Quality Photo Printing Without a High Price Tag
Written: Jan 03 '03
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Pros: -True photo quality
-Ink cartridges aren't too expensive
Cons: -Doesn't have large format capacity
The Bottom Line: If you want the convenience of printing out snapshots from your home, but don't want to spend $350 on a printer, the Epson Stylus Photo 870 is an excellent choice.
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| rglbrgl's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 870 InkJet Printer |
I will start off saying I'm a college student and I'm cheap. I pay my tuition, so I don't have a lot of money to fool around with and I'm a conservative buyer.
I'm also a photo retoucher and graphic designer. That means I'm always coveting the newest, coolest software, hardware, and on and on. I purchased this printer in the summer of 2001 for $115. I got a great deal, though, and I wouldn't most people to be that lucky, unfortunately.
I know Epson says that an Epson printer only prints at the best quality with Epson ink and on Epson paper, but we all know that the term "best quality" is subjective. And I'm sure no one would disagree with me when I say sometimes a company's marketing department is biased when it comes to whose products are better. That said, I bought a whole bunch of Epson paper to experiment with, and over the next year and a half bought several other brands to experiment with as well, and the printer's quality is outstanding on both Epson's paper and other reputable paper. (By that, I mean the glossy Epson paper printout and the printout on glossy paper made by Kodak or Office Depot are the same quality).
I have not purchased ink cartridges manufactured by anyone but Epson, so I can't tell you whether those spam emails you get advertising refill cartridges actually work or not. I do shop around for the best price on Epson cartridges, though, so I usually don't pay the retail prices of $19.99 for the color cartridge (Part #T008201 for your information) and $24.99 for the black cartridge(#T007201). On some of those 'remanufactured' or 'compatible' ink cartridge websites, you might see the retail prices listed as way more than that, but I think they inflate the retail price so their price seems like a great deal. Not all of those sites inflate the retail price and a lot of them list the same amount I did here, which is why I say these are the retail prices Epson suggests.
Shopping around for good deals or buying several cartridges at a time has been worth my time. I have paid as low as $13.50 for color and $18 for black, but typically I pay around $15-16 for the color cartridges and $19-20 for the black cartridges. This may still seem like a lot of money, but they do last a while, even when I'm printing out multiple 8x10 photos at best quality. Also, be sure to compare these cartridge prices to other brands. For example, one of Lexmark's popular printers, the Z43, is less expensive than the Epson Stylus Photo 870, but when you go to buy new cartridges a few months later, they're going to cost you $33 for the black and $39 for the color!
This printer is extremely reliable. I've gone through more than 10 sets of ink cartridges, printing out countless reports for school, photos for work or friends, greeting cards for Christmas, and many more projects-- but I have yet to see a paper jam. Paper is easy to load, the included software has a utility to align the cartridges and clean the printer heads, and installing new cartridges is a piece of cake since the instructions are on the actual printer.
It's very compatible, too. I've networked it twice. The first time was in my dorm--my roommate's printer literally was shredding paper, she had a huge paper due in 20 minutes, and it was a 20 min. walk to her class. She had an ancient computer without USB ports, and I didn't have a serial cable she could borrow to directly connect my printer to her computer. Within five minutes I had her computer, even ancient as it is, my computer, and my printer on the same network, and her paper printed first try. The second time I networked it was this past summer at my boyfriend's house; each computer could print to my printer (an HP laptop running Windows ME, an HP Pavillion running Windows98, and 2 eMachines desktops running XP).
At first, I couldn't find a thing wrong with my printer, but as I'm doing more photograph retouching and graphic designing, I'm longing for a printer that can print in larger formats like 13"x19". The 870 can only print up to standard legal size documents. Epson's 1280 is what you need for larger format printing, but it comes at a price over $400.
For the money, this printer can't be beat.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 115
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
rglbrgl
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Location: California, USA
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
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