Excellent Quality, Quiet, Large-Format Printer
Written: Sep 18 '00
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Pros: Awesome prints, Very quiet, Clog resistant
Cons: Occasional paper misfeed, Hefty CPU requirements
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| gsearle's Full Review: Epson Stylus Color 1160 Inkjet Printer |
I love this printer! The photo-quality color prints are outstanding. It can handle large paper sizes. It is extremely quiet, and the jets don't clog. The paper-feed mechanism can be a little annoying at times, though. The Epson Stylus Color line has matured quite a bit.
It's paper formats are very flexible. It can handle large format papers up to around 11x17, or "B" size, yet can also print on index cards. You can feed standard office paper into it, special coated inkjet paper, photo-quality glossy paper, transparencies, or banner paper. For the best quality, use inkjet paper, as it is made to handle the excess moisture from the inks. Non-inkjet glossy materials won't work. Plain paper can wrinkle on jobs that use a lot of ink, but it is cheapest and is fine for drafts, text, and scratch prints such as web pages. The printer comes with some sample papers, but you don't have to buy Epson papers.
The paper feed can be a little annoying, as it sometimes misfeeds. This mostly depends on the paper texture and thickness. On certain special papers you may need to babysit the printer and make sure that each sheet feeds properly. Letterhead, with its sometimes fancy texture, can be the worst. Standard office paper works very well. Because of this limitation, the paper holder doesn't hold many sheets. If you print a lot, you will have to reload a lot. No big deal, as this is just a matter of dropping a small stack of paper into the holder.
Compared to earlier models, or even to other printers, this one is very quiet, even when cleaning its nozzles. You don't get nearly the racket that the 600 and 800 models will make. Epson did a great job at silencing the mechanisms.
The picture quality is awesome, even on plain paper. This printer uses Epson's variable dot size inkjet technology to produce subtle shades and sharp details. This means that you can print at the top resolution on plain paper, unlike older models. For your best quality prints, however, I strongly recommend papers that are made specifically for inkjet printers. High-quality prints use a lot of ink, and all of that wetness will make plain paper wrinkle badly. You could always take an iron to them after they dry, but inkjet paper works the best. The glossy papers really give slick results.
This printer's jets won't clog nearly as often as the older models. I have yet to have a problem with it, and this printer sometimes sits idle for a week or more, which is enough for the inks to dry and clog up in the older printers. Both the cleaning process and the nozzle test can be started easily from the printer utility or from the front panel. Note that the cleaning process takes many minutes, and will often start itself when the printer is first turned on, but only if the cleaning procedure hasn't been performed for a few days.
Cleaning: Turn the power off, hold the paper feed button, turn the power back on, keep holding the paper feed button until cleaning starts.
Nozzle Test: Turn the power off, hold the ink button, turn the power back on, keep holding the ink button until nozzle test starts, turn the printer off and on again to stop the test. Look at the manual to see what the test pattern should look like.
The software driver that comes with the printer is great. You can just print and accept the default settings, or go into the advanced mode and get lots of control over the printing settings. You can even save your settings under descriptive names that appear on a menu in the print dialog. I have "Fast Text", "Color Draft", and "Photos" for example. It contains utilities that tell you how much ink is left, and it allows you to maintain the printer when necessary. When you print, a separate window pops up that tells you the status of your print job as it progresses.
The printer comes with a USB port and a Parallel port. You can connect both to two separate computers at the same time. I have a Mac attached to the USB port and a PC connected to the parallel port. The printer handles the ports intelligently so you can print from either machine.
The driver does require a hefty CPU to print, especially at high resolutions. If you have a slow CPU, jobs will take a lot longer to print. I have a 333 MHz Pentium II that can be a bit sluggish. My 266 MHz Mac G3 whizzes through photo-resolution prints at full speed, though.
Note that inkjet printers, by their nature, can take a long time to print a page, especially on high-quality settings (even with a fast CPU.) This usually doesn't matter much, unless you typically print close to a deadline -- the driver is fully multitasking, which means that you can return to work while the printer prints. You can get fast-yet-great black-and-white text quality by going into the advanced options and tweaking the settings to B&W, "Normal" 360-DPI resolution, "High-Speed" on, and "Microweave" off. Save this setting as something like "Fast Text."
This printer uses one black ink cartridge and one color ink cartridge with magenta, cyan, and yellow inks in the one cartridge. With moderate use, the ink cartridges tend to last a decent amount of time. Their ultimate lifetime depends on what you print, of course. Replacing a cartridge is easy, though you shouldn't remove a cartridge until it is empty. Make sure to put the old cartridge into the replacement cartridge's box, because the leftover ink can leak and make a mess.
Ink cartridges are expensive! The printer manufacturers make most of their money on the inks, and Epson is no exception. You can get third-party inks for less, but of course the manufacturer strongly discourages this. Third party inks are always a risk, because you never know the quality of the ink, or whether it will clog up your jets. However, if you want archival-quality or special-purpose inks, you will have to go to another company.
The inks are water-soluble, which means that you can't expose your prints to moisture, or they will run. The inks are also not archival. If you leave a print in an area that is exposed to bright light for a long time, the colors will start to fade. Check this web site for <a href= http://www.tssphoto.com/sp/dg/ >Archival Printing Supplies</a>. They have archival-quality and special-purpose inks for many printers, as well as high-quality papers.
This is a great printer, and I can put up with the occasional paper-handling quirks.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
gsearle
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Greg Searle
Location: Nashua, NH
Reviews written: 27
Trusted by: 11 members
About Me:
Computer graphics designer and software developer with interests in technology, home improvement, and family life.
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