Stunning Output at the Cost of Time
Written: Dec 28 '00 (Updated Dec 28 '00)
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Pros: Stunning quality, Versatility of Metallic/White/Photo printing ability, Dye Sub capability
Cons: Price, Speed, and Drivers.
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| w9design's Full Review: Alps MD 1300 Dye Sublimation Printer |
I began looking for a photo printer after I purchased my digital camera and scanner. Many only fed 4x6 sheets of paper. Some, like Epson’s offering, were just glorified ink jets. Others were so outrageously expensive I could not even consider them.
About a year ago, I saw the MD-1000 variety of this printer at Staples. Curious, as I had not heard of the brand before, I pushed the demo button. I stood and waited for the demo print, and to my dismay it only printed cyan tones. About to pick up the page of blue that it had printed, it sucked it back up and began to print magenta tones.
This printer is unlike many consumer level printers you may be aware of. Most ink jets print all colors simultaneously, whereas this requires a separate pass for each color. One of the printer’s most glaring faults stems from this: each page requires about 3-5 minutes to print. You do NOT want to use this as your primary printer… a 10 page document could take over 30 minutes to print.
To its credit, the MD-1300 produces some of the best output of any consumer printer I’ve seen. Colors are rich, and you can even print a layer of gloss onto images printed on laser paper! The Micro-Dry technology employed won’t smear like inkjets, and it is waterproof.
When printing in dye-sublimation mode, the photos printed are indistinguishable from film counterparts. Dye sublimation functions by heating up the solid ink so quickly that it actually bypasses the liquid phase, turning directly into a gas, which is absorbed into the paper. The ALPS printer can use this technology to print different-sized dots – ink jet dots are a uniform size, causing some images to have a certain “graininess” to them. Dye sublimation is a continuous-tone process. There is no ‘graininess’ due to the variable-sized dots, creating smooth color changes.
Even when printing in normal mode onto plain paper, image quality is astounding. In fact, I rarely use the dye-sublimation mode because the normal mode offers almost comparable output at a lower cost.
The printer does have flaws, however. The first and foremost is speed, though it is a necessity of the process it uses. The paper feeder could be improved. It doesn’t hold much paper and you often need to use manual feed for the paper to load correctly. ALPS’ drivers also leave much to be desired. They were created by a 3rd party and don’t seem to have the maturity of other manufacturers’ drivers.
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black cartridges are usually about $7.00 each with about 100 pages per cartridge. Metallic, finish, and white cartridges are about $10 each, and offer 40 pages per cartridge.
Despite its flaws, my MD-1300 still wows me with its stunning output. The price is a little high, but you get what you pay for.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 350.00
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
w9design
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Member: Nate LaFerle
Location: Royal Oak, MI
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 7 members
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