The Best Inkjet Yet (Epson Stylus C80)

Name: vincent.buchan

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Product:	Epson Stylus C80
Date:	19/07/02 (1462 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Quiet, Excellent quality

Disadvantages: none

In my opinion, I find that Epson is one of the best, if not the best, make of printer there is. I find that they are excellent to use and I find very few faults on them. The Epson Stylus C80 has very few, if any, problems with it. Read on and tell me what you think.

The Printer


It's been a while since Epson has produced an almost flawless small format colour printer. In previous models, there was always a minor flaw that seemed to make people aviod considering Epson printers which I think is a pity because Epson is a really good make and people just aren't giving them as much credit as they are worth, but I am slightly partial to the brand Epson. The main flaws were that people found them noisy and slow. As far as I'm concerned, they are not suitable reasons to stop buying a printer, you should look for the quality of the picture or print-out. Well if they matter to you, I am happy to say that they have answered your problems with this baby.


Problem No. 1 --- The Noise


I think that Epson have decided to open up their range of buyers a little and have sought out new ways to correct the noise problem that turned people away. I have always found that most inkjet printers are a little loud compared to laser printers and such like but they should try working with a dot matrix printer before they complain about the noise a inkjet makes. I guess I got used to the noise of a dot matrix so I find inkjet printer noise is easily bareable and that is why I don't give the noise any concern.

This Epson model is a great deal quieter than other small format colour inkjet printers and I would love to be able to say you can not hear a thing as it prints but that would be a lie. Yes there is still noise, but it is almost impossible to cut the noise totally but you can tell that Epson have advanced greatly in sorting the noise issue.

Pr
oblem No. 2 --- The Speed


This is another problem that I think is not essential. The way I look at it is that speed is only a luxury and I would rather wait a couple of seconds longer if it saves me a few hundred pounds. The fact is that all inkjet printers print slow, again, compared to laser printers and such like. Have you looked at the price difference of a colour inkjet and a colour laser? Well, I'll tell you that is is a fair leap and the size greater than an inkjet but laser printers are getting much smaller as technology advances but as sizes decrease, prices increase. Try buying a laser one for the same amount of money you are spending on a inkjet, then try and cram that into your computer desk.

Anyway.... I was amazed at the speed of this little baby. It is much faster than I expected it to be. It manages around 20 pages per minute in economy mode (black and white). It rockets through and print jobs I have around the house. Mind you, it is economy mode so they are simple print jobs. So if graphics and colour is added, it will slow it down by up to 5o percent. So basicly, the more detailed, complicated, and bigger print area, the longer it will take, but it is much faster than other printers of this type. If I print a 8" x10" full colour photo, it takes just under a minute to print.

The Most Important Factor --- Print Quality


As I said earlier, this is the factor everyone should consider. If it is excellent but a little slow and loud, buy it anyway. You're not in a rush, the noise isn't there every time it is on, and the quality is excellent. But with this printer, all three are taken into account; the noise is dampened, there is great quality mixed in with an above avarage speed.

In this printers highest resolution setting (2880 x720 dpi), I haven't had the luck to see a printer of the same class to produce print-out of this quality, but ma
n does it use a lot of ink in this res. Like I said before, I feel that no other brand can beat Epson inkjet printers and this model just backs me up.

The C80 is capable of printing things in various res modes but it mostly depends on what type of paper you are using for the quality to be excellent. The various resolutions are:

2880 x 720
1440 x 720
720 x 720
720 x 360
360 x 360
360 x 180


If you are totally new to printers I'll explain a little, if not skip the next little bit. These resolutions represent the levels of print quality and the different modes that can be selected. The higher the resolution means the better the quality but the ink usage is greater.

Another good thing about Epson printers is that they include a software program that allows you to change the way the printer prints it out to your liking and it is easy to operate. ALl you have to do is just select print and it automaticly activates the printer control software. Once it is up, it is very straight forward. You can select a wide range of features like; paper type, how the page will look, what you are printing i.e. photo's or text, then you can select what kind of enhancements you would like, and choose the quality. The poorer the quality, the faster the print.


The Only Main Problem I can Think Of


The problem is that Epson inkjets have very little onboard memory, compared to other printers, so it uses your computers memory to buffer the data as it gets sent to the printer. Also the software takes up system resources and if your computer has problems with lack of memory, I regret to say that the Epson printer will slow your computer down by a fare bit, depending on the memory, when you are using it.


Improvements That they Have Made

Epson have crammed load o
f good ideas into this printer to just make it better and better. Instead of those annoying tricolour ink cartridges that needs to be replaced when one colour is out and the others are fine, they have replaced them with a much better 4 seperate ink cartridge slots which is normally found on the bigger Epson printers. This alone will save you a lot of money. Also the ink now used is called DuraBrite and the good thing about it is that it is water proof. I had just printed out a photo for my mum and she knocked a glass of water over it and when she wiped it, it barley smudged. But be warned it is only water resistant so lots of water will damage it and also, it is NOT water resistant on
normal paper.

Other improvements that have been made are the ones that I droned on a little too much about. The speed and noise. I don't really know why Epson decided to do something about the noise. Most Epson inkjets are a little on the noisy side but it has never really bothered me so I don't care but I am gratefull all the same.

Prints

THis printer is able to print on all sizes of paper but due to the size of it, it can't print on tabloid paper. The maximum size is 8.5" wide and up to 44" long. It can also do: Letter, legal, half-letter, user definable 3.5" x 3.5" up to 8.5" x 44"

Paper Type

I've mentioned just about everything I can think of so why not types of paper. It can use: Plain, bond, double-sided matte, premium glossy photo paper, premium semi-gloss photo paper, Epson Matte-Paper Heavyweight, Photo Quality Paper, Transparencies, Self-Adhesive Sheets, Ink Jet Cards, Banner Paper,and last but not least envelopes.

Connectivity

Finally, I need to mention how easy this printer was to setup on my computer. All the drivers that are required are found on the CD that is included but if you
misplace the CD, all drivers are availabe on the Epson website.

Another good thing about this printer is that it has two ports for you to choose from when you are connecting it up to you PC. You can use the normal parallel port to connect it up to your computer but if this is not an option or you prefer to use a USB port you can as the port is there too.

Conclusion

If you have actually read all this, thanks!!
Please tell me what you think of this slightly long-winded review.

Regards
Vincent

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