Best photo printer you can buy...
Written: Sep 25 '02 (Updated Sep 26 '02)
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Pros: laser sharp output; photographic quality; never jams - smart printer
Cons: a little noisy; usually too slow to be used for b/w text.
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this printer to anyone, and I do. The only exception: if they need a printer that can do hundreds of b/w text prints each day.
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| nbostaph's Full Review: Alps MD 1300 Thermal Printer |
I'm amazed that no one has written a review on this printer yet, as it is quite simply the best printer I have ever used. There are 1 or two negatives, which is where I'll start, as the printer might not be for you and I'd hate to have you read the whole review to find out this isn't your printer.
First, the MD1300 is a little noisy. No more than an inkjet, but noisier than your average laser printer. Put it this way: You wouldn't want to be printing something in the middle of the night if you were on the same side of the house as the bedroom, but I use it in the middle of the night with my office on the other side of the house. Keep the doors closed and you'll be fine, unless you're very big on a nice quiet printer.
Secondly, this is NOT a primary printer for the most part. If you print any reasonable amount of b/w text, and are looking for a primary/only printer, I strongly recommend that you look at lasers and do not get a MD or inkjet. Both inkjets and the 1300 are slow and use up way too much ink for each page of b/w text. However, if you are set on getting an MD or inkjet, I will say that the MD will produce much clearer text and will not fade or smear like an inkjet.
So, what does the 1300 have to offer? Everything. It has two printing modes, micro-dry (for everyday stuff) and dye-sublimation (for true photo reproduction). The printer has never jammed on me, except once or twice on paperfeed. The neat thing is that it is an 'intelligent' printer in a way. Any time there's an error, it'll attempt to correct itself. You can just hit the paper feed button and it'll attempt again. The surprising part is that it usually succeeds. I've never spent more than 30 seconds on an error, which is quite unlike my 2 inkjets (Epson) and 1 laser (HP) I have.
Another extra (though nothing practical) is that the printing method is fun to watch =P. Seriously. You see, it prints 1 layer at a time. So it runs the paper through and prints yellow. After it prints all the yellow on the sheet, it pulls it back through to do magenta. It does that 4 times. It's really quite interested to see each color go on and see how the distribution is. Almost everyone I know who has walked in when it was running has stopped to watch at least for a few seconds.
We'll start with micro-dry prints (referred to as MDPs from now on). The 1300 uses dry ink ribbons to transfer a dry ink directly to the paper using an impact system. Because the ink is dry, it is laser sharp, doesn't smear, is waterproof, and is everything you'd expect from a high quality 600 or 1200 dpi color laser printer.
Since the ink is on ribbons, covering a page lightly or heavily with ink uses the same amount of ribbon, which seems like a drawback. However, I've printed full page color images with ink costs as low as $0.20/page, including the glossy paper. In addition to the ink costs being low, this impact method allows you to print on any smooth paper, so 5 cent glossy paper will look better than an inkjet print on $1 inkjet paper.
For paper, most anything will work. Just be careful before buying a large amount, as the impact system has trouble with any paper not completely smooth (some cheap copy paper). I use Great White recycled laser paper (extremely cheap) for normal prints and King James 10 point glossy paper (about 5 cents/sheet) for high quality prints.
As for quality, MDPs rival high quality color laser prints. I have compared to an HP color laser print and a Phaser print and the Alps will look as good as either. Just like laser prints, the alps won't fade or smear. I have prints from over 3 years ago that have never even begun to fade or wear. The nice thing about the MDPs is that you can use an overcoat while printing which puts a kind of clearcoat over the print. It protects it and makes prints on even normal paper appear glossy. I've never seen the overcoat or inks peel or flake.
Of course, the real fun of the 1300 is dye-sub prints. Dye sublimation uses different inks and special paper (usually about 75 cents/sheet) so you can expect about $1/sheet run costs. Of course, if you keep an eye on Ebay you can usually get some good deals on paper, I managed to buy 50 sheets for $5 the one time :).
Dye sublimation works by super heating the inks on the ribbon extremely quickly so that the ink goes from a solid to a gaseous state with little or no liquid state. The gas then bonds to the paper which means that instead of sitting on top of the paper, the ink actually becomes part of the paper for a super solid print.
The #1 worry with any gaseous printing method is the difficulty in controlling the precision of the transfer and problems may lead to a blurry print. However, the Alps managers laser sharp edges with true 24 bit (no joke) output. If you're not familiar with what that means, I'll try to explain:
You see, when you look at printed images from an inkjet or even laser, they don't look real. Why? Well, because everything is made up of a number of pixels. Now, it's (usually) not the pixels that actually get in the way like many people think. What gets in the way is the colors. See, each printer has 4 colors of inks (sometimes 7): cyan, magenta, yellow, black. The printer prints tiny dots in these colors, which group together to make any color. For instance, to create a dark yellow pixel, it may use 9 yellow dots and 3 black dots mixed in. It can't just mix the inks to get the right color. Because each dot can only be one of 4 colors, this makes the image look very 'fake', no matter how small the dots are. By introducing 3 more inks (lighter versions of each color), the new 'photo' printers can produce more realistic output, as 3 extra colors really help. However, it's still obvious that a print is a print. However, the 1300 can mix the inks while they are in their gaseous phase, allowing each dot to be not one of 3 or 7 colors, but one of over 16 million colors. This means true continuous tones. When I got this printer, I took a professional photograph used extensively in marketing (very beautiful picture), scanned the original, and reprinted it on my 1300. When I showed the print and the original to people, about 50% guessed which one was the print, and alot of them said that one wasn't better than the other. That's how good this is.
Dye-sub prints are also fade resistant, waterproof, and smearproof. In fact, very little can phase them. I actually placed a print under running water for a minute, then spent another minute rubbing it while still under the running water. After it dried, you couldn't even tell except for a little paper wrinkle (very little). Also, the colors on Dye-sub prints are more vibrant than on any other printing method I have ever seen.
The only drawback to dye-sub printing is cost, which is a little high. Then again, consider people are willing to pay photographers $50+ for more prints of wedding/anniversary/etc pictures when they could reproduce them just as well on their 1300. Then the cost doesn't seem so bad.
All in all, I would recommend this printer to anyone, and I do. The only time I don't is when they are running a business and need a single printer that can do hundreds of b/w text prints each day.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
nbostaph
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Member: Nicholas Bostaph
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 6 members
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