There’s a certain type of “geek paralysis” that occasionally happens when I buy a new piece of technology, but then I hold off on installing/unboxing it because an issue has come up and I’m not sure I’m going to be keeping it. That lovely Epson R1800 printer I bought a couple of days ago? I’m in geek paralysis over it. As someone very correctly pointed out on Digital Media Thoughts when I posted about it, what about Vista drivers? Will Epson release Vista drivers for the R1800, or will they use this as an excuse to release the R1850 that’s identical but has support for Vista? Back in the pre-XP days, I remember companies doing exactly that: I was running Windows 2000 and went to upgrade to Windows XP and I think it was my scanner that lacked drivers for XP. The company released a near-identical scanner, only with support for XP, and never released drivers for the scanner I had. I’m concerned that the same thing is going to happen with my R1800. The printer was $549 CAD + GST + environmental disposal fee, a complete set of ink for it is about $140 CAD, and the paper…oh man, the paper. 20 sheets of 13 x 19″ glossy paper is $83.99 CAD – over $4 each! Check out Epson Canada’s pricing – I’m gagging on my tongue. Worse yet, it’s really hard to find this stuff – my local stores carry 13 x 19″ paper for HP and Canon printers, but not many for Epson – watercolour and some velvet-finish type. I found a place in town that carries pretty much all Epson papers – The Camera Store – but in my current state of geek paralysis I don’t want to buy any paper until I know if I’m going to keep the printer. I’ve got an email in to an Epson PR person, hoping that he’ll respond with something to indicate to me if I should keep this printer and wait for the Vista drivers (which Epson Canada tech support said were coming for all models of printers – but do I believe them?).