Epson Stylus Photo 830 (or 820 in the US) - well worth the wait.
Written: Aug 07 '03 (Updated Aug 31 '03)
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Pros: Simply gorgeous borderless photos
Cons: Expensive ink, slow, clogging may be a problem.
The Bottom Line: I have to give it a 3 star rating as even though the borderless photo quality is excellent, the printer's running costs is too high.
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| hm8080's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 820 Inkjet Printer |
Update Sept 1 2003
Having left the printer unused for about two weeks, I found some clogging in the nozzle check. After I printed an A4-size photo (which looked very good with no visible banding) I did a nozzle check again and the black still shows a tiny hint of clogging. Cleaning cycles would drain the ink all too quickly though.
I think Epson's printers are seriously plagued with clogging ink heads and as beautiful as the photos are, I think this printer has a serious drawback. If you print once a week, it uses ink to do head cleaning cycles everytime you use it, so you waste ink every week.
If you print more, the cost of inks quickly goes beyond the price of a new printer. And if you print once a month, you'll end up with clogged heads and have to do head cleaning cycles. So this printer is damned if u do, damned if u don't.
I love the photo quality but I will not buy another Epson.
Update - 13 Aug 2003
I have printed a total of about 20 fullsized A4 photos at various quality settings (mostly normal and Best Photo) and now I am through one color cartridge. Bought a new color/black and photo paper "value" pack today for the price of a brand new plastic entry level printer! Imagine that! I am not sure if I will keep buying ink at these high costs if I continue to print heavily...if so, I am trading the Epson's gorgeous photo quality for the Canon i550's "good" photo quality. I mean, who holds a printed photo up to their noses and squint just to see the dots anyway? :)
Note For those of you having trouble with Epson ink heads constantly clogging up, I have some tips for you that may help towards the end of this article.
While it’s true that this printer has been out in the market for quite a while now, just recently bought one, having sold my Canon. I have the 830, or if you are in the US, the 820 (they are essentially the same model). The 830 is marketed in the Asia-Pacific/Oceanic regions only, with an increased resolution update (up to 5770 x 720 dpi).
Anyways, this printer is quite cheap and I was debating between paying slightly more for a Canon i550 or this Epson. I finally decided on the Epson as I owned a couple of Canons before and all of them, while never giving me any real trouble, printed photos that faded away all too quickly. And I mean photos that you stick to your wall, not kept hidden in an album. Supposedly, Epson’s inks are much les sensitive to the stuff in the atmosphere that causes colors to fade. I guess time will tell.
You see, I was really in the market for a photo printer, specifically a 6-color photo printer. I was debating between the Canon and this Epson cause even though the Canon does not offer 6 colors, it does uses the Think Tank separate ink tank system and the cartridges are dirt cheap. Plus, they are easily refillable. The cons is that, I want a photo printer and the Canon’s photos although nice, were quite grainy as photos go. They looked like they were developed on ISO 400 film whereas the Epson’s photos were just plain gorgeous!
This printer is no small thing, it is, like the Canon i550, quite a space hungry critter. With trays extended it takes up more space than my faithful HP LaserJet 6L. Setting up is easy, just pop in the provided CD and follow the onscreen instructions. The printer has both a USB and parallel port and a paper out tray that neatly folds away when not in use.
Performance
The printer is a slow beast. It slowly prints out a fullpage borderless A4 (it also handles US Letter size) photo at Best Photo mode, taking almost 30 minutes to do it. The highest setting called “Photo RPM” which prints at 5770 x 720 dpi is not available for borderless prints. But Best Photo is just as good.
Draft pages are printed out very quickly, close to 10 pages per minute and this is with color graphics (I printed some webpages). Unfortunately, draft is only useable for checking layouts etc. Standard mode is also not as fast as Epson claims, it is acceptable, about 5 pages per minute.
The printer is rather noisy when feeding paper or when running a ink head cleaning cycle. It clicks and whirs away, making alarming popping sounds. Paper feed is noisy but when the printer actually prints, it is, I guess, average but certainly not as quiet as my old Canon BJC3000.
Quality
It can be said that this Epson sacrifices speed for quality. As the first borderless A4 photo I printed emerged at a crawling pace out of the printer, I was already totally blown away! The ink dried fairly quickly and didn’t smudge even when my nephew snatched it. The colors were very beautiful and accurate with humans looking like humans, not green aliens. I used Epson Photo Paper. I also tried a generic glossy paper and the color was dull but everything else looked alright. I haven’t tried any other type of photo paper though but my guess is to stick with Epson for best results.
The lower setting of “Photo” also produces acceptable photos which can still be mistaken for real lab print photos but some very minute banding and dithering will be visible upon closer inspection. The lowest photo mode is “Fine” and is only useful for quick draft photos, the banding and dithering is just too pronounced even on photo glossy paper. I have yet to try the Photo RPM mode so I can’t comment on that.
FYI, photo mode is 1440 dpi, Best photo is 2880 dpi and Photo RPM is 5770 dpi, all by 720 dpi.
This is an Epson Stylus Photo, meant for photo tasks. Epson’s desktop models are the C series printers which are more suited for everyday text and color graphics printing needs.
Text quality is quite good on plain paper. Draft mode is readable and is printed very quickly so if u need fast draft mode prints, the printer will deliver. At higher than “normal” resolution, text takes a while to print and then so much ink is used that it soaks through the plain paper.
Running costs
I have only printed about 9 borderless A4 pages and the color ink tanks is already shown as half empty. The black tank has barely nudged an inch. It still shows almost full. I must say this printer is truly an ink hog! I did find the photo glossy paper to feel “soaked” when printing at best photo mode and it seems the ink level indicators move just ever so slightly with each borderless A4 photo printed.
I have also made calendars that I have stuck to a wall. I did the same with Canon’s print outs and the faded away so fast it defeated its cheaper printing cost advantage. Time will tell if Epson’s will go the same way.
Also, FYI, Epson’s desktop range like the C80, uses pigment based inks which are highly resistant to light. The photo series printers use their normal photo inks if I’m not mistaken. A couple years back Epson’s photo inks were notorious for an orange color shift problem but you seldom hear about this anymore. Like I said, time will tell.
The printer itself is fairly cheap, possibly the cheapest 6 color photo printer around. However, ink costs are astronomical. The color cartridge retails for around US20, while the black goes for US24. The ink runs out pretty fast especially color and the black tank is even smaller than Canon’s BCI-3BK black ink tank which costs only about US12.
So far...
I am plenty pleased with this Epson so far in terms of photo quality. It is SLOW but the results are worth the wait, the photos are just jaw-dropping and for the digital camera enthusiasts who would like borderless 6 color photo printing capability, it’s well worth a look. Just bear in mind the high ink costs (about equivalent to an HP or Lexmark, I would say).
Since I already have a laser printer, the Epson is entirely regulated to handle photo printing tasks. It can also print borderless 4 x 6 photos and the included software called Epson PhotoQuicker (may vary from region to region) allows you to easily choose what kind of layout, borderless or normal etc. The software also supports Print Image Matching/Exif 2.2 which reads the image data stored by the camera in the image file and trie to reproduce photos as true to the original settings as possible. Works quite well in my experience.
Again, Canon’s inks are the cheapest but in my experience, they are also the fastest to fade unless you keep your photos stored away in a photo album and not framed or hung up on a wall for display, then they have a significantly shortened shelf life.
If my photos that are hung up for display or the calendars stuck on the walls fade away (or last longer than Canon’s) I’ll be sure to update this article with the relevant info! Till then, hope you find this article useful and happy printing!
Tips to help avoid clogs
As any Epson user will probably tell you, Epson is notorious for its ink-head clogging problems.
First, make sure you ALWAYS turn off your 820 via the printer off switch. Do not leave it on standby like that as ink will be used to clean the heads to avoid from drying out.
If you don’t print frequently, say only once or twice a week, then try to print a small color image every few days, this is to give the ink heads a run and so they won’t dry out and also to avoid the ink-draining cleaning cycle that kicks in after a prolonged period of no printing.
Next, on the 820/830 (and may be applicable to others), give the ink cartridge holdr a nudge to the right when it has parked after switching off. This ensures it is properly parked to avoid ink head dryout.
Last but certainly not the least you could do is, avoid using third party replacement cartridges. Ask yourself if they’re really worth the trouble if they start clogging up?
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 152
Operating System: Windows
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hm8080
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Location: Where the sun rises first
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