Olympus P-400 Printer

Used two of these printers high volume at state legislature all in all they did the job but I have used a sony upd70ap for my personal business for four + years and it has none of the weaknesses stated below. Conclusion - If your very budget constrained I say go for it still alot better and faster then ink jets but if your a professional and using it for business pay a little more and take a look at the sony I mentioned or the kodak 8500 its cheaper although not made for high volume kodak offers great warrenty if it breaks they next day you a new one you box yours send it back and never see it again you can also extend warranty up to three extra years

Good resolution for price comparable to other more expensive dye subs

after one year of high volume printing one printer started getting lines through prints (thermal head damaged) probably expensive fix but these printers are not truly built for high volume printing. The largest weakness we found was color bleeding ex. red flag on white wall the red would bleed into white on edges of flag this was only evident in certain situations red seemed the worst. Last but not least I could not understand why anyone would make a photo printer that prints just under 8x10

sony upd70ap kodak 8500

left before they repaired it

This is a fantastic printer. The prints are continuous tone and look and feel like wet chemistry prints. And they are available for a very low price - all the fuss over 1/3 of an inch! I have no issues with prints that are 7.64 x 10.

Image quality. Print speed. Simple set-up. No injet heads to clog.

A little noisey, but not bad. Must use Olympus supplies only (but they are excellent).

Fuji Frontier purchased prints. Various inkjets.

Not needed.

At the 200 dollar price level that this printer is being sold for on Ebay (refurbished direct from Olympus) you can't really beat the quality it produces for that price. Prints stunning A4 sized prints in a matter of seconds. Overall for someone who wants to print an occasional print or someone who handles on site event printing this printer can handle the workload.

The results are equal to that of something you would get back from the lab for about the same price. Easy to install and setup, plenty of ability to calibrate the printer your monitor to get perfect results. Very speedy if you have a decent computer hooked up to it.

You cannot print a true 8x10 inch print. Instead it prints the A4 size. This is not as big a factor to me becaue the A4 size still easily fits a standard 8x10" matte frame. There is not a whole lot of media available for it and it does cost about a dollar and a half to print each print. Still less than going to the lab and you get a result in under a minute so not a problem for me.

This is the first dye-sub that I have owned but have seen the Kodak 8500 (which is definately a better printer but costs equally as much) and the Fuji pictro which I would say is just as good as the Olympus but not as cheap.

none used so far.

Coming from the hospital to Wal-Mart to pick up a digital camera was the fist mission. A newborn baby will start the cash flowing, so a Olympus D-560 zoom and back to the hospital. Now, what to use to print the new born angel? I looked all over the internet, I live in a small town that only carries HP or Cannon inkjet printers. I found lots of reviews with nothing positive about either brand except they are cheaper. So I weigh the cost factor and my baby, my baby won out.. what is to spare on a once in a life time picture? So, in steps the Olympus site and the P-400 all things considered I knew its what I wanted but I had to trust the feedback on the internet. And find the best price and a reliable company to purchase it from. Thank you for the feedback, it helped me. The deciding factor was reading about the difference in Inkjet photos, get it wet and you have a ruined picture to the Dye sublimation technology of the P-400 which protects the pictures with film cover. I didn’t like the idea that my now newborn, later in life will smudge or get her picture wet and ruin it. I wanted it to be a “keepsake” and I think the P-400 will do it. Using ABT Electronics and Appliances was easy, I called the 800 number and the order took about 5 minutes after a few question on my part. The shipping was free, The price on a new model not refurbished was the lowest I could find on the internet. When the printer arrived it was packed in a HUGE box the packaging was to protect the printer, I was impressed with the care they shipped the equipment in. It is much bigger then I had planned for but had the space besides my monitor as this will be used with a USB PC connection. That is the only thing missing in the box, the USB cable which luckily I had a spare and off I went to setup the unit. Setting up the unit was fairly easy, the “Read Me First” directions are clear and easy to follow. Loading the color ribbon was the only part that threw me for a minute. I tried it upside down the first time and that just took trying to close the door to figure out it wasn’t right. The printer driver in a plain white CD case not clearly marked on the outside was the only point of concern, wanting the install to go the first time which it did. I am using Windows 98se and it went as the flow chart described. The test was printing the first picture, the software Camedia that came with the camera was great and easy to use, just choose a photo, choose a size and print. The quality was fantastic. The only thing I wish I had done when I ordered the unit was order more paper and printer cartridges. Those I’ll have to purchase over the internet also. I am fully satisfied with the system, I am a first time digital camera and printer owner. I can see this purchase bringing much joy to our family and friends. I’m glad I went the more expensive route, I feel better knowing my daughters pictures are coming out the way we see her, simply beautiful.

The quality of the pictures has everyone I show them to oooohing and ahhhhing. And it was easy!

Due to living in a very small town there is not an Olympus dealer in town which forces me to purchase my supplies on the internet.

N/A

I have found this to be a surprisingly good printer. Prices have dropped recently to the $400 range, making it an even better deal. While not overly expensive, keep in mind that it functions only as an image printer, so you must have a regular laser or ink jet printer for general use. A common complaint is that the A4 size paper is not quite 8x10. This is true, but inconsequential. An 8x10 frame or 8x10 mat covers the entire picture area without showing edges. Best of all is the print quality. Even though the maximum resolution is 314 dpi, it is nearly impossible to tell that prints didn't come from a regular lab. The ability to generate beautiful prints with a low resolution means that manipulating an image in PhotoShop (or a similar program) can be done quite quickly. You don't need the latest Cray mainframe computer to generate an image during one lifetime. I scan slides and negatives at 4000 dpi using a Canon FS4000 film scanner which takes a couple minutes. However, I crop the scanned image to 8x10 at 314 dpi. Cropping and subsequent manipulations such as color and contrast adjustments can be done very quickly. The cost of printing an 8x10 images is less than $2.00 even if you by the materials locally. You will save money by purchasing the film ribbon and paper from a mail order house such as B&H Photo.

Images are nearly indistinguishable from those made from a quality lab. The price is reasonable. The small file sizes allows manipulations in PhotoShop to be performed very quickly. It is very easy to change the film ribbon and add paper.

Although not an actual weakness, keep in mind that the printer only produces images and cannot be used for printing text. Also keep in mind that only glossy paper is available.

A variety of ink jet photo quality printers that are capable of excellent images. The required file sizes greatly increase processing time.

Not needed.