Epson Galore (Epson Stylus Photo 890)

Member Name: waltersontour

Product:	Epson Stylus Photo 890
Date:	17/07/01 (955 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: rather cheap, Digital camera

Disadvantages: not portable

My mate just bought a new pronter last week! First of all we cul not get the driver workin but when we finnaly did he began to think it was well worth waiting!

Digital cameras are among the ,ost popular peripherals on the market, with many computer users keen to see how their photography can be PC powered. Printers are about the only add ons more popular than cameras. If you plan to print your own photos, the quality of the machinery you use is important as your photographic talent and quality of the camera. The epson stylus photo 895 is the lates printer designed specifically for digital photographers to hit the high street.

Theres no excuse for a printer being tough to assemb;e, so it was good to see that the epson had done plenty to facilitate a simple set up. In the top of the box is just what we like to see - an easy - to follow - set- up poster. The diagrams are clear and all the instructions are writtin from the perspective of somebody who`d never seen a printer before.

The USB connection helps things simple, too, as the computer knows it is there as soon as the plug is inserted. Installing the driver is easy, requiring nothing more than a couple of mouse clicks.

The front panel of the Epson looks somewhat foreboding as there are twelve buttons bunched on the write hand side withg scant labelling. The handbook is useful and after a couple of goes you get the hand of thew buttons. Most of them are to help control photo printing from camera memory cards without turning on the PC. That means you can speed up the print proccess; just slem in the card and have the snaps in your hand soon after. But it does have some disadvantages!!!!

The main disadvantage of cutting the PC out of the digital photography process is that you have to print your pictures as they were taken. If your a bit of a David Baily on the quite and know your snaps will be superbly lit and flawslessly composed, you can print everything without wasting
too much ink. Most people will want to scrutinise the contact sheet that is printed as soon as the camera memory is inserted to see which snaps are worth printing and whick require tweaking. If the tiny thumnail images printed aren`t big enough for you to form an opinion, the optional LCD viewing screen may be a helpfull addition. It adds eighty pounds to the cost, which is really only justifiable if your camera has no LCD viewfinder. if it does, the one printer will show you the image youve already seen. If not its a good, albeit pricey, way to see what your about to print.

The combination of high resolution 2880 x 720dpi outut and six colour printing is impressive on paper and happily, so are the prints. Inkjet printers make hundreds of thousnads of ink droplets. On complex colours like skin tones, inkjet struggle to achieve even a dotty result and spoil the overall effect of the print.

Summary: