Home Color and Black & White Printing Lab
Written: Mar 28 '04
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Pros: Easy to set up, fast and excellent print quality
Cons: Cost, and not for the beginner
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this for serious photographers. However, it is not for the point and shoot crowd.
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| superspy's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 2200 Inkjet Printer |
For the past few years I have been utilizing the HP Photosmart 1100. It worked well with my 1.6 megapixel camera, but once I purchased my first Digital SLR over the summer, it just was not up to the task.
Well, it is tax time, and I was lucky enough to get some of my money back from the government. Over the last few weeks, I have been reading review after review about both the Canon i9000 and the Epson Photo 2200.
I believe they are very similar printers, with regards to quality, but eventually you have to make a decision, and after consulting a local photography store, that specializes in Digital Photography, and the extra features offered with the 2200, I finally decided to purchase the Stylus 2200 on 3/27/04. I also must thank the others on this site that wrote reviews as they also helped me in my final decision.
I am writing this review with only using this printer for 24 hours. I have printed about a dozen 11 x 17 photos, a dozen 11x14 and a handful of 8x10's. I also printed a panoramic image of 8x23.
To say that I am pleased with the initial results is an understatement. I used both Matte & Semigloss Epson Photo Paper. I found that the colors are what I would hope they would be, and am pleased at how fast the ink dries. I also printed a couple of photos in Black & White
I also like the 7 separate color cartridges. The Black, Light Black and Light Cyan are about 1/2 used up, the Yellow a 1/4 used up. The Light Magenta seems to go much quicker than the others and is 3/4's used up. The Cyan and Magenta are almost full. It is also relatively quiet when printing.
At about $12 per cartridge for the refills, having to buy all 7 at one time can be costly. Fortunately, it does not appear that, that will be the case. You will need to buy as you need a particular color, although I would recommend spares of the Blacks and Lt Magenta. Keep in mind when you are first using the printer, more ink is used up to get it to the jet heads on the printer.
Setting up the printer was very simple, the instructions pretty clear. I have yet to use the roll feature and automatic cutter with the paper catcher, but from time to time, I send out batches of photos to friends and family, and this will be a nice feature come that time.
The software is fine, although it takes a little time to get use to setting the configurations properly so you can get borderless images, and images that sit right in the middle of the Photo Paper.
I realize it has only been one day for my review, and I may revisit this later to update it, but so far I am pretty impressed, and believe this is an excellent printer.
Is it worth the money? I think so, but not for a beginner, and not if you have a camera that does not have the megapixels to support large printed images. If all you want is a printer that gives you snapshots only, there are others out there that are much less expensive.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 699
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
superspy
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Member: Kevin N
Location: East Farmingdale New York
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 2 members
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