Club Printer

Epson’s Stylus line was developed to deliver the best print quality possible. The company is well known on the market and perhaps provides some of the best printers for any type of user and environment, from office printers to compact photo printers that serve as great buddies for your digital camera and allow you to print wherever your feet manage to take you. An older Stylus model, the Epson 1290 also offered high quality printing. But it had several issues including ink leakage. Before moving up to a new model, Epson managed to improve the 1290 and solve most of its problems. It’s follow up model, the Stylus Photo 1400 is a printer that has very little problems and provides high quality printing for a very affordable price.

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Most printers in the 13 inch Stylus Photo series include pigment-based inks. These inks have the advantage of lasting longer than the dye-based type. This is why it appears somewhat odd that Epson decided to used dye-based Hi-Definition Claria inks in the case of the 1400. But the manufacturer also explains this decision and claims that the lifetime of prints produced with this ink is of up to 98 years (behind glass) and possibly even longer if kept in dark storage. The photos 1280 chugged out were guaranteed for much less. They would maintain their qualities for 26 years behind glass.

While you can’t consider it slow, the Stylus Photo 1400 doesn’t really compare to some of the inkjets offered by Canon or HP. It will take you about 2 minutes to print a high-quality letter-size page and a minute for a 4 by 6 photograph. The conclusion is that it’s not the best choice for people who are impatient or constantly in a hurry. Other users will however be completely satisfied.

The sleek and shiny black design with silver accents of the Stylus Photo 1400 makes it blend well in modern homes. However it’s not one of the small printers out there as it measures 24.2 x 12.4 x 8.8 inches and gets even bigger when you open it up for use. It’s inks are loaded from the top and the 1400 includes six ink cartridges (magenta, light magenta, cyan, light cyan, yellow and black). The media you can use ranges from 4 by 6 to 13 by 44 inches and can be as thick as 0.11 mm. Your only printing options are somewhat limited in the case of these epson stylus photo printers. PictBridge is supported thanks to a USB port on the front of the printer and you’ll be able to print directly from any compatible digital camera. There’s no memory card slot however and the only other option for printing is through the old but reliable USB. Epson also includes the ability to print on CD’s and DVD’s and you’ll find a slot for that right on the front of the printer.

As a conclusion these epson stylus photo printers are well built, well designed and provides good quality prints. As downside it’s rather slow and lacks a memory card slot as well as any type of networking feature.

Up to a point tri-ink printing was enough for most users. But not photographers are starting to want better quality and more vivid prints. This is why most photo enthusiasts won’t settle for anything less than the light shades that are only offered by printers that come with light cyan and magenta inks. In an attempt to suit their customers’ needs perfectly most manufacturers have switched to offering six-ink printing.
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As a result Epson introduced the Stylus Photo P50 that features six individual ink cartridges, high quality photo printing and a reasonable purchase price. The design of these Epson photo printers is nice and they will easily blend in any type of home be it more modern or traditional. For extra convenience the printer ships with Epson’s Easy Photo Print software that provides easy optimization for photos (including red-eye removal). With the help of this printer you’ll also be able to personalize CD/DVDs by printing directly on them.

You’ll find the CD/DVD tray right on the front side of the printer. Still on the front you will find a flap that folds out to provide an output tray while the input tray can be discovered right on top of the P50. The P50 doesn’t offer any top of the line exciting features or any other functionality except for printing. While there are plenty of all-in-ones on the market that provide high quality photo printing, standalone printers still do a good job and are preferred by some users.

But the problem with the P50 is that it doesn’t even offer better photo features. It doesn’t come with memory card slots, there’s no PictBridge compatibility or even a LCD screen. So when considering whether to buy this printer you’ll need to know that it limits you to printing only from your PC. Printing from memory cards as well as many digital cameras is completely out of the question. And even from the PC you’ll only be able to print through a USB connection as there are absolutely no networking features, wireless or wired.

Like many other Epson photo printers, the P50 also uses a piezo-electric print head and plug-in cartridges, but compared to some older models it offers six inks (magenta, cyan, yellow, black, light magenta, light cyan).  While the two light inks are supposed to be for enhancement purposes and provide more quality to prints, apparently they are very heavily used and some of the Epson Stylus Photo P50’s owners may discover that they run out much faster than their non-light counterparts.

Printing speed is satisfactory. In draft mode you’ll achieve about 25 pages per minute while if you want better quality prints you’ll slowly go down to speeds of around 8 pages per minute or less. When it comes to photo printing, a print will keep you waiting for a much longer time. Speed varies based on size and quality but expect times between 30-40 seconds and over four minutes for a photograph to print out.

Epson’s Stylus Photo R1900 is a follow-up model to the R1800. This printer’s release was a mere three years after R1800. The reason to this may be that, compared to other fields in the technology industry, printer innovation and new technology isn’t actually amazing or fast. To put it simple, the normal consumer will do just fine with a device that doesn’t break down a desk due to huge weight, also offers legible text printing and occasionally decent photo printing.
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Due to this not many consumers want to spend a large amount of money on more high-tech printers, except for maybe the professional photographer for whom quality of prints and new features do matter a lot. Epson’s R1900 is a one of the photo quality printers that reinvents the concept of glossy printing. It’s a wide format printer with quite a few useful features.

Along with the printer you’ll get to make use of some pretty new and awesome technologies such as the UltraChrome Hi-Gloss pigment ink or Radiance Technology (that’s meant to maximize the color gamut and at the same time optimize print quality). UltraChrome Hi-Gloss ink was a huge evolution for photography printing, offering a wider color gamut with consistency, a smooth gloss finish as well as natural skin tones.

On top of the cyan, magenta and yellow inks that consumers are used to getting, this printer also features options for matte black, red, orange, photo black as well as gloss optimizer. With this set of eight inks, there is obviously a huge number of combinations you can achieve. To establish which combination you should use to get exactly the colors you need for a certain image, Epson has provided a technology called Look Up Table which decides how much of each color is used for a print job. Because of all this exciting new technology the result is printing with reduced graininess, a wide color gamut and very high quality.

The printer can support a wide variety of media, like glossy, matter of fine art paper, with sizes of up to A3+.  Borderless printing can be achieved at a resolution of up to 5760 x 1440 dpi. There is no built in Ethernet, but this printer is hardly the type that needs to be used in an office. You’ll have to make do with 2 USB ports that you can find on the back of the device, thus allowing two computers to be connected at the same time. There’s also the option to print straight from a PictBridge compatible digital camera and you’ll find a separate USB port for that right on the front of the printer (for easy access).

The Epson Stylus photo R1900 is one good photo quality printers and a viable choice for users who are looking to produce photos with a superior gloss finish. The prints are also smudge, fade and water resistant as well as vibrant and gallery-quality. Due to support of roll paper, panorama printing is also possible as well as CD or DVD printing.

First thing that comes to mind when you see the PictureMate 500 is a toaster. This would most likely make the user believe that we’re talking about a dye-sublimation printer. But we’re not. This photo printer makes perfect use of the inkjet technology. Epson is one of the most important manufacturers of photo inkjet printers and has yet to disappoint their consumers with a device.

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Having said that, we start off somewhat knowing that the PictureMate 500 is most likely a high quality printer. Due to its design and the fact that it features a handle as well as a relatively small size and form factor, this PictureMate offers good portability as well. Sadly a rechargeable battery pack is optional and you’ll have to purchase one if you’re planning to take this printer along on trips. The optional lithium-ion battery inserts on the back of the printer.

One bad point of the previous PictureMate model was the lack of LCD screen which made previewing photos imposible. Since the 500 is meant to also be a traveling companion for a digital camera Epson finally included a 2.4 inch color LCD screen right on top of the device. Just in front of the LCD you’ll find a few buttons for navigating the on-screen menu, selecting or canceling print jobs. Users will be able to print straight from a memory card. They’ll find the memory card slots hidden under a fold-down panel on the front of the printer.

Due to PrintBridge technology, printing straight from a compatible digital camera or camera mobile phone is also possible. The feed tray is located on the back of the printer and folds out. It can hold a maximum of 20 photo sheets at a time. Also on the back you’ll find the USB port that you’ll use to hook up this printer to your PC.

One great thing about the PictureMate 500 is that it offers six-color printing. Most of the competing devices released on the market in the same period of time generally offer three, or four as a maximum.  There’s only one cartridge though (running the full width of the device) that features all the six colors of ink (magenta, cyan, yellow, light cyan, light magenta, black). Because it features only one cartridge and allows only one print size (4 by 6 inch) the driver  for the 500 is very simple and to the point. Printing speeds are a bit on the slow side for this 4 x 6 photo printer. Directly from a memory card it will take about 75 seconds for a photo to come out while from PC printing will take about 100 seconds or so.

As a conclusion, the PictureMate 500 is a great device for its price and brings to the market a great design that will thrill photography enthusiasts. If you’re willing to settle for a 4 x 6 photo printer as your only size of media to print on and fond of the idea that you can print from camera, memory card, mobile phone or PC, then keep this among your possible choices.

The way technology is evolving we’ll soon have computing, printing, faxing and internet in our pockets. Some companies already brag about offering that, while it’s true that in reality all they are offering is a smarter mobile phone, for example. But this is the general trend of the market, shrinking powerful technology so that it can easily be carried along.

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The same can be said for printing. Long gone are the days when your printer would only produce mono prints and take up half of your room. Now you can just pick it up by the handle, drop it on the back seat of your car, and print the photos you’ve just taken on a field of flowers in the middle of nowhere.

If you’re looking for a rather simple, compact and good quality printer for 4 by 6 prints then you’ll have yourself an epson vs canon photo printers dilemma to solve. Specifically for that type of user, Canon developed the Selphy compact photo printer line, that is meant to give you the freedom to print high quality photos at any location, straight from a compatible Memory card, digi cam or mobile phone.

They also tried to keep the design of the printers as fun, colorful and family oriented as possible. The whole range uses dye-sublimation thermal transfer printing. Epson’s PictureMate range is a bit more serious than the competition. The design, while still ultraportable is a bit more similar to you regular desk printer. The technology used for PictureMates is inkjet. These tiny Epson printers also have a variety of great features to offer and they’ve been awarded editor’s choice, compact printer of the year and so on.

So which would be a good choice between the two ranges? First off, Canon’s little photo printers use the dye-sublimation technology whereas the Picturemates from Epson are inkjets. So if you’re thinking epson vs canon photo printers, you’ll be thinking dye-sublimation versus inkjet as well. Dye-Sublimation means you can leave the printer around, unused, for a long period of time and it won’t clog.

The same can’t be said for inkjets which do clog if not used at a reasonable interval of time. Canon’s dye-sub printers produce photos that have a clear laminate layer over the ink. The result is rugged, water-proof and highly resistant over time prints. The technology used is the most important thing to consider when picking from canon vs epson.

Aside from that, each model comes with it’s own specific features. What they all have in common is that they can all print directly from a digital camera through PictBridge technology, from memory cards (all models support most types of cards) and they all produce quality prints. The size of both Selphy and Picturemate printers is more than great and you can easily take any of them along on trips.

Selphy’s usually include a batter, whereas for Epson’s PictureMate printers you’ll have to purchase both the battery and the adapter separately. Selphy printers offer more than one print size, while PictureMate printers usually only offer 4 by 6 inch photo printing. With all these considerations, hopefully it will be easier for any user to pick either Canon or Epson, based on what they need from a portable printer.

The Stylus NX515 Epson color printer is an affordable All-in-one that will fit perfectly in a home environment or maybe even a small office with low printing needs. While it’s not the kind of printer that you use heavily, it is a good option for a home multifunction printer. It will print, scan, copy (even without a PC attached). It will do all these things either wired or wireless-ly.

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The design of this printer is extremely pleasant. It has an elegant black shell that ensures it will blend in almost any kind of home or office. The layout of the LCD, control buttons, input tray and card slots is also great and you notice what’s where from the very first moment you come across this printer.  On the left side of the NX515 you will find the 2.5 inch LCD that tilts and the control buttons right in front of it, including a power switch, photo, copy, memory card access and scan buttons plus the directional pad that’s used for navigating throughout the menu.

The NX515 is versatile when it comes to printing possibilities. It will work straight from a compatible digital camera (through the PictBridge USB port) or a memory card (types supported include Compact Flash, xD, SD, and Memory Stick Pro Duo).  You’ll even find a button on the printer that was included specifically for copying files from a memory card and printing them directly.  As for hooking it up to a PC, there are three versions, wired through USB 2.0 or Ethernet, of wireless through 802.11b/g WiFi. Setting up the printer is relatively simple and all drivers you’ll need are found on the CD the printer comes with.

This printer was probably the salesman’s favorite device at a point, because it’s exceptionally easy to recommend the NX515 for many types of users, the price tag is more than convenient and the general satisfaction of its users is high. All-in-one means it can copy, print or scan. One feature that’s not included is the fax machine. But this was a good idea because users that aren’t looking for an office power-horse won’t need that feature.  And they’ll obviously pay a lot less for a device without faxing capabilities.

The quality of prints is not exceptional for text, and especially not for photographs (that come out somewhat grainy).  But that’s if you compare it to products that are generally much more expensive. Overall it has a good price to performance ratio and one of the great Epson color printers on sale. As a conclusion this printer is great if you’re just looking for a regular device that gets almost anything done at a satisfactory quality. If you don’t compare the photos you printed to ones produced by a professional printer, you won’t be disappointed. The integrated scanner is great and can scan to e-mail and it has plenty of features to cover most users’ needs (like networking, free software for greeting cards and calendars).

Users that are looking for a portable photo printer to take along as a buddy for a digital photo camera currently have two good options, Canon’s Selphy line or PictureMate (the Epson photo printers line). Both companies offer great, small sized, high quality photo printers. Still, Epson seems to have gained some more customers lately. Epson must have studied the market really well when deciding to release their PictureMate line of printers, simply because they keep getting very good reviews from both the media and their customers.

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One of their best models is the Charm (PM 225) that managed to be one of the best compact photo printers on the market. It also won various awards and was picked editor’s choice time and time again. Knowing the hype that follows this printer but not knowing what it offers, one can but wonder what all the fuss is about.

First of all let’s mention what’s probably the only inconvenient to the Charm. It limits you to printing only in the 4 by 6 inch photo format. Once a user has established that he/she isn’t bothered by this aspect, then the Charm starts looking like the best choice out on the market.

The design of the Epson Charm is somewhat odd. When closed you might easily mistake it for a candy or ice box. It’s not until you flip the top side that you discover it is actually a photo printer, equipped with a color tilt-able LCD screen that, although small, will come in handy plenty of times. As for speed, a 4 by 6 inch print requires about 54 seconds. This means it’s one of the best portable photo printers out there when it comes to speed, with Canon’s Selphy’s producing the same photograph in a bit over a minute. This difference in speed is most likely due to the technology used. Selphys are dye-sublimation printers whereas the Charm is an inkjet.

Like most other portable printers, The Charm offers a wide variety of printing options sans PC. It can print straight from a PictBridge compatible camera, memory card (it supports mini SD, Memory Stick Duo, MMC and Compact Flash), from a mobile phone or other Bluetooth powered device (if you chose to buy the optional Bluetooth adapter). The quality of the prints is really pleasing. Photos are clear, realistic and well balanced. It has actually been described as a perfect 10 in terms of quality. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise that maintenance cost is reasonable.

As a conclusion this is one of the Epson photo printers that is highly portable and a great buy. It’s very easy to use and produces some prints with excellent quality. It would have been nice if, like the Canon Selphy line, Epson would have included the battery and Bluetooth adapter so that the user didn’t have to purchase them separately. Still, it’s lovely to have them even as options. The battery will cost around $50 whereas the Bluetooth adapter is a bit cheaper at $40.

The very high quality of Epson photo printers has taken some consumers by surprise. Most reviews of the Epson PictureMate printers are positive ones and the devices seem to offer a lethal combination of great features, print quality and reasonably low printing and acquiring costs. PictureMates are photo dedicated printers, as the name suggests, that target the owner of a digital camera that still enjoys printing out his works of art. One such model is the PhotoMate Zoom (PM 290). The printer has been launched in September 2007 and still manages to compete on the market.

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The Zoom is in many ways similar to its brother, the PM 260 (Epson Dash). Similarities include design, most features and even price tag.  But the Zoom is slightly more filled with features. It also includes a CD burner (and DVD reader) that will allow the transfer of photos from memory cards or USB sticks straight onto a CD. This means you won’t really need a computer to move all the pictures from your digi cam onto a CD to make room for more pictures. Epson also made burning CD’s a very easy task.

You’ll just have to insert your memory card then press the ‘save to CD’ button. All instructions are displayed on the LCD, and if should be able to follow them with no problem. Another very nice option you have is to print an index sheet of the photos you want to burn on the CD. This way you’ll have thumbnails of the pictures as well, and know what is where.

The design of the printer is very similar to other portable ones you’ve seen on the market. It somewhat resembles a lunchbox and has a handle that makes it easier to carry the device around. Epson also provides an optional battery so that you can print from anywhere without having to rely on a power source to plug the Zoom in. On a fully charged battery, you’ll be able to print around 140 photos.

The top cover of the printer, once you open it, works as a paper tray. On the top you’ll also find the 3.5 inch LCD (that’s great for previewing photos) and the control buttons. Aside from using your PC, with the Zoom you may print from a digi cam through PictBridge, memory card, USB stick or CD/DVD.

Both the speed and photo quality are great on the Epson PM 290 Zoom. It will take somewhere in between 40 and 50 seconds to print out a 4 by 6 inch photo, depending on what device you are printing from. This makes it one of the fastest photo printers on the market. The quality of the Zoom is actually outstanding for a small photo printer. It isn’t quite professional photo printer quality but it won’t disappoint either.

Epson also claims that it takes 200 years before they start to deteriorate if kept in an album (dark storage) or 96 years if you keep them framed up on the wall. Photos produced by the Zoom are also water and scratch resistant. As a conclusions, if you want to print some high quality 4 by 6 inch photos on the go and aren’t very tight with money, this is one of the Epson photo printers that can do that. Retailing for a bit under $200, it is a very satisfying choice.

While HP may be the king of multifunction printers and office all-in-ones, Epson has been generally good at providing good picture and photo quality. When buying a photo printer, there are several things to take into account, like resolution, number of inks, price and features. One can achieve satisfactory results when printing photos on your standard inkjet printer, but if you’re a bit more pretentious and are looking for high quality printing to match your high quality digital camera, then you might as well buy a dedicated photo printer.

The main difference between Epson’s 830 and 830u, two of the company’s photo printers, is that the later has 2 USB ports, one of which is positioned on the back of the device, with the second being on the front. Epson added the second USB port for allowing the user to connect a notebook in the front port (to print out photos) without having to disconnect the printer from the PC it’s hooked to on a regular basis. But just be aware that for the printer to work with a notebook, you’ll have to install the drivers on it.

The interesting thing about the Epson 830u photo printer is that it has a color cartridge including six colors, instead of the usual three that we find in other products. There is also a separate black ink cartridge. The main idea to the use of more colors was that it’s meant to make photo printing more accurate. A bigger palette of colors means higher quality and prints that look more realistic.

Since it isn’t burdened with any extra features (like in the case of inkjet all-in-ones) and focused strictly on printing pictures, the quality of the prints is remarkable. The speed isn’t all that great and you may have to grab a coffee or entertain yourself with something else while waiting for your photos to be printed, but they say all good things are worth the wait. It’s also recommended that you use high quality photo paper when using the Epson 830u to print. Epson claims that their photo paper will maintain it’s color and quality for over 20 years.

Printing text, however is not so great, but as mentioned before, this device is strictly targeting people who are only interested in the quality of the photos it can provide.The software that the printer comes with is rather complex, and you could call it a photo laboratory on your PC screen. It includes various features for maintenance, calibration and the user will be able to change almost any setting including saturation, contrast or the strength of each color.

Among its inconveniences we can mention that it generally consumes a lot of ink, and when you’ll want to replace the cartridges you’ll find that they are somewhat expensive. On the bright side, the initial price you’ll pay for the printer is very low. So comparing quality to price, it’s safe to say that the Epson Stylus Photo 830U printer is worth it.

As most users know, printers do have a bad habit of sometimes causing you problems. They usually range from printing lines to not printing at all, or not feeding the paper properly but there are a couple of things you can try for fixing any of them, before you decide to ship your printer off, back to your manufacturer. This also stands for Epson printer stylus color 880/880i/8 problems.

If the Epson Stylus Color 880 isn’t printing at all, the first step you need to take is make sure the printer cable is properly connected to the printer as well as your PC port. To check if this was the problem, you’ll need to power off the PC and try printing again. If your printer is simply taking out blank pages, you need to make sure that you are using the correct printer driver and that the paper size selected in the driver is the right one as well. For a printer that’s only using black ink for everything, check the printer drivers to see if it isn’t by any chance set to print black only. There’s also a chance that the print head nozzles are clogged.

One clear sign that the print head nozzles may be clogged is that the printer makes a sound exactly like it does when it actually prints, even if there’s no ink on the paper coming out. In this case, go to your printer driver yet again and perform a head cleaning. After that you may also try a nozzle check. Examine the printed dot pattern and see if it looks like it’s supposed to, with no gaps or missing parts. If there are gaps, perform another printing check.

Another problem that some users seem to be experiencing is that upon the installment of a new cartridge the Stylus Color 880 will start doing continuous cleaning cycles. The manufacturer considers this a normal process. It apparently takes up to 2 minutes to initialize the printer from installing a new ink cartridge and Epson recommends that you keep the printer turned on till the point where you know for sure it has not moved or made any noise for over 5 minutes.

While this covers the problems you can have with actual printing, let’s take some time to talk about what can happen with the paper as well. If the printer won’t feed paper, first check if there are any errors. You may run across the ‘paper not loaded correctly’ one. If that’s the case, remove your paper from the sheet feeder, make sure it’s the appropriate size, that it’s not creased or loaded above the arrow on the left edge of the tray. If this still doesn’t do the truck, power the device off and power it on again.

These quick solutions should work for minor Epson printer stylus color 880/880i/8 problems, but if they don’t, make sure and contact your provider or Epson support.