Best bang for the buck
Written: Feb 12 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Paper Handling: |
|
|
|
Pros: Excellent Photo Quality printing, Roll paper ready
Cons: Adaptors needed for different memory cards
The Bottom Line: The best photo inkjet photo printer. Period.
|
|
|
| jatooley's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX Ink-jet Printer |
I was in the market for a photo quality printer and read a review in Maximum PC on photo printers. To those of you who only reference PC World or PC Magazine, pick up a copy of Maximum PC. They are truly a high end computer magazine, and do not sing praises to all of the generic computer manufacturers that buy 5 or 6 pages of ad copy per issue.
Anyway, in the July 2001 issue, Maximum PC tested an Olympus P-400, an Epson Photo 785EPX, and a HP Photosmart 1218XI. To quote the magazine, "The 785EPX produces the cleanest, smoothest prints we've seen yet from an inkjet printer. In fact, it comes close to replicating the continuous tonal quality of the Olympus dye-sub printer- at a quarter of the price."
Dye sublimination printers use a thermal transfer ribbon that holds cyan, magenta and yellow dyes. Heat is used to melt small amounts of dye onto the paper. Until the Epson 785 came along, there wasn't an inkjet that could match the continuous tone of a Dye Sublimation printer.
My experiences:
Picture Quality:
The quality of pictures I have printed has exceeded my expectations. I have printed several 8 by 10 inch pictures and can not believe that the pictures were not picked up from a photo lab. The flesh tones are very accurate and the colors are very vibrant.
Speed:
This printer is not fast. Epson chose quality over speed, so this printer is much slower than the above mentioned HP. It took about 8 minutes to print out the 8 by 10 pictures, which is twice as long as the HP, but those 4 extra minutes
will give you a much better picture than the HP.
Accessories and Extras:
The printer comes with a Compact Flash adaptor, but you can mail it in and exchange it for a Smart Media or a Sony Memory Stick Adaptor. This is the one drawback to this printer, as there are several printers out there that will accommodate all of the different memory cards without having to purchase additional adaptors.
The Epson 785 EPX will also print your pictures without using a computer. Using the specialized adaptors, with the switches and display on the right side of the printer, you are able to print pictures directly from your memory card.
I have not used this feature, but the printer comes with a holder for roll film.
Special Notes:
Black and White printing: This printer printed THE WORST black and white graphics I have ever seen. Much worse than my Panasonic dot-matrix printer from years ago. I tried using the utilities that came with the printer. I performed head cleanings, and nozzle alignments to no avail. All I wanted to do was print a Word Document when my Brother Laser printer had run out of toner. The document was horrible and I was about ready to give up when I realized what the problem was. There is a paper thickness adjustment on the right side of the printer, and it was set at the thickest setting. Apparently, this setting does not affect the output of photo prints, but it made a huge difference when it came to printing out simple black text. Once, I changed this setting, the output was very good for an inkjet printer.
Maintenance: This is a very temperamental printer. You will need to run the diagnostics often to get the best quality. Learn how to use the Head Cleaning, and Nozzle check utilities, and use them frequently.
Ink replacements: There is no need to purchase special photo inks for this printer. There is a black cartridge, and a color cartridge and they are very reasonable in price. I believe that the black cartridge runs about $25.00 and the color cartridge runs about $20. They are available at Office Depot.
Conclusion:
If you are in the market for the best Quality photo printer out there, and you print from one type of memory card, and don't want to spend $1000 for a Canon Dye sublimation printer, this is the printer for you. It's quality will outweigh the speed of lower quality printers. The cost of ink is relatively inexpensive, and you have the capability of using rolled photo paper.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 249
Operating System: Windows
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
jatooley
|
|
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 3 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.