great quality for digital camera prints. (Epson Stylus Photo R220)

Member Name: gump103

Product:	Epson Stylus Photo R220
Date:	03/07/09 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great photo printer, good value, cheap sub inks, simple to use

Disadvantages: poor text printing, heads dry out after lack of use, no memory card reader.

I've owned a R220 photo printer for the last 4 years after having brought it for about £50 new from Ebay.

Its a 6 ink photo printer and I brought it to mainly be used to print photos from my digital camera with the odd bit of text when and where required.

Now I did do my research at the time but the budget was a little tight as I'd just finished University and become a dad at the same time so I couldn't afford a big do everything printer. I read lots of reviews that praised the photo quality but at the same time criticising the text print quality so it sounded like it would fit my needs perfectly. I also wanted a printer that was cheap to run and so I made sure before buying that it would take substitute inks that are far cheaper than the ones from Epson (£10 per set compared to £10 per ink).

Externally the printer is a nice looking simple with rounded edges. It's plesant on the eye in a silver and grey colour and it folds up neatly when not in use so as not to take up too much space. It is a top loading printer and it will take a good wedge of paper for larger print jobs. On the top of the printer there are 3 buttons which are power, paper feed, and ink (for changing the ink).

As said before this is a 6 ink printer with each ink being a seperate item which can be swapped out individuly so as to reduce the need to waste ink if one runs out before the others.

Installing the printer was easy enough and it comes with an application that allows you to see how much ink is left in each cartridge, as well as configure the quality of the print you are doing, set the paper type (so it knows how much ink to use).

The photo print quality (on decent photo paper) was actually better than I was expecting and now after having printed several hundred photos I can say that the pictures come out looking really good with a nice bright look to them and look far better than what I have seen from the 4 ink epson printers or other models for that matter. The 6 ink system just seems to allow the printer to create a better range of colours on the photo and never does it feel like you can see any solid blocks of colour like on other printers I have observed.
Printing is not exactly quick though and can for a full A4 page of photos it can take a minute or so. This is not a problem for me but I imagine that it could be for someone who prints in bulk.

There are a couple of niggles with the printer that I have had. These are the text printing is pretty poor and always looks slightly fuzzy to read and is far less sharp than the inkjet printers from HP and other brands. I don't really get why this is the case as it does nice sharp lines in the photos it prints.

The only other issue I have had with this printer is that if it is left for a while without printing anything (a month or so) you sometimes find that the ink has dried on the head and needs a cleaning cycle or two to clean it. This uses a fair bit of ink to do but at the same time it may be something that can be blamed on the cheap inks in the first place so not really a fault of the printer. Beacuse of this fault I always try and prinnt soemthing off atleast every couple of weeks to keep the heads moist.

The printer also has a few extra features such as print bridge for cameras that support it, and the ability to print to CD's but I've never used this feature as I lost the tray early on in a house move.

The only real thing that would have been nice to have is the card reader and the screen as you can get on the more expensive items. Unfortionately its been so reliable and good though that I can't justify upgrading to one until this one dies.

In conclusion this is a great photo printer that produces some great photo prints and I can highly recommend it for people after a cheap printer for there digital photos. Text is poor though and if this is the main use for you and you need higher quality (close to laser) then it would be worth looking elsewhere.

Summary: great for photos, not so for text.

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