New Printer

[Andres Bonilla]

My Epson 1270 is having very bad clogging heads, I have new heads install and I still get banding andd smudges. I think it needs a trip to Epson service but I went to the Epson website and I saw a printer for only $ 179 dollars! It looks as it could provide an improvement over my 1270, it has a 98 year longertivity etc. Is this a good printer? In real life experience how does it compare print wise to the $ 400 Espson 1900? The pigment printers last up to 250 years but 98 would do for me. The 1400 has light magenta and light cyan, the others has 8 inks including photo matte and photo black with an extra gloss optimazer. Has anybody seen a  side by side comparaison? Does the R1900 and the 700 dollars printer totally blow out of the water the prints made by the 1400?
I need to find out how much is the service is going to cost me for the 1270.

Thanks,

Andres

[DarkPenguin]

Either one will put a red ass beat down on the 1270.  The big issue with dye printers is that they generally limit your paper choices.  I'd check ink costs.  If you print a lot something as expensive as the 3800 can pay for themselves in cheaper ink.

[Andres Bonilla]

Either one will put a red ass beat down on the 1270.  The big issue with dye printers is that they generally limit your paper choices.  I'd check ink costs.  If you print a lot something as expensive as the 3800 can pay for themselves in cheaper ink.

Red ass beat down! I got a good laught on that one! My Epson 1270 inkset allowed me to print on watercolor paper, matte paper, high gloss paper and canvas, is there anything else out there? The 1400 it stating to sound pretty good.

[DarkPenguin]

Longevity is the issue with those papers.  Dye inks tend to require their own papers to have any kind of life span.  That is also true of pigment inks but far less so.

[Nelson Harris]

I have to chime in here since photo print longevity triggered my purchase of an Epson 3800.  I still have my old HP7550 and have printed probably hundreds of photos with it however I had never went back to see what any looked like after some time had passed.  Mostly because the hard copies were gifts; my plasma runs a slide show from the server of my some 7500 pictures and scans of pictures so I have no local need for printed media.  HOWEVER, I recently welcomed a son to my family and starting printing some of the great pics my 1DS2 produces for my wife to take to work.  She started complaining that they were fading.....he only just turned one!!

I was previously completely ignorant of the printing process and all its facets however as an amateur looking at pics I was getting from the HP7550 dye ink printer I was thrilled.  BUT looking at 1yr old pictures is pathetic.  Some are almost completely washed out from the dry air at less than a yr old.  I did a test with direct sunlight and the dye and paper I'm using started losing color after 5hrs of direct Northern CA sunlight.

Apparently working with pigment to media is much more complicated than dye to media (although printer profiles bridge some of that gap) but I am thrilled with everything about the pictures from the 3800, look, flexibility of media, cost, and that they're LASTING BEAUTY!

Media flexibility aside: make the jump to a lasting ink/media combo....because unless you're printing out business materials or some other single use project you may regret sticking with dye based inks down the road...

->N

[TylerB]

if you are still working out this decision, I would avoid the 1400 for the media you have mentioned. It's paper handling is very basic and reliable primarily for thin photo and office media. It will pass thick media for a bit, then have more and more trouble, leading to frequent necessary cleaning of all feed mechanism. It's very maddening and gets to the point where it won't even pass thin bond for nozzle checks.
I'm getting rid of mine for that very reason, and a 1900 is on the way, hopefully it performs better in that regard.
For the stated purpose, and also for K6 use, it's otherwise a fine little printer on thin and medium media.
Tyler

[Andres Bonilla]

if you are still working out this decision, I would avoid the 1400 for the media you have mentioned. It's paper handling is very basic and reliable primarily for thin photo and office media. It will pass thick media for a bit, then have more and more trouble, leading to frequent necessary cleaning of all feed mechanism. It's very maddening and gets to the point where it won't even pass thin bond for nozzle checks.
I'm getting rid of mine for that very reason, and a 1900 is on the way, hopefully it performs better in that regard.
For the stated purpose, and also for K6 use, it's otherwise a fine little printer on thin and medium media.
Tyler

Wow, Tyler that is an eye opener! I print a lot on watercolor paper that is somehow thicker, I am sick of clogged heads, my 1270 was fine for years but now is acting up. I guess it was too good to be true, a good printer with 98 years logetivety.
Oh, well I would have to wait for the 1900.

[TylerB]

there is $150 worth of rebates off right now on the 1900... just to let you know. I sure don't want to be talking anyone into spending in these times...
I know nothing of the 1900's paper handling either.
Tyler

[MHMG]

... I guess it was too good to be true, a good printer with 98 years logetivety.
Oh, well I would have to wait for the 1900.

Yes, the 90+year ratings for the Epson Claria dye set used in the 1400 are very generous and somewhat misleading, even for the carefully chosen papers for which these ratings were made. The predicted display life numbers make this ink set seem very comparable to pigmented ink systems. Unfortunately, a single display life number based on a liberal criterion for allowable fade (typically 30% dye loss or greater) overlooks significant amounts of fading occurring non linearly with exposure in the earlier stages of print life.  Noticeable changes will be seen much earlier in prints made with this dye set than for prints made with good pigmented ink sets. If longevity is important to you in a desktop 13x19 printer, then you will strongly want to consider pigmented inkjet printers like the Epson R1900, Epson R2880, Hp 8190, or the Canon pro9500.

best regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com