that given a choice I would not choose a dot matrix. They're loud, can only print in shades of gray, and the print quality is not so great. They do serve a purpose, however, and they're most useful in a business setting.
I have the Epson LQ-570e at work and it serves one purpose only, and that is to print out checks. We print checks in triplicate - with the top copy being the actual check, and two carbonless copies below to be kept for accounting purposes. This printing on carbonless paper makes the dot matrix printer a useful printer to have in the office. You can't do this type of printing with an inkjet or laser printer - it won't make the copies.
Now that I have established what I personally use this printer for, I will give this review in terms of how I use it.
The print quality is not that great, especially when the ribbon is getting old. I haven't tried printing any graphics with it, so I cannot attest to that. When printing the checks, I notice that on occasion it will be misaligned or something, and there will be a small gap in a line, pretty much splitting a word in two lengthwise. Not a big deal for us, as the check will still clear the bank. Annoying, nonetheless. I would be quite upset if I were printing up something more important, like a letter or other sort of document.
This is the second dot-matrix printer that I've gone through. The previous printer was the same model and it was with the company when I started. The current printer has lasted at least 3 years. I'm not sure when we got it. We were really glad we could get a replacement. It's been a sturdy printer and gets used once a week for a fairly large print job. When this one fails, we'll be buying the exact same one to replace it again.
What we like best about this printer is that it's pretty basic and therefore, easy to use. Setting it up was quite simple and it uses a parallel port. There are buttons to pause printer, load/eject paper, and line feed the paper. You can pick different places to feed the paper - from the top, back, or front - depending on your needs. Best of all, there are adjustments for tractor fed paper and thickness of paper. It prints slower when printing on thicker paper to prevent jams and print quality errors. It even beeps when you are out of paper. Replacing the print ribbon is quite simple, but you do end up with a small amount of ink on your fingertips.
This printer isn't without its quirks, however. We noticed that there are some bugs between it and our accounting software. The result is printing a bunch of checks just fine, and then out of the blue, it would start printing jibberish. This got better after our accounting software was upgraded. I've only used this printer while printing from the accounting software, so I cannot say how well it does with other types of software. During this time, we had to babysit the machine and listen for any differences in printing. After listening to it printing checks for a while, you figure out what the cadence is and know when there's a problem. We had to throw out at least one or two checks due to the printer going nuts on us. I haven't had much problem with the printer since, but every once in a while, while adding new paper after it had run out, it will not resume to printing as normal. The printer doesn't need much babysitting now, good thing. It also doesn't print very quickly. Actually, it has the ability to print faster, but it is prone to jam and print messily, so there's no point. It would be nice to print quickly, however.
In all, while dot matrixes are not useful to most people, for those that need them, this is not the best model to get. It's not very fast, it's very loud, and there's an occasional lacking of print-quality (albeit, self-correcting). Compared to what you pay for other types of printers, this printer can be expensive considering the lack of features. We put up with the printer's shortcomings because they don't bother us, we're comfortable with this printer, and everything is set up with this printer in mind.
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