A P5300 [P5370] arrives to test

[keithcooper]

Epson just dropped off a brand new [uninitialised] P5300 for me to have a go with [aka P5370 in some regions]
I'm told it's one of just two that Epson UK have received as demos, which is nice :-)

Anyway I've got it here for a few weeks to try, so if anyone has any specific queries, let me know?

I've a short intro YT [~4 mins] is anyone's curious

https://youtu.be/a-ZiAqZoYwY

Visible differences - just the front/top panel - different plastic finish with touch screen instead of the screen+buttons of the P5000

I'm told it really is a P5000 but with a P900 print head and inks.
More subtle differences await me removing all that blue tape...

[Eric Brody]

Hi Keith,

I'll be closely following your review. I'm now on my second P900 (the first one had paper feed problems even with thin papers after six months). In a word, it's a poorly designed and/or poorly built machine. Everything about it seems flimsy. When it works well, and happily mine has been mostly behaving for the last six months, it makes lovely prints but...

When I saw the initial reports about the P5300, I was quite excited (at least as excited as one can get over a photo printer.) I fervently hope it behaves as advertised. If you have a good review and if Marc Segal gives it a thumbs up, I'll likely go for it. I love the idea of 200ml cartridges, no black ink switching and better paper handling.

Thanks,

Eric

[wickedweather]

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, Keith. I've always been interested in these. Definitely interested in the B&W performance. I have generally been more pleased with the Advanced B&W option in Epson Print Layout than using ICC Profiles for B&W on the P800. I need to do more testing, but it seems that is the case with the Prograf 4100 as well. I would also be interested in the accuracy of the sheet feeder as compared to P900. P800 leaves a lot to be desired.

[keithcooper]

One video covering the setup of the printer

Warning! 40mins long ;-)

https://youtu.be/kQzlkeiFDcI

[keithcooper]

Another example of using the P5300 [18 mins]
A pano print on roll paper.

https://youtu.be/AvZ_-cPdH00

Next up will be one looking at borderless options...

It's a very nice printer to use - print quality is as the P900, Printer functionality is just like the P5000

Slightly slower than the P5000.

I've not done any detailed comparison but profiles from the P900/700 look very similar to P5300 ones.

[mcpix]

Thank you for these videos. I'm also very interested in this new Epson printer.

[dgberg]

We could use another small to midsize printer around here and like the new P5370. Here are several reasons why we will probably go to 24"
P5370 ink is .48 a ml. and ink for a P6000 or 7000 is .30 a ml. 60% more for the small 5370. That's a lot.
 The 5370 is $2095 and a P6000 if we can find one is $2895.
Only $800 more for a 24" printer. 25% of our prints are 17" and under. 60% of our prints are 24" and under and the remaining 40% are printed with our 44" and 64" printers.
We try to keep a certain paper or canvas always loaded in the same printer so we are not switching black inks.
So the decision comes down to black ink switch (not needed) or the new inkset. (again nice but not needed) Ink cost P6000 60% cheaper.
The only negative if you want to call it one is the $800 price difference and we will make that back the first year in ink savings.
When I look at all these numbers the two biggest things that favor the P6000 are the capability to print 24" and the 60% ink savings.
Now to find one.

As a side note I am using Epson's new ink price for the 700ml. carts for the P6000,7000,8000 and 9000 printers.
It had been $247 per 700ml and has been reduced to $209 for the new firmware induced 700ml carts.

[keithcooper]

I'm doing quite a collection of short P5300 videos looking at specific areas - these will all be part of the actual [written] review when I do it

Roll and sheet use
https://youtu.be/nB6BeYAFwRQ

Using the paper cassette
https://youtu.be/ZwC9hz8RpDs

I've another 5 queued up for publishing over the next week or so

My major potential issue is that the light grey is running low and  right now, spare inks are not widely available

Here's a short [9 mins] P900 vs P5300 video - which I'll cover in far more detail once I've finished the review
https://youtu.be/iITjySbLgG8

[StuartR]

I am sorry, I have had a lot of work recently, so have not been able to watch all the videos yet. At least to me, it's great that the chassis is a P5000 and not something new. One of my biggest criticisms with the P9500 is the slow and tedious interface as compared to the P9000 and the tendency to damage papers or prints with its "improved" loading and transport. So on the one hand, having just the head and otherwise the guts of a P5000 are appealing, but having to ditch the more efficient and reliable P5000 interface seems like a negative to me...even just having a physical button to control the clamp would seemingly make the 5000 so much nicer to use... Even in your video of the panorama, you demonstrate how tedious the loading is. These are professional printers...we do not need to be handheld through the whole process. I found it so so much easier and quicker just to leave the paper type as "no paper selected" (I forget the actual wording) and just have it selected in the driver. The most frustrating part of using Epsons is all the time standing next to the printer waiting for it to do some inscrutable process before it will let you do what YOU want to do (be it loading, retrieve a finished print that is just sitting there for minutes while the printer does some unspecified and unpreventable automatic cleaning or some sort of head adjustment etc). If it just gave you an option to cut the print before it did it etc...would save so much productivity!