Beautiful prints. It was economical to buy.

Expensive to use. Complicated to get to work right: I can fix it but my wife would have thrown it away 4 years ago.

Some times, in the middle of the night, this printer can make wish you were never born. Or at least wish you had a different printer. It’s nozzles will clog continuously and some times they won’t open no matter how many cleaning cycles you do. On many occasions I’ve had to take the print head apart and clean it by hand. (if you use it once a week you may avoid this problem). Ink cartridges may not be expensive (to some people), but they don’t print many pages so the bottom line is that photos printed on with this printer are EXPENSIVE. I have my doubts on the accuracy of the chip that “monitors” the ink levels. For starters, even if all you use is red ink, the status monitor will tell you that all colors are coming down equally. That of course is a lie. You do have to find a magical combination of color adjustments to get good prints. I have found it, and I don’t warranty it will work for you but it goes as follows: cyan -4, magenta -6, yellow +8, “Epson natural” not selected. I use Konica Minolta Glossy photo paper. If you use other papers color output Will change. In Epson papers this calibration looks a little more yellow. Having said that, I can now tell you that I LOVE the prints I get from my little printer, they are sharp, bright, accurate, consistent. Not cheap though. This is a 2001 model and even today (year 2006) the quality of the prints competes with the ones printed on the newer models.

-print quality

-unless the printer breaks on me in the future, what it''s given me is little to complain about so far.

For those of you who are looking at this review -- the $780 has been retired for a new model. Still, you can find these around like I did on Ebay (new). After reading reviews from here, CNET, and ZDNET, I was eager to get this but weary of five things: print time, sound, nozzle plugging, printer track marks, and compatability issues. I use window XP and do use XP''s driver that is already installed (works ok) but the program does pop up a print communication error every once in a while out of the blue. I''m not sure what the cause of that problem is but usually I can ignore it for a print or two before needing to shut down the computer and rebooting. The printer track marks on the picture isn''t as bad as people make it out to be. This had me worried -- and though I eventually noticed it after the 20th print or so on a very light picture, I had to look just right at an angle in really good light, and even then it didn''t diminish the picture. Now that I know it gives these tiny micro marks I can find them if I go looking but straight on and not holding the picture close to my face, it''s just not there or discernable to me. That was totally overblown in my estimation by reviewers, especially on a $99 dollar printer for those that complained so much on other sites. Again, I braced for increadably distracting noise from this computer and my apprehension seems to have worked in my favor as it isn''t "quiet" but not bothersome to me in the least. No nozzle pluging so far. I''m so new to the printer (about 35 prints) that it''s still on the default dpi (whatever it''s set to - I haven''t checked it out), but the print time is 6 min for an 8 x 10. It''s not like I rip off a ton of 8 x 10 at a time so 6 minutes doesn''t seem to long for me to wait for a great looking print. The only other small problems I''ve had was when one of the pictures got sucked back up the printer after it was finished and tore it a bit, and trying to figure out the software settings for no border, etc., which took me a few pictures to figure out. I tried non Epson photo paper and it wasn''t usable/very very poor prints. So, I''m sticking to Epson materials which produce great quality and are priced competitively with other makers. The ink does get used kind of quickly (relatively). I made about 30 prints (some 8 x 10''s and 4 x 6) before needing to replace the ink cartridge.

Similar Products Used:

basic HP printer

None

Printer looks cheesy and cheap; supplies are expensive. Printer is not particularly fast.

Excellent print quality. I was disappointed to note that the 780 takes smaller ink cartridges than the 1270, although the ink formula is said to be the same. Thus the per-print cost is higher.

Similar Products Used:

Stylus Photo 700, Stylus photo 1270.

Superior photo quality for price. By far the best printer driver in the buisness. Easily handles common stock.

Lack of CFS for print cartridges.
Difficult to refill ink

If you have a 2.1M++ digital camera then the Epson is the only way to go for price. While all photo printers seem to increase capabilites while lowering price, its the output that really counts. I went through the original cartridges in two days and have a ton of 8x10s to show for it! If you price your digital work as much as you do your film prints then get one now. Only system I have seen better is the Fuiji film processor using crystal archive paper. Say goodbye sub dyes...

Customer Service

None needed

Similar Products Used:

Lexmark z43, HP Series including Apollo.

2880 DPI
6 ink system
borderless prints
chipped cartridges
USB

Speed (25 mins, 2880 8x10)
Chipped cartridges
No roll paper option (I wouldn't use it anyway though)
IMAC look?

A great printer.. difference between 1440 and 2880 only noticeable under an 8x loupe. Borderless 4x6s look like they came from your local pro lab (Yes its that good.) Sellable prints makes me more money :) (8x10 for $1 instead of $8 at a pro lab). Chipped cartridges means no more ink refill kits or aftermarket inks, but you can take a cart out and use a new one, and put the old one back later. Overall a very high quality printer and a great value for $150 (now at Ritz Camera)

Customer Service

Not needed yet...

Similar Products Used:

Epson 890
Epson 1280

Low cost
High resolution
Quality output
USB
Easy install

Ink cartridges don't last long
Slow print times at 2880 res

As with most ink printers, the real cost of operation comes from replacement of ink more than the original cost of the printer itself. This is certainly the case with the Epson 780.

With that said, the printer has fantastic output! Epson also produces a several types of quality photo paper that produce excellent results (samples are included with the printer.) I have also been pleasantly surprised with the color consistency between my monitor and the print output. Highly recommend for those who need to produce photos up to 8x10 in size.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

HP DeskJet 890C

Excellent output. I bought it to do mainly 4X6's from my digital camera.

Metal "blade-like" wheels cut into photo paper and leave indentations that look like perforation lines up close.

Great print quality. Engineering design with the metal wheels is disturbing. Those lines going down my prints drives me nuts!

Customer Service

I called support (no toll free service) and got a response saying "that's what these printers do".

Similar Products Used:

None

best technology
somewhat cheap
potentially great

miserable setup

I read all the reviews, even the one at www.steves-digicams.com, which was great, but when I wasted my time finding it at a store 20 miles away just to get it- I installed it and followed all the instructions. First, it is the noisiest thing I have ever heard- much noisier than the old Canon BJC610 I still have. After I installed the ink cartridges (2), I though all was ok. I did not do a test print from the driver window, but trusted it to do a 720 photo 8X10 with a 23.0 MB file of a photo I scanned at 600dpi and interpolated by Qimage. It looked great on the print preview and the printer actually started to output the image, but low and behold, it was all orange (I do not think that it was the inks fault). I stopped the printing and tried it again. It printed only in orange again. Then I tried to print from another program- same thing. This was the last time it worked (actually it never worked correctly). The last page it printed sanely was the print test page, but the letters all had a blue background. For the next 10-15 trial prints, I could not get ANYTHING to print. What kind of thing is this!?! Occassionally, an ink drop of 1/2 a cm. would drop onto the page. Sometimes red, sometimes blue. Otherwise, nothing- no printing at all. I must have cleaned the print head about 20X (by software). This was as I watched the ink cartridge drop lower and lower until the color cartridge graphically showed the midway mark- what a waste of ink! I have had a miserable experience installing other EPSON products like the Epson Perfection 1200 Scanner. Although I managed to install that correctly, the driver has permantly caused an windows error - I just ignore it and continue. This is almost the most miserable experience I have EVER had with a new product. Again, I still think that this is a good product- I must have gotten a broken printer or at least there is something wrong with the ink. I'm guessing that the printhead got clogged- even the printer hardware self test did not work correctly. Awful!, but this is supposedly the best/cheapest archival quality 8X10 printer. I'm going to return it for a new one and rereview. For now, my harsh rating stands.

Customer Service

? returning it/ worried about exchanging it

Similar Products Used:

None

pretty inexpensive

cartridges very expensive

This is the best color inkjet yet and it does produce very beautiful 8x10 prints as long as you have around 1800x1200 resolution. You can then interpolate from there and get fine prints at 720dpi. I have only a second generation digital camera with low sub 1M resolution, which is only good for web use, but scan 4x6 prints. Hey, I know that the quality is only second generation from the negative, but some prints from Royal Gold 400 look just like the original print from wet chemistry. I am impressed at the fine output- from 12 inches onward, I cannot see any dots at all. I have not yet tried printing at 1440- that will wait for a higher quality scan. I still think that film cameras are the primary still image recording medium, but how important is film and even SLR technology if a 3M pixel camera can deliver a sharp image? I wonder... If I could afford a new digital camera 3M+, then I would seriously consider printing my own images because I can choose only those which I want to enlarge. The rest can be stored effectively online or on disc. This inexpensive product proves that even film based systems can use an inkjet for output. This way the user has ultimate control in the print process. Detail with Matte Heavyweight is much better than Glossy paper. Supposedly, under careful storage, the prints should last at least 10 years. This is great for waking up to your favorite images on the wall!

Customer Service

The first one I got was a bummer- this time I made ABSOLUTELY sure I followed all the directions- installing ink BEFORE turning onthe computer!

Similar Products Used:

have had an original Canon BJ100
Canon 610
Epson 740

very nice output, when mounted in a frame under glass, you'd swear they are real- but they are...
long lasting prints

loud, noisy
expensive ink

Where ever you get your digital scans at leat 3000x2000, then you have enough data to get great 8x10 prints. I have only tried the matte paper, which theoretically would last 20+ years. At first, because I am used to the photolabs glossy 4x6, I didn't think that the print were that impressive, but then I mounted them in a nice 10x13 frame with a 8x10 light colored mat and wow...under glass the prints look wonderful. You can make these color prints yourself! Last summer, I tried my hand at wet chemistry black and white, and thought that you get ultimate control, but it was a bit messy- It was also the only way to get the sharpest details out of the negative, but then you still had to suffer with scratches and dust. With digital scanning and editing, you can perfect the image before printing. My dutiful canon scanner, with very accurate canon color matching, produces accurate colors.

Seeing my favorite color prints mounted in frames on my wall reminds me why I like photography so much- I can create beautiful, pleasing images that inspire me instead of just taking pictures and storing the prints in a photo album.


We are coming closer and closer to be able for the individual photographer creativity to go from start to finish.

For the relatively low cost (any decent camera costs more), you can start making phenominal prints!

Similar Products Used:

None