| Provides you a lot of control over printing - at a cost |
I bought this printer to replace my Canon PRO9000. My primary motivation was the ink system - I wanted a pigment based ink system, I wanted multiple black inks for better B&W, I wanted to produce archival quality prints and the ability to print on a wider range of specialty papers than supported for the PRO9000. Finally, I wanted to keep my purchase cost around $700. This leaves the r2400, Canon PRO9500 and the HP B9180. It appeared to me there is a wider range of icc profiles for papers I am interested in for the Epson that isn t a rigourous, scientific census - just my opinon . I have owned HPs and Canons. I was open to trying Epsons to see if I like them as much as many others do.
My only rap on the delivery of the printer is that the box was pretty chewed up when it arrived via UPS though the machine was OK.
Set up was straightforward on my Mac OSX machine. My impression of doing so it s been a few weeks now was that I actually resorted to reading the manual at a couple of points - not something I typically need to do for a printer.
Overall I d say this printer is like driving a car with manual transmission where the rest of the field are automatics. This isn't a printer system you will configure once and click-print unless you intend to use one ink-set/paper combination for everything.
Following the analogy to a car, if your printing needs are mixed media, general printing with a 13x19 print a few times a year I don't think this is a good choice. You will be happier with nice "automatic".
On the other hand if you are familiar with the issues of color management as it applies to printing, you know what an icc profile is and have dozens of them, understand what the difference is between reflective vs. perceptual intent and calibrate your monitor every couple of weeks this printer offers you a lot of control over almost every aspect of your output. But you have to manage much of it.
Is the r2400 "better than" anybody else? There are other sites to delve into details of the quality issues (like Luminous Landscape). I put some of the prints I m getting from the r2400 next to prints of the same file from prior machines and the differences are generally subtle for color prints. The improvement in B&W is significant. As far as resolution and such goes at the desktop level you are far more likely to effect those aspects through your file handling and configuration settings than with the mechanical aspects of the printer.
There are downsides to this machine. The ink is very expensive and the r2400 chews it up pretty fast. I haven't done enough printing to put very hard numbers to that yet but it feels like I m paying about $0.45 per print in ink on an 8x10. I was warned about this by some experts prior to buying. In fact I was really encouraged to spend the extra dough and go for the 3800 for the larger ink tanks. For me it came down to allocation of resources. I need the money for other things and don't need to produce large volumes of prints. I am not, however, busting out as many large prints as I was on the PRO9000 because of the cost issue.
It is slow when you are producing highest quality prints. I don't think this would be a good solution for anyone needing a production printer.
To conclude I am not in love with this printer but it does what I ask of it and does it well. I have a lot of control over the output along with the responsibility to know what I have to do to achieve it. It's pricey to operate and delivers high quality prints. |
4 Rating
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