I am now very happy with the quality and speed of this printer, and have used matte, pearl and high gloss papers with spectacular results.
I went through all the usual problems of getting the right settings for this printer to get the images looking good. It wasn't easy to track down the best drivers for different papers, even from the Epson site. This has now been fixed up, and the new drivers seem to work well on a range of papers. I use Ilford Gallerie Smooth Pearl most of the time; Epson Archival Matte for a softer look and especially for softer images that are to be framed; and Ilford Gallerie Smooth High Gloss for saturated and contrasty images that have strong colour. The printer has some problems with the matte and high gloss papers: At highest resolution and on humid days, the matte paper absorbs too much moisture and bends in the printer, and then the print head hits the paper and makes marks. I have overcome this by holding the paper down as it comes out of the printer, and then got carried away and put an airconditioner in the room! The high gloss paper is brilliant, and almost as good as the old CibaChrome paper for printing from slides. BUT - it curls in all conditions as it goes into the printer, and the print head then hits the edges!! Pity there isn't a better system for holding papers flat in line with the print head. I can only overcome this one by reverse curling the paper before putting it into the printer.
I have had very few paper feed problems if I follow the paper instructions (use the backing sheet for archival matte and thin papers!).
The colours are really good. Not too saturated and 'primary' as with some of the newer dye printers. Skin tones can be very tricky though - magenta and some reds seem to be a bit strong (but drivers have a major influence on this). The gloss optimiser is wonderful on the gloss and pearl papers - no metamerism, and a great even finish. Black and white was a real pain to get the right settings but I think I have it now for matte: the new enhanced matte driver; relative colorimetric, ICM and no colour adjustment, not high speed, best photo. It is the relative colorimetric that stops the colour casts.
For the price, I recommend this printer, but be prepared to spend some time learning how to drive it!
Strengths:
Quiet
Quite fast
Great colours
Photo and matte black
Long life images
Gloss optimiser is great
Separate ink cartridges
Overall build quality
Fast drying on all coated papers
Weaknesses:
Paper path feed system doesn't hold paper flat at print head (problem with all borderless printers?)
Roll paper system is a fiddle and takes a lot of room
Skin tones sometimes a problem
Steeper learning curve than is really necessary if the instruction book was better written
The quality of the prints is excellent. Poor workmanship, warranty, and service. I don't recommend this product at all, for anyone. It's a poor value.
Strengths:
Good quality inkjet prints at a fast speed. If you're not getting the quality you desire you probably should work on your digital images more & experiment with different papers at different settings - it can be tough to get perfect inkjet print for the discerning eye. People write entire books on the subject, after all. Firewire option is good.
Weaknesses:
The build quality is poor. Mine had trouble after just 6 months of VERY light use. The paper feed is picky, it won't accept certain papers, jams frequently, and I basically have to hand feed papers to the machine. The on/off button is unresponsive. You have to push down on it for awhile and it doesn't really move at all so you're not sure if you're actually turning it on or off. The warranty is not good enough - just 1 year. This may be the norm for most products, but that's just not good enough. If their product is defective there is no 800 number to call, you have to pay for a long-distance phone call. Mine doesn't work too well anymore and the warranty just expired. For over $350 that's poor value. Inks are expensive, but that's probably the case with all printers. Overall, I've had nothing but trouble with this printer, unlike the 1280 I have, which has worked perfectly ever since I purchased it.
I wish I could say I like the printer, but I haven't been able to get it to print correctl. My prints have a dark yellow tint to them. I installed the newest driver, 5.5aA which is suppose to resolve that problem, but it didn't. I contacted Epson and there reply (which I received after two or three e-mails) was to install the newest driver, the 5.5aA. So they don't read there e-mails very closely. So I called, on my dime since they don't have an 800#, and was told to install the newest driver 5.5aA, if that's not it then clean the heads. The printer is new, but I cleaned them anyway. Still no change. I use epson prem. glossy and Epson ink. The "tech" said if it still isn't correct then I must be doing something wrong. Which might be true, but I told them what I was doing and they didn't say to change anything. After a couple of days I rec'd an e-mail telling me to uninstall, go into the registry to delete any remnants that might be still there,and reinstall. I did, it didn't work, I e-mailed them to tell them it didn't work and what to do now. That has been 7 days ago and I haven't heard from them yet.
Please don't regard this review to be of a professional level report. It is the first impression of a serious amateur requiring near-to-professional print quality for model and portrait photography. (I print several hundreds of A4 size photo's per year)
According to publications, durability of prints is in the range of 80 years in stead of 10 years for prints on Epson paper. It was my major reason to buy this printer. Of course I'm not able to verify this.
I hope you can appreciate the experience which I can share with you:
- The R800 prints rather fast. An A4 print at Best Photo Quality takes about 5 minutes.
- I can hardly distinguish such a print from the same photografically produced photo. There is no visual difference in quality. Only the little difference in paper coating (Epson premium glossy versus photograpic glossy) can be noticed.
- It takes about one cartridge cyaan and one cartridge magenta per 35 A4 size photo prints. It takes much less yellow and gloss and hardly any red, blue and black. Although the cartridges contain only 13 ml of ink they seem to last as long as the 950 cartridges, perhaps even longer.
- There have been owner reports regarding cluttered heads when not using the printer for only a few days. Mine have not needed any cleaning yet, also not after a week's rest.
- Compared to the 950 it is very silent.
- It produces fine borderless prints. Normal prints show a very small border on all sides (about 3 mm)
- Compared with the 950 prints seem to be sharper and a bit more colorfull.
If you like an impression of the type of photo's that I print take a look at:
http://www.estila.nl/
Strengths:
Excellent quality of photo prints.
With the R800 print durability which untill now was a real weak point of inkjet prints far exceeds photographic prints.
Weaknesses:
The mentioned print quality requires genuine Epson paper and ink which makes prints rather expensive.
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