Nice printer with good quality output (Epson Stylus Photo 870)

Member Name: rahbar

Product:	Epson Stylus Photo 870
Date:	13/01/03 (130 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice styling, good quality

Disadvantages: Drinks colour ink, not the fastest printer around

Had this printer for about a year now, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the positive side, this is a relatively well-built (for the price) printer ? comparable to most other leading brands in this respect. The styling is reasonable and the design sensible, though not particularly small. It is possible to fold up the output tray to stand flush with the main body to save space; however you can?t do this with the input paper feed, so you need to allow space for this on your desk.

The printer has both USB and parallel interface connections ? both work well with no noticeable difference in speed, so take your pick here. Software setup was painless on Windows 98SE.

My biggest bugbear with this printer is the use of ?intelligent? ink cartridges. Rather than measure the actual amount of ink remaining in the cells, the cartridge contains a little chip that estimates, based on the nature of the printing you perform, how much ink is left. Also given the fact that the printer wastes a huge amount of ink each time you power it on with a mandatory self-clean cycle (tip: avoid switching on/off whenever possible!), the levels can go down considerably without printing very much at all. Epson colour cartridges cost about £15.

Gripes aside, printing output quality is good and though this is not the quickest printer on the market unless you need to regularly print out significant quantities, it should be fine.

I?ve had no reliability problems with the printer at all since I?ve had it.

Summary: