THE Photo printer for most folks
Written: Mar 09 '01
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Pros: Photo realistic prints, borderless printing, accepts roll paper
Cons: Have to use original inks from Epson
The Bottom Line: Professional quality photo prints from a printer costing about $200 - who can complain?
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| rogerngaw's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 870 InkJet Printer |
Epson has a long history of producing very high quality color inkjet printers. I think they have put all their past expertise to good use in coming up with the 870, 875 and 1270 range of photo-quality inkjet printers.
As an avid user of digital cameras (I have retired all my "film" cameras about 2 years ago), getting affordable and good quality photo prints from my camera is always a top priority.
Some would argue that dye-sub printers produce the best results for digital photos. Whilst I tend to agree with this, I also find limitations in the consumer grade dye-sub printers. For one thing, even the most basic dye-sub printers cost at least twice compared to the regular inkjet printers. There is also generally a limitation on the size of the prints (usually they only print to a maximum size of a postcard). The consumables are also more expensive.
For mere mortals like me, who can only afford or prefers to have the simplicity of having only one printer at home, the 870 is a pretty darn good choice.
Using Epson's new Premium Glossy papers, I get prints that are so close to photos printed from the neighborhood colorlab that none of my friends believed that the prints were made at home on an inkjet. Epson claims that using this paper, the prints will last at least 10 years. Of course, I have no way of verifying that at the moment...
The 870 comes with an adapter that allows it to hold roll paper. Epson produces various types of roll papers but I prefer to use again, Premium Glossy papers because of their aforesaid claim. With the roll paper, I could get borderless prints (edge to edge). I find this more of a novelty than anything else, though, because you face quite a hassle AFTER the printing.
First of all all the prints from the roll paper are curved (due to being rolled up all the time). I find it so difficult to flatten them for putting into my album. I tried rolling them back in the opposite direction, leaving them under a ton of books overnight etc, but could not get satisfactory results.
Another problem is cutting the roll paper after printing. You can of course just use a pair of scissors but you risk having uneven edge. Using a paper cutter is cumbersome. I think Epson should have included some sort of cutter in the printer since they anticipate the use of roll paper.
The other thing that irritates me is that I can't get the photos to be printed immediately next to each other. Each print is separated by about 1 inch of blank space. This wastes paper (which is expensive) as well as make it necessary to make more cuts to get the prints out. I don't understand why the prints can't be placed one after another.
If you want to remove the balance of the roll paper after you are done printing, you are supposed to press the paper feed button. I find that this works on certain occasions but not on others, ie, sometimes the paper will roll out in reverse but sometimes it doesn't.
That having been said, I am absolutely happy with the 870 when printing on A4 sized paper.
The printer is dead quiet compared to the Epson Color 640 I was using before. However, I can still sense a lot of vibration when the printer is in use. I guess this is unavoidable given that the print head has to go over each line multiple times.
The 870 uses 2 separate cartridges, one for black, the other, CMYK colors. The cartridges are fitted with a microchip that can monitor accurately the ink usage. This makes it impossible (for now at least) to use third party ink cartridges as replacement. Anyway, if what Epson claims is true, ie that using the special ink will enable prints to last at least 10 years, why would anyone want to use third party inks?
The print quality, as I said before, is fantastic. Only the most fussy of users using high powered magnifying glass could complain about the photo quality.
I enjoy the printer more now that I have stopped using roll paper.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 230
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
rogerngaw
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 - Top 1000 |
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Location: Singapore
Reviews written: 30
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
I'm a guitarist with a keen interest in all things digital.
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