We've got a couple of Epsons fitted with continuous sytems in the office,and I've also got one at home. All work faultlessly, but they are the latest generation CIS. Earlier domestic ones had problems that didn't always offset the cost of the ink.

I recently printed around 4,000 A4 pages with between 40% - 50% colour before having to refill the yellow, and did it without a glitch or a clean. Both the printer and the CIS were new at that time, but are still functioning perfectly. The printer is an Epson R265. Non-Epson cartridges cost around 10 quid a set, and I doubt I'd have printed more than 400 without replacing at least one of the cartridges. The CIS cost 38.00 (full of ink and ready to go); you can easily refill the CIS reservoirs with ink which costs 2 quid a 100ml bottle.

It's worth mentioning that fitting a CIS isn't always reversible. The main clamp which clips down over the cartridges has to be taken off, and it's almost impossible to do this without breaking the pin which hold the springs on the clamp. This isn't a problem on printers like the R265, R285 & P50 where the cartridges have their own clips. On a lot of older Epson printers,though, the cartridges are held in place by the main clamp. Worth noting.

I don't print a lot of CD's, but I do use a registered version of Acoustica which is cheap and really good, and supports practically every printer you can think of.