I needed a better photo quality printer to supplement my HP 1120C. My application is for personal photo printer not as a production or office printer.I researched all types of photo quality printers for several weeks and was going to go with the Cannon until I noticed how cheaply even the high end Canons were made. I also noticed that almost no one sold Cannon supplies like the required expensive Cannon paper. The Lexmark was far too expensive to own when it came to buying ink.
I was looking at some of the better Epson photo printers when I noticed that the lowly 820 used the exact same print cartridges. Then I realized Epson has just cut the price to a hundred dollars! Subtracting the value of the included ink that means the hardware is now only sixty dollars. At that price if the print head clogs I will throw it away. But I like this printer so much I may buy more of them. It is an incredible value at its new low price. First compared to Canons at twice the price it is `rugged'. The paper tray folds up when not in use, which serves a very practical purpose. It helps keep the dust out of the printer and dust is one of the causes of print head clogging. If you remember to ALWAYS turn this printer of using the left switch (GREEN LIGHT) and keep the tray closed you should not have many print head clogging problems. So far I haven't had any problems.
Some try to get away with as few as three colors in their photo printers but the Epson 820 uses six colors and your eye can immediately see the difference. The Epson 820 produces prints like those from photo labs on high quality photo paper. The Epson 820 ink is rated to be light fast for 25 years, which is, long enough for me. My HP 1120C produces colors which start to fade within months if not days.
Now look at the cost of owning the Epson. One significant feature of the HP was it had a print preview in the printer driver. I could enable it to check exactly what would be printed so I could avoid wasting expensive ink. Darn if the Epson 820 doesn't have the same the feature although implemented slightly differently. In some ways I like the Epson printer drivers better as there are so many options which enable me to get exactly what I want. Some people may be turned off by so many options but they don't have to use them. Their prints will simply be more expensive than mine will be or of a slightly lesser quality compared to what the printer could have produced. The features are there if users would learn to use them, which is better than not having them at all.
I ran into a Canon salesman at MicroCenter when I bought the Epson 820. I told him he had five minutes to convince me the Canon 750 was a better value. His biggest claim was look at how you could replace each Canon cartridge individually, as not all colors would run out at the same time. Ok that is a nice feature but in real life the colors run out pretty close to each other. That means that if I replace one color I may find out that in the next picture I print I have run out of two more etc. I like being able to just swap out the empty set and be done with it. Five Canon color inks run about sixty dollars. You can buy three Epson 820 five color carts for that price and the ink will be fresher with less chance the pigments have separated from the binder. You don't want to store ink to far into the future from its date of manufacture just like you would not want to buy paint for your house and keep it for years before you used it.
I have also noticed that there now are continuous ink feed systems and alternate sources of replacement cartridges for the 820 on the Internet but I am not too excited about them since I am not printing that many photos on a weekly basis. I would have guessed that such products would not exist because of the chip in each Epson cartridge that monitors ink flow and declare the cartridge to be empty when ink is low.
One application my brother in law has is to carry an ink jet with him in his truck to immediately print reports and photos he takes when inspecting houses. By buying a simple voltage inverter and using a laptop to drive the printer he can achieve that goal with a better quality print output using the Epson 820. Again the 820 printer is cheap enough that if it gets damaged he can toss it.
One other detail to examine. One doesn't want to get a printer that will be orphaned since so little supplies are bought by the public it is uneconomical to carry them. Amazon rates the sales for each product. Look at how the Epson 820 rates compared to any other printer.
What are the cons to the Epson 820?
It is slower than the high end Canons in making a photo but it is hundreds of dollars cheaper.
It is nosier than my HP as it moves the paper back and forth but that is a photo it is working with and it doesn't really bother me.
It has a non-replaceable print head compared to including the print head in each new cartridge like the HP does. This means it will eventually wear out. At sixty dollars net cost of hardware - who cares? I don't!
Do you? Epson will probably have another hundred dollar, six color photo printer with improved technology when I need to replace the print head in five years or 16,000 prints.
We are a professional, fully digital (Canon D30s) dog show photography firm. We bought an Epson 820 right after we shot one of the largest National Specialties in the country and our photo lab changed printer profiles and couldn't match our PhotoShop files.We turned out over 350 8X10 prints in 2 weeks and another 500 4X6 proofs all on Epson borderless Premium Glossy Photo paper. The image quality was exceptional. Better than the lab with more control and ...[inexpensive].
This printer is an unbelievable bargain. We use it with an iMac and PhotoShop 6.0 and it's bullet-proof. We use it every day so I've had no problems with clogged cartridges. I've tried generic ink cartridges but the Epson OEM ink is better quality (I can see it) and it hardly ever needs to be primed to get it going.
We're buying 2 more to take on the road so we can give clients their photos the next day. It's a great printer at an amazing price for a production-heavy environment.
