Ah, the new 4900 is now shipping (today's word from itsupplies/atlex). I currently own an aging 4800 and I wonder if the 4900 is the new replacement printer for me.
Questions...
1. It has pizza wheels. Will they show marks on glossy paper just like the 3800, 3880, 4000, 4800, 4880 (easily visible in sunlight or any bright, sharp light at just the right angle reflecting off H Photo Rag Baryta and Museo Silver Rag papers)? Or will it be more like the Canon 6300 whose pizza wheels don't eat into these beautiful papers to mar their surfaces? A friend and I tested the 6300 to confirm that it doesn't.
2. On my 4800, I can push the pizza wheel plate back up in its retracted position and prevent this from happening. I wonder... if the 4900 creates marks, can its pizza wheel plate be manually or programmatically be retracted too?
3. Unbelievably, Epson has reduced the thickness of the paper that can be used in the 4900 cassette tray from .79 mm (4880 and 4800) to .29 mm, meaning that most fine-art glossy and matte art papers can't be warrantied to be used in the cassette. Ouch! The main reason that I wanted to buy this printer--unattended printing--just evaporated. Even though unattended printing is never quite the reality, it can be close. Unless of course, Epson is conservative in their specs and H Photo Rag Baryta (.39 mm) will work fine feeding from the tray, resulting in no pizza wheel marks, no roller marks, no head strikes, no scratches, etc.
4. My 3800 rarely clogs in 10-20% humidity. However, my 4800 clogs constantly and is borderline unusable (not to mention expensive to unclog!), even with a glass of water inserted in the printer between printing sessions. I'm hearing clog stories about the 7900/9900 series printers used in low humidity environments. Perhaps the 4900 will be more like the 3800/3800 and clog less. At least, thank the printer Gods, it has the ability to unclog clogged nozzle pairs. But I wonder how effective that is after reading several posts to the contrary around the Internet.
Surely having a professional printer that can make multiple state-of-the-art prints unattended without the hassles of flattening the curl of roll paper has a huge market. It will be interesting to see if Epson is smart and has listened to the market or if they have just produced one more iteration of a printer that has marginally better print quality, with even more ink cartridges that can potentially clog ($$$!).
