Steve,
You didn't mention what your budget actually is; 'the bank' is vastly different for some people.
Also do you need/want medium sized printing ability? Roll paper? Do you care about dye ink vs pigment? Do you want to do any archival printing? Will you be only doing color or perhaps lots of B&W? Are you just going to use it to printer off some 4x6 snap shots for the photo album, text and the occasion googlemap?
The R1400 can be had cheaply brand new. The R1900 can be had refurb from Epson for not too much (in my opinion). However the initial cost of a printer is usually the cheap part, remember the ink and paper! To get proper colors you're supposed to use epson ink with epson paper (or other papers that have been profiled with your specific printer).
This business about the built in life expectancy is a little overblown. It's true that such a message may be displayed by the R1800, but its the printers way of saying it needs some servicing, specifically that the ink pads are full (and this may or may not be actually true). The cool thing about printers that have been around for a while is that people know them inside out, there's lots of knoweldge out there. There are plenty of instructions on how to mod the R1800 waste ink pads to drain into a reservoir. There is a utility that allows you to reset the R1800 when you get this warning. More details can be found in
this link and at youtube.com/watch?v=FwylF5dHgY4
If you're thinking about getting a used printer there are quite a few good ones to be had, like the R1800, I've seen them anywhere from 80$-200$.
I recently bought a malfunctionning Epson 2200 for 30$, a bit old but the prints that it does are as good as when it was released.
The printer's timing strip was dirty and I had to clean it. Once I figured out the problem it was easy. I got lots of help
here.
I also had to do some printer head cleaning, which is something everyone does over time. a 10$ bottle of printer head cleaning fluid works wonders; or many people just use a little windex.
I was also able to score lots of cheap Epson ink because people are trying to sell their old setups.
Before you make a decision you should determine what exactly your budget is and what do you want to do with your printer.
Songman45,
Hello! If you're all done with your R1800s I'd be happy to give them a new home
