An excellent photo printer, with a few annoying drawbacks
Written: Dec 10 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Incredible photo quality, accepts wide variety of papers color gamut excellent
Cons: computer chipped cartridges, can't easily use CIS system, ink relatively expensive
The Bottom Line: A BEST BUY if you need up to 13"x19" photo printing capabilities, if not then get the Epson 890 and save yourself $200. Ink cost is a very slight annoyance
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| hawklady99's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 1280 |
I've been using the Epson 1280 for about a year now. I've used the Epson 1520 and the old 750 in the past. I currently own the 1280 and the Olympus P-400 dye sublimation printer for my photography work.
The 1280 produces incredible photos with a wide color gamut due to it's 6 color ink tanks. To explain what I mean here for anyone who is new to photo quality inkjet printers; with lower quality inkjet printers you get three colored inks plus black. The colors are yellow, cyan (blue) and magenta. These colors produce a fairly good photo, but are not able to produce the light greens and some light pinks and other light colors as well as the 6 color printers. With a 6 color printer you get an additional light cyan and a light magenta. The addition of the two colors makes for a much wider color spectrum that can be produced.
I've done some printer comparisons using two photo printer comparison files between the HP P1000, HP P1100, the Epsons 1270 and 1280 and there is no doubt that the 1270 and 1280's with the additional inks produce better more accurate colors.
Another great feature of the 1280 is that it has an inkdroplet size that is so small that it produces no noticeable dot pattern on pictures that you can see on cheaper inkjet printers. This dot grain shows up especially in areas of smooth light color such as skin tones and skys.
The Epson 1280 accepts an incredibly large number of different papers. Contrary to what Epson wants you to believe, their papers are not the best photo quality papers for this printer and they are NOT the only papers that can be used on this printer. I get my photographic paper from Red River Papers over the internet http://www.redrivercatalog.com I actually got my 1280 from them too, they had a deal with the printer and some of their paper that couldn't be beat. The 1280 prints on gloss and satin, as well as matte papers. They carry an incredible line of artists papers such as watercolor and vellum that the 1280 does an excellent job on. With their papers and this printer you have an unlimited number of artistic possibilities with your 1280.
((One important note: make sure you follow their instructions on the best settings to use with their papers and make sure you have the paper thickness setting correct inside your printer before using their papers.)) the Epson 1280 puts down a lot of ink and if you don't use the correct settings you can have a smeary mess on your hands and you can ruin the print heads by clogging them. Another important note: I DO NOT recommend using non-Epson brand inks in their printers. Lots of companies are popping up trying to take your money claiming they have compatible inks to Epson's. I haven't heard good things about this and in fact, if you ruin the print heads by using non-Epson inks the repairs are not covered by Epson. So be careful not to get caught up in the selling frenzy of "compatible" inks.
I sell a lot of my photographs and when people see my work when printed on Red Rivers Ultra Pro Satin or Ultra Pro Gloss papers they can't tell the difference between my work and a traditional photo print made in a photo shop. they are truly beautiful. I get a lot of repeat business so that should tell you something about the quality of the papers and prints.
The only annoying drawback on this printer is that the ink cartridges are relatively expensive and you don't find deals on them or coupon offers to allow you to get them much cheaper anywhere. Also for those who like to use a continuous inking system or CIS (where large bottles of ink are attached to the printer vs. the small ink cartridges The ink cartridges in the 1280 can not be easily refilled or use because there is a computer chip that reads the ink levels and this chip cannot be reset easily. There are companies that are coming out with computer software that will re-set the chip, but it's not easily done.
I find the best prices on genuine Epson inks at Buy.com and http://www.atlex.com/epson_index.htm Every once in a while they have sales or coupons, but their everyday prices are the best I've found (after long hours of searching to save money on ink.)
HERE'S A WAY TO SAVE YOU ABOUT $200 ON YOUR EPSON PHOTO PRINTER. If you want the EXACT SAME quality photo output, but don't need to print photos any larger than 8.5" x 11" (the 1280 is capable of border to border printing) then get the Epson 890 printer. It's got the EXACT same specs as the 1280 but doesn't take the 13"x19" paper like the 1280. For $200 less I would have been better off getting the 890. I rarely get someone who wants a photo larger than an 8x10.
Just to give you an idea of how good this printer is. I sell far more photos out of it than my P-400 which is a $1000 printer. See my epinion on this printer.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
hawklady99
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Location: NY
Reviews written: 58
Trusted by: 8 members
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