Epson 820, 825 & 925 or other Photo Inkjet Printers

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
Hi all,



I am in the process of deciding on which Photo Inkjet I should purchase. I am looking to produce halfway decent photo prints at a resonable cost. I have read many reviews and seem very impressed with the Epson printers in comparison to the Cannon's & HP's (features, print qaulity & price). Does anybody have any feedback on this?



However, I have also read that the lack of Mac drivers has hampered the usability experience of using Epson Printers. I am running Mac OS 10.2 using Photoshop 7.0. Has anybody had any good or bad experiences with this configuration?



Your feedback is greatly appreciated......



Nick

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I use an Epson Stylus Photo 820 every day and am very impressed with it. Great quality and a buddy of mine bought one to replace her broken Stylus Photo 1270 and she too is quite pleased with the results.



    I'm buying one for myself this weekend, as a matter of fact.



    6 inks quality for $99? Sign me up!







    It's a bit noisy, but I can deal with it. I'm sold. My friend does more photo printing and stuff in Painter and she said it looks great. I do more text and Adobe Illustrator output and I dig on it as well, so...



    Hope this helps?



    I did bring the 820 home with me last week for a day or two (I use OS 9.2.2 at work and use 10.2.2 at home) and the 820 worked fine in each. I think there are some paper sizes OS X doesn't support (half-page or something?), but that was all I could see. Even that might have a workaround or something.



    But all the features and "bells and whistles" I'm used to at work while running on OS 9 seemed to be present. Enough to make me go "okay, I'm dropping $99 on one of these things!".
  • Reply 2 of 10
    I worked at a Best Buy for a year and learned a whole hell of a lot about printers. Canon is by far the best over all. Their print quality is amazing, the speed is great, and the features such as borderless printing (meaning you can print a photo on a full page of 8 1/2 x 11 or 4x6 paper) are great. But the best part about Canon printers, what they are known for is that the ink cost is about half of that of Epson, HP, or Lexmark. The ink is waterproof and I have experienced no problems with my Canon S750 (which has been replaced by the i850) If you are looking at printing straight photos, the Canon S900 is by far the best. It is very fast, and has six inks which make its prints look like 35mm prints. Epsons are ok, but their ink cost is phenomenally high and their cartridges do not hold that much ink. Canon gives you much more bang for the buck and the quality is equal to that of Epson....If you are looking at printing great looking photos, get the i850 off of buy.com or something. The drivers for the canon printers work with OS X.2 without any problems at all.



    [ 11-20-2002: Message edited by: filmmaker2002 ]</p>
  • Reply 3 of 10
    gordygordy Posts: 1,004member
    Epson SP 785EPX. Excellent printer. And has a card reader so you can print without a computer. It comes with a Compact Flash PCMIA card reader, but you can exchange it for another type free from Epson. The card reader does not mount in OS X yet, but they [Epson] say it's coming.



    [testimonial]

    At one time I hadn't printed for several weeks, and I dreaded having to print something. I printed a test page and there weren't any clogs! A great printer.

    [/testimonial]



    They sell them at Wal-Mart now for around $150.



    EDIT: Oh, I am running Jaguar and use Photoshop Elements with no problems.



    [ 11-21-2002: Message edited by: gordy ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 10
    Filmmaker,

    This is an old thread so I dont know if you'll get back here but I have a question.

    What about driver support for Canon printers in OSX? In general I read about driver problems for peripherals under OSX. Historically, Epson seems to be more reliable supporter of Apple computers and even they are lacking.

    But I liked your comment on ink prices between the brands. So again, how's Canon compatibility?
  • Reply 5 of 10
    buggybuggy Posts: 83member
    I bought 2 Espon 820's. One for work and one for home.



    Both clogged within a week.

    I am on my second cartrige of ink on one and it is clogging. They were not bought at the same place and were bought a month apart so I don't suspect it was just a bad batch,



    Both are going back



    Not impressed....



    Oddly enough there does not seem to be as many problem printing form my wifes OS9 ????
  • Reply 6 of 10
    I have two Epson 740i's. One I inherited from my father. One is broken completely. The other is unreliable. Sometimes the carriage return slams against the right side and it malfunctions. Turning off and on several times fixes it. The broken one has the same symptom(but doesnt fix itself) so it must be a weakness.

    Still, I had considered the 825 for photos only and another printer for everything else. But Im rethinking. Epson does have excellent quality for the $. But if their ink is higher than Canon, the printer price can quickly be negated. And if the 825 is similar to your 820, thats the last nail in the coffin for an Epson.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    I have an Epson 880i that I got last summer. So far it hasn't broken down or anything like that, and prints everything fine. Only problem: I had to get Jaguar to get the OS X printer drivers.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    dogcowdogcow Posts: 713member
    Got an Epson 820 (may first epson after all HP) and hate it. It soaks up ink like a sponge. I've only printed maybe 300 pages of black ink pages and It's already complaing for new ink. It also keeps getting clogged. It's loud and slow. When the color ink runs out it won't let you print black... its rendered useless untill you refill it. The paper often loads wrong and feeds multiple pages. Overall the worst printer I've ever used. Once I spent an hour tring to get it unclogged just to print an essay ("It was a really good paper"). I'm sticking to HP from now on.
  • Reply 9 of 10
    jimdadjimdad Posts: 209member
    I'm not a great Epson fan after their debacle with drivers for OSX but apart from that my last two printers have been Epsons and both worked perfectly, producing great quality pics (never been particularly enthralled by their text ). Didn't realise Canon inks were that much cheaper so I might consider that when my trusty 740 gives up. I've got two of the cheaper newer ones ( C40 and C60) in my school and they make a hell of a noise during printing.
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