Epson Stylus Photo 820: an XP-compatible printer with photographic output.
Written: Jul 30 '02 (Updated Jul 30 '02)
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Pros: Easy to setup, beautiful color printouts, good compatibility with XP
Cons: Expensive ink cartridges, flimsy construction
The Bottom Line: The Epson Stylus Photo 820 is an excellent, slightly pricey option for users of Windows XP who require high quality photo-type printouts and occasional B&W work.
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| jimzak's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 820 Inkjet Printer |
Let me preface this review with the fact that I have had two other Epson Stylus Photo printers, and this printer shows that lineage and growth. It also continues the tradition of a wonderfully accurate, colorful, and inexpensive printer that uses pretty costly supplies up quickly.
Setup was trivial and simple. Run the software from the CD-ROM and plug the printer in. Then place the ink cartridges in the machine, and let the machine prime them. That's about it. Windows' Plug-n-Play continues to impress me.
Printing is basically no different than with any other Windows' printer. If you are printing a color photo, pick Color, PhotoEnhance, and either "Nature", "People" etc...whatever applies best. You can make these selections from the printer setup button in the Print dialog or directly under Printer Setup on the File menu of any Windows application. Naturally you can print black & white photos, line art, or text by picking the appropriate options. The options are extensive and require some practice. An easy option is just to pick "Automatic" and let the software select for you. You can also select "Quality" vs "Speed" depending on your needs and tastes.
The print spooler software indicates the printer progress on your printout as well as the levels on ink still available for the B&W and color cartridges separately.
The printer is relatively quiet while printing; it makes a soft high-pitched squeal which I don't find disturbing AT ALL. In fact I don't find the warm-up/print cartridge priming noises disturbing either. All of this stuff was much louder with previous Epson printers.
Speed is very good for a home printer. A 50%-coverage full-color photo type printout probably takes about 3-5 mins. Naturally this would be a bit slow if you needed high volume output. Black & white text is significantly faster.
Quality of all types of printouts is outstanding. Color photo printouts are vivid, accurate, detailed, and beautiful, and appear much like a photo from a processing center either on glossy photo-type paper or on semi-glossy photo-quality inkjet paper. Black & white text looks very good also.
The cartridges cost $21-26 dollars each from Epson (much less if you get generic compatible refills,) and you need a B&W and a color cartridge. Each cartridge will probably print about 30-50 pages depending on coverage of the page.
The high end glossy paper costs from 30 to 75 cents a page. The photo-quality inkjet paper is about 1.3 cents a sheet. Depends on what you want the printout for I suppose. Epson has many, many specialty papers which can meet your printing needs precisely.
One minor quibble is that the printer feels fairly light, and it is made entirely of flimsy plastic. On the other hand, hopefully the printer will not have to endure any physical stress that will test its flimsy construction.
This is one of the few (?) Epson printers that is compatible with XP, and I got it for a very, very reasonable price on eBay.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 75
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
jimzak
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Member: James Zachary
Location: Austin, Texas, USA
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 1 member
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