What's your take on the current offerings if the goal is matte and semi-gloss printing? Reading the Epson 2880 customer reviews on Amazon were surprisingly negative; lot's of talk about clogs and other failures. Calumet posts the 2880 at $550 after rebates, so prices are pretty comparable.
That's some scary stuff. I was all decided on buying one of these when my next paycheck arrives, now am reconsidering, maybe the Canon Pixma Pro 9500 instead. I had an Epson photo printer years ago that clogged like crazy. Had terrible experience with Epson support and literally threw the thing in the trash. I switched to Canon at that point. When I wore out the paper feed rollers on my S800, Canon Tech Support replaced it promptly. I also had an S900 that was trouble-free.
Yes, I was impressed by the negative reviews on the Epson 2880 as well. HP offers two 13" machines, and the B9180 is reviewed favorably by Jon Canfield here
I've run the out of production Epson 2200 for about four years and it has never balked once! It has been a 13" workhorse (although poor in the B&W department but with the QRTgui RIP produces stunning B&Ws) I "understand" the replacement 2400 is every bit as good as the 2200 and prints nice B&Ws (think it can still be purchased new from old stock)
I just put the 3800 17" online and so far it's been stellar in both color and B&W. I've run Epson printers for years and never a glitch. YMMV
In the long run, the Epson 3800 is the far more economical printer and it has a $200 rebate now. That 17" model is my recommendation to anyone considering a 13" printer and I've finally purchased one for myself.
All of the 13" printers have a downside. They use small desktop size ink carts that cost a high amount per mL of ink and they waste a good portion of that ink on maintenance and other activities. 13" printers generally have a 12-15mL ink cartridge at roughly $1/mL. The 3800 moves to a 80mL cartridge at $0.60/mL.
I've been using an R1800 for 4 years and it bleeds you dry on ink. I bought it before the 2400 was released at a time when it had some advantages over the 2200. I live in a very dry climate in Colorado and occasionally will have ink clog issues, especially in late summer. Head cleanings use a significant amount of ink, up to 20% of all the cartridges if the clog requires several cleanings. That is 2.4 mL per ink cart and costs about $20. The other annoying feature is that the printer primes all the inks every time you switch one cartridge, wasting even more from its miniscule ink carts.
The B9180 would be my first choice in the 13" category simply because it uses larger cartridges than any of the other 13" printers. But the ink is no cheaper per mL with this printer. It also has issues. It has been known to create "pizza wheel" markings on gloss papers. I would also guess that its auto head cleaning is nice, but can empty your ink carts if you don't use it for a while. A friend of mine experienced this expensive issue with his Canon iPF5000.
Good points on the 3800. Is cut-sheet printing with A4 (8.5x11) practical on the 3800? I'm trying to get away from swapping MK & PK carts, so the 3800 doesn't help there. One wonders if the 3800 replacement will have both blacks.
Didn't know about the pizza wheel marks on the HP. They fall at the edge of the page, I'll guess. Any work arounds you've come across?
John, you are mistaken on the ink switching for the 3800....it holds all the blacks and auto-switches...no problem there. Only thing the 3800 lacks, IMHO, is roll-feed but it will print up to 37" so you can custom cut roll paper and feed it. There are custom RIPs that will allow the 3800 to print longer.
Another poster mentioned the $200 rebate on the 3800....that is true but only if you buy the two 3800s that have the portrait and pro packages; the basic 3800 does not have the rebate. I just received mine a week ago and I did a lot of research; best online advertised price is from Atlex which is $1149.00 with free shipping. Shades of Paper has a higher advertised price and after I ordered my 3800 Shades advised they would price match albeit too late.
Trout Guy wrote:
Another poster mentioned the $200 rebate on the 3800....that is true but only if you buy the two 3800s that have the portrait and pro packages; the basic 3800 does not have the rebate.
Actually a new rebate came out on 12/1/08 including the 3800 standard. The rebate runs through 12/31. It was not on Epson's site last I looked, but they've been lagging a bit and just recently added the 7880 rebate, even though it has been available since November. I printed the rebate for the 3800 standard from a link at Atlex's website.
I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my 3800. It should be here soon. I ordered mine through Atlex as well and I've used them for several years. I had been going back and forth about ordering a 4880 and decided to order it on 12/1 when I saw the NEW 3800 rebate.
As for cut sheet paper. Even the 4880 is practical for cut sheets, so long as you use sheets it can handle (A4/letter or larger). For the 3800 it will accept as small as 4X6 paper and A4 will not cause any problems. Its only when you get to the 7XXX or larger printers that cut sheets become somewhat impractical. Of course the type of paper can cause some complications on the 17" printers. Depending on the thickness of the media, it might demand a different paper path and if it is like my R1800, it will not accept multiple sheets at one time through the thick media path.
Also, on the 2880 consumer reviews, it seems all of Amazon's negative reviews are clumped into a recent period, but make up a small amount of the total 2880 reviews. Perhaps there was simply a bad batch at that point of time.
Also, the R1900 looks like a great printer. It addresses one of the weakness I felt my R1800 has. The R1800 has a weak yellow ink. The R1800 is great when you need to go between gloss and matte papers, but usually not so great for B&W printing and somewhat weak on shadow detail on matte papers. I would suspect that the R1900 faces the same issues.
Thanks all. Good input here. Embarrassingly, I didn't know the 3800 held both blacks. Arguments favoring it over the 13" ink costs would make sense for some users.
Are you buying and cutting roll goods for the 3800, or are you buying the 17x25 stock some suppliers offer? Any great success stories for matte or semi-gloss media, and are you making custom profiles for those papers?
John, I haven't yet but will buy 17" rolls and custom cut to print panos. Atlex sells a 17x25 sheet that you can print true 16x24 on...will be trying that as well.
Once I get a 17" roll I will experiment with making a rack on the wall behind the printer that will allow the roll to feed through the rear slot without cutting it first...can just cut after it comes out the front of the printer...I think that might work and I'll probably experiment with some 13" roll paper I already have.
I use 17x22" paper as none of the local stores carry 17x25" for some reason. My favourite paper so far is the Ilford Gold Fibre Silk. Very reasonably priced and the prints are vibrant and stand up very well to handling. I use Ilford's profiles and they're spot on.
I also like the Hahnemule papers, especially the Photo Rag Baryta. It's better than the Ilford but not by much and is almost twice the price, so I mostly use the Ilford.
For matte papers, again the Hahnemuhle papers are hard to beat but so are the Epson; my favourite Epson is Velvet Fine Art. Gorgeous for black and white and more muted colour photos.
As others have noted, the 3800 does mount both photo and matte black simultaneously but they share a line so there is a small cost to switching between them. It has been estimated at $4 to $5 for a round trip. I tend to do all my matte printing one day and then glossy another, thus minimizing the switching costs.
I have never found any need for custom profiles. My monitor is calibrated and my prints match it very closely. The Epson profiles are excellent and so are the Hahnemuhle and Ilford.
I should say that I'm an amateur and the needs of a professional may be more exacting.
I've had my 3800 about 14 months and so far have replaced three of tanks. It will be some time before I've replaced them all and I'm not concerned about the inks going bad.
Epson says "for best results" use the ink within 6 months of installation and has a "best before" date on the cartridge packaging but I wouldn't be overly concerned about it. I spoke with an Epson representative at a photo show recently and he confirmed that these are suggested dates and the ink will last much longer. It's probably a very conservative estimate for two reasons:
1. In the unlikely event the ink actually does go bad, they won't be liable if your print head is gummed up.
2. It may encourage some people to replace perfectly good cartridges just to be safe. Remember that the main profit in the printer business is the ink and paper, not the printers themselves.
This being said, if you only make a small number of prints each year, say 20 to 40, then the R1900 may well be a better option for you.
Second the 3800. Agonized over the 2880/2400 (still in stock in some spots) but all came down to ink costs (dramatically lower per ml with the 3800) and paper size.
When I looked at the difference in price after you factor in the ink shipped with the printers (3800: 9*80 ml carts for ~US$450 vs 2880: 9*11 ml carts for ~$150), the actual 'hardware' price difference is miniscule - about the price of one packet of 17x25 paper.
I also wanted to buy a printer I knew I wouldn't outgrow for some time as re-sale on used printers is laughable - if even doable given shipping costs vs re-sale price.
Was tempted by roll paper with 2880/2400 but kept reading of folks struggling to take the curl out of roll paper after printing, so that was a bit of a negative (for me).
My 3800 arrived last week and is one impressive machine. Still testing papers such as Harman FB AL, Epson Premium Luster, Hahnemuhle Baryta with more gloss/matte sample packs en-route with primarily B&W prints , but absolutely no regrets at all on my part.
17x25 seems large but if like me you sometimes like the option of cutting a large print with a generous paper border vs. a costly matte, the large paper-handling capabilities of units like the 3800 are handy. 17x25 paper ain't cheap, but it's far cheaper than paying for a matte on say a 13*19" or 14*14" photo.
It's nice to hold an ink cart in your hand that has some serious heft to it vs. the glorified jewelry that ships with more consumer-centric printers.
As for inks 'stale-dating'; convention seems to be Epson is pushing cart sales and if you have some longer-term down time, simply remove and gently shake each cart and re-install.
Ignore the short term cash outflow if you feel you can and focus on where you want to be re: printing say in 1-2 years fwd -- and look long and hard at ink costs.
From reading tutorials and user commentary I gather that Epson makes the best 7 or 9 color pigment ink jet printers but Canon makes the best 5 and 7 cartridge dye ink jet printers.
