Epson has the 2880 on their site for $680.00 and you get a $200.00 mail-in rebate for an end cost of $480.00...seems like a good price. I'm considering the 3880 but it's almost $800.00 more. I'm wondering how long it would take to make up that difference with the ink savings one would get from using the 3880. Thanks.
There are a few ways to look at this. If you think an R2880 is large enough to fit your printing needs AND that you'll run through ink cartridges fairly often you might want to look at a CIS such as this one which seems to be considered reliable.
Or you can decide that since the 3880 comes with about $500 worth of ink included in the price, and that it's going to take a lot of printing to use it up, maybe that's the way to go. It really comes down to how you intend to use it & how often you'll print big, which is where the ink consumption will be highest.
I don't want to print anymore than I have to so I went ahead and ordered the 2880 from Epson. I'm afraid if I bought the 3880 I would get carried away making 16x20 prints and go broke..
I hope you ordered some paper too. Download the ICC profiles and you'll get some excellent results. I've had mine since mid Oct & am very happy with it. I'd also recommend downloading the pdf on Color Management they provide. It's handy for the first run through when setting up printing through Photoshop etc.
Just look at it this way. The 3880 comes with a full set of inks. That by itself is about $500 worth of ink compared with the smaller 11ml ink cartridges that comes with the 2880. For me, this was the deciding factor for me with the 3800 and I didn't regret it. Printing 17" wide with cost effective larger ink cartridges was the way for me. I love the 3800 and the 3880 is even better.
I have the 2880, it is dreadful when loading thicker papers such as Epson Velvet Fine Art paper. Unless you are patient person, I would not get this printer.
I had the 2880 and because the prints were so amazing, I found myself priting more. Plus, when providing prints to clients as part of the package, they ended up being disappointed when they went elsewhere for their prints and came back to me. It only made sense for me to get something with more ink capacity and finally the 3880 came out
