Darkroom on my desk
Written: Sep 13 '00 (Updated Sep 14 '00)
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Pros: Top Quality, Speed, Software
Cons: Doesn't come with a cable
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| Andyman's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 2000P Inkjet Printer |
I love my 1270. Buy one, buy one, buy one. This printer kicks some serious tail for printing photos. I've had a digital camera for a long time, but only now do my friends truly envy me, because I can print out an entire day's worth of photos, cropped and adjusted if I like, at high quality, for less than the cost of a roll of film and processing prints at a drugstore.
I bought my 1270 for photo-printing and that's how I'll review it. As long as you stick to the good Epson photo paper, you'll get great results. It's not the greatest plain-paper text printer in the world, though it's certainly adequate for the occasional letter or shopping list.
QUALITY:
If you're suspicious about the photo quality you'll get from an inkjet printer, you're not alone. I was too. "How can it be better than a laser?" I was saying. But in one of those weird twists of technological evolution, it's now cheaper to make super-fine inket heads than quality color laser printers. Epson does exactly that across it's whole line. If you are printing from a quality source, like a scan of a negative of photographic print, you will see no banding, no ink dots, and no wrinkling of the paper (again, stick to Epson's photo paper or premium glossy).
The printed area of the photo will shine like a glossy photographic print, and you will hardly be able to believe that an inkjet spat it out. Some of the most demanding of you may raise issues with tone variance or color fidelity, but to my simple eyes, the prints just look awesome.
FEATURES:
The thing that sets the 1270 apart from Epson's other printers is mainly that it can print up to 13" wide. I myself wondered whether it was worth shelling out $450 for something that's not quite poster sized, though larger than tabloid. The jury is still out on that one. I've found that printing out my photos at 8.5x11 seems huge. It's already 4 times the size of what you'd get at Fotomat, and certainly as large as I ever printed in a darkroom. The 1400x720 resolution is about the same as other Epson printers. The 4 pico-liter drop size is the smallest I've seen yet. 6-color process is better for photo printing as it gives the printer more to work with in reproducing a wide range of tones realisitically.
The software (I use a Mac) is excellent. I connect via USB, and the printer's response is snappy, whether I'm initiating or cancelling a print. The print software itself is very well-put-together (rare). It offers a print preview mode which is helpful in making sure you have your scaling/resolution right before you make that print. It also tells you how you're doing on ink. All kinds of color management, image correction, quality tweaking, and layout options are built right in to the software, making the printing process easy and accurate. I've had excellent results relying on Apple's Color Sync software so far (this printer is Color-Sync ready with software profiles and all).
SPEED:
Not a complete dinosaur like previous Epson color printers. Actually pretty quick. A 4x6" photo comes out in under a minute. An 8x10" might take two minutes. But this is not one of those printers that sits around, cleaning it's heads, spinning it's wheels, wasting time instead of slaving for you. It does the job in record time.
COST:
Printer, with a free USB cable bundled: $469 at Outpost
100 sheets of Epson photo paper, 8.5x11" : $20 at Costco
20 sheets of Epson photo paper, 4x6": $7 at CompUSA
Black ink cartridge: $20 at Outpost
Color ink cartridge: $27 at Outpost - I estimate 100 4x6 photos per cart.
CABLE:
You need to buy your own cable, whether USB or parallel. They decided not to ship it with two cables, one of which you wouldn't use.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 450
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
Andyman
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Member: Andy Hilal
Location: Oakland, CA
Reviews written: 131
Trusted by: 177 members
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