Epson Stylus Photo 1280

I bought the 1280 printer based on rave reviews by a fellow photographer who owned the Epson 1270. It worked fine for a short time, but then began to leave blue and red horizontal lines in anything I printed. I tried all the nozzle cleaner, head cleaner, etc but nothing helped. I have never been able to get a print without those lines since they first began showing up.
At first, I thought it was just a problem with color printing but the lines also appear when printing black and white text. It has gotten so bad now that when printing black and white, the entire area of the text has almost a solid blue background! The printer is now considered totally useless by me and I am in the market now for a new printer.

The printer produced nice prints at first at a good speed. I liked the borderless printing too. Ink cartridges are easy to change and are readily available. Although it is a bit wide, the printer is not tall and fit well into my computer hutch.

Print heads clog easily if the printer is not used often. I noticed that you need to keep it in use as it seemed the more you used it, the better it printed. But the constant streaking of prints became worse and I was unable to find a way to find a solution to the problem.

I used two Canon printers before this one, one being a B&W model only that made fantastic text prints, the other one being a color printer.

not applicable

Big piece of junk. This is the second and last Epson printer that I will own. When they work, they do produce outstanding results. However, they rarely work. I thought maybe the 800 I had in the beginning was a bad one. But this 1280 has had issues since day one. First, when printing borderless, big blob of ink in the same corner. Every time. Then the infamous ink clogs. The stories you read about all over the internet are true. Count on it. Both on this 1280 and the 800 I had previous. Wasted ink & $$$ constantly cleaning heads. Now this pos has another problem... as it feeds through while printing, it will often back up about an inch and then print on top of what it just printed resulting in a double image. Then throw away another wasted print and print again. When considering all the wasted money in time, ink and paper on top of the frustration just to get one good print, it's just not worth it. I can't believe these companies can get away with these type of business practices. Just stay away from all Epson products. I wish I could rate it lower than 1 star.

Not too big or heavy.. I should be able to throw it out the window pretty far.

Ink blobs on borderless printings.
Clogged ink heads.
Feeder backs up and prints double image.
Waste of $$$$
Slow
Ink, paper and time waste.

Epson Stylus Color 800

This printer produces superb photos. It is very hard to tell the difference between a photo from this printer an a lab print. Sometimes you can't. This printer is a little slow,large, and if it is not used a least once a week the heads clog. This can be fixed by running the head cleaning utility. Even with these problems I find this printer to be a great printer and I am very happy this purchase. If someone wants a printer that does lab quality you would love this printer, you just need a little patience.

Lab quality

Slow Heads clog if not used. Large, has a large foot print and needs alot of desk space.

Stylus photo 925

Have not had a need for it.

This is my second review of this printer. I have use the printer for several years and highly recomend it. I was disappointed in the Epson drivers and have since gone to Print Fix software to build my own drivers.

Epson papers are great. I have gone to a bulk ink system and with print fix, print what I see. Matt is your best choice for a longer shelve life and I've printed hundreds of A3 sheets

Never could get the Epson drivers to work properly.

I bought a Epson 1290 (UK version of 1280) in early 2001 to produce exhibition quality prints at A3 or larger. It has lived up to its reputation as the best photo printer then and compares well to the best available today.The quality of the prints still impresses me even now in 2004. Time after time, customers who see the prints produced on this machine are surprised they are inkjet prints. As many people in this forum have observed; the quality at 1440dpi for colour is all that’s wanted. However I do use 2880 dpi for monochrome. Having spent a long time tearing my hair out and failing to get neutral blacks using full colour mode; I find the only way to get decent black and white images is to use the single black cartridge. By the careful use of Photoshop I have been able to get some surprisingly good results. They do not match high class conventional printing using medium format cameras; but can look effective none the less. Having moved to Cambodia in SE Asia in early 2003 I was very relieved to find that ink cartridges are readily available in the country. Some other brands and decent quality paper (Epson) is impossible to get. The tropical humidity has not affected even some quite old prints on Epson and Jessops paper; though HP and Kodak paper fades rapidly to a greenish hue. I have found that IJ graphics paper (bought from Thailand) has proved excellent with a lustrous finish with colour saturation far better than any Epson paper. It is standing up to tropical conditions well Overall this printer has surpassed my best expectations and as a very critical user I have been very impressed. The quality of results makes up for the poor software.

• Fabulous print quality on photo paper • Longevity using quality photo paper and Epson Inks • Ability to use roll paper. • Can get borderless prints using Photoshop. • Cartridges are widely available • By current standards it is not too costly to run • Good service backup (in UK)

• Epson software unreliable and buggy and not very user friendly. • I cannot get neutral blacks for monochrome using full colour mode • Quality not great on normal paper • A bit slow (but the quality makes up for it) • Very difficult to set up using Windows XP • Roll paper handling is poor (no cutter) • Photo Quicker is dreadful; even the upgrade has serious shortcomings. • Cannot use 3rd party inks or refills reliably (don’t even think about it!)

Canon BC85 Epson 600 (1996)

• One replacement unit after some very frustrating unreliability problems within the first year of use. Epson UK were good and replaced without quibble.