And Now..... The Rest of The Story on The Photo 900
Written: Dec 13 '04
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Pros: Prints on CDs like a champ and produces High-End Photographic Prints.
Cons: Cost of the Cartridges and CD Printing Alignment.
The Bottom Line: I love this printer, the quality is good and it's been reliable through 800 CDs & DVDs. The Pictures are simply AWESOME. You won't regret it.
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| BARNZ's Full Review: Epson Stylus Photo 900 Inkjet Printer |
Epson Stylus Photo 900 Inkjet Printer
In the spirit of full disclosure, the first thing I want to make perfectly clear. I HATE ink jet printers! I hate them with a passion. I am a laser and color laser man and will always be. The cost and expense of Ink Jet printers is ridiculous. If you use your printer as much as I do, which is a lot you can spend double what the printer cost in the first six months just on ink.
A little background, I am a photographer and I am into making music, working with and promoting bands. I am into technology, so all of our promotional material and things such as CD's I duplicate and print them myself. Loving my color laser printer, I would print labels and attach them to the CDs. This worked great for many, many months, until that faithful day I had a batch of CDs where the labels were not affixed properly. What a nightmare CD after CD coming back, because they would not play correctly for some of our customers. That is when I discovered the Epson Stylus Photo 900. I worked part-time at
Office Depot in the technology department and I needed to find a solution, so I talked to my co-workers and there it was the answer to my prayers the Epson Stylus 900 Photo. I could actually feed the CD's through the printer; Printing directly on the CD was the solution I needed. I brought it that day, $200 and I was out the door, granted that was when it was new on the market, you can shop around and get it cheaper now and of course now there is a better version available with a cheaper price tag for example the Epson Stylus Photo R300 Inkjet Printer, but that is for another day and another review.
The Technical Stuff
Okay, so you're asking, what do I get when I buy the Photo 900, okay you're not asking, but I'll tell you. Here are the Technical Specifications:
The Printer
How Fast Can it Print? Black Print Speed *9 ppm Color Print Speed *8.8 ppm
* Ppm = pages per minute
Okay, Okay, there are faster ink jets, but this works for me when it comes to printing CD's. Which was my initial reason for purchasing the printer. Trust me, printing with this printer, beats the heck out of printing and then affixing CD labels. It takes a step away and the printer has been reliable.
Platform PC, Mac
Media Type Cards, Envelopes, Matte Paper, Photo Paper, Plain Paper, Transparencies, Printable CD-R media
Max Media Size A4 (210 x 297 mm), Legal (216 x 356 mm, 8.5 x 14")
Total Media Capacity 100 Pages
System Requirements
Operating System Microsoft Windows 95
Warranty 1 Year
Dimensions:
Width 19.42 in. Weight 15.21 lb.
It's a bit on the big size, but space is not at a premium at my place or the bands rehearsal space so it just hums alone in it's own space. If space is an issue for you, compare these dimensions to your space.
The Cartridges
Original Epson T007 black cartridge
Original Epson T009 photo cartridge
Beware the compatibles! Yes they are cheaper and go by names like, Epson T007201 Compatible Cartridge, Epson T009201 Compatible Cartridge. By trial and error you might find compatible cartridges that work for you and for some of the cd's I print exact color matching isn't an issue, but if exact color matching is what you are looking for stick with the Original Epson cartridges, the results are much more reliable, especially when it comes to printing pictures. More about pictures later.
The Software
The software is fairly easy to install, it's a standard windows or MAC install, but one thing to bear in mind. BE READY TO PLUG IN THE PRINTER WHEN THE SOFTWARE ASKS FOR IT. Trust me, by doing this one thing it will make your life a lot eaiser.Then there is the print CD software, once installed it is fairly easy to use and allows you several options for using your own pictures and other materials to affix it to the CD or DVD, but I'm here to tell you, you will have to modify the way you print to CD. I know I did. If you are used to a full color background, I couldn't get my full color backgrounds alignment to match me printable CDs or DVDs. So I switched to well placed photographs and letters and partial covering of the background and all is well.Since I brought the printer I've printed out conservatively about 800 CDs and DVDs and this printer has not missed a beat, I have 150 more to be printed this week and besides the cost of the cartridges I have no complaints.
Printing Pictures
As a photographer, I was invited to do an Arts & Crafts show in New Jersey. I had taken some pictures of water gardens and a family member was so impressed she invited me to show them at a show she was coordinating. She suggested I print out some of my best work and offer it for sell. Not one to turn down a buck and knowing that I had a fairly new Photo 900 printer, which prints using six colors, I gave it a shot, using heavy weight photographic paper.
The quality was consistent and I already knew the cartridges were expensive. For one color cartridge, which cost about 30 bucks I was able to get 25 prints, other times I was able to got 30 prints. The picture quality was outstanding and the cost wasn't that bad, but I still prefer color laser, but laser is not ready for prime time when it comes to printing high-end photographic prints.
In Closing
I love this printer and I recommend it for everything, from pictures to CDs to envelopes. Yes I said envelopes, I tried printing to 100 envelopes recently, it performed very well with no jams. If you need a printer for pictures or printing to CDs and yes, even printing to envelopes. I recommend this printer.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
BARNZ
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Location: Saint Thomas, PA
Reviews written: 146
Trusted by: 107 members
About Me:
Actor/Singer/Songwriter/Photographer. Not a reviewer, just a guy with a passion for Music&Movies, radical Epinons Supporter.
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