[PLUG] Color Ink-Jet Printers

[Piet van Weel]

Hey Michael...

I think a good question to ask of you would be:
/What is the purpose of this Epson printer?/

If it is your "Once-In-A-While" photo printer, then your cheap 
<http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7384877&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat42100050004&id=1122654460189>Epson 
R340 will do. Unfortunately this has a combo color ink cartrige which is 
a pet peave of mine; however, it does support multiple memory cards and 
does a high resolution printing.

If you're looking for more along the lines of the semi-professional then 
I would probably go with the the Epson R1800;  which does give you 
multiple ink cartriges.  Another advantage is that you can print LARGE 
prints. 13x44 with rolled paper sounds like fun for banners, but nothing 
else really is practical with that since the paper quality is regular 
paper.

Now that I've said about the Epson line ('cause that's what he asked 
for); I'm going to say my peace about them. HP and Epson are both 
expensive with their inks. Many HP new cartridges are $24 to $30, while 
Epson's range from $15 to $30 a new cartridge.  My Canon printer 
cartridges cost about $10 new. Yip, HP and Epson are double the costs!! 
Why? Mostly name brand issues for HP, and Epson has unique inks for 
archival purposes. (Honestly I'm not going to live the 200 years to find 
out if they really do last 200 years; which is what Epson says.)

Another issue that has cropped up is that with the increased technology 
the definition of what consittutes "BLACK" has become even more rigid. 
All three (Canon, HP, and Epson) increasingly use colors to constitute 
the correct shade of the darker side of the colors. This means that the 
really cool picture of a concert will burn through lots of ink because 
it really isn't "BLACK", but it's many different colors combined.

Realistically  I would look these items in a color printer these days:
(My usage rate per month is around 1 13x19-print, 20  8.5x11-prints,  
and 15 4x6-prints)
(Printing pictures for my kids' teachers of subjects they are working on.)
1. High DPI
2. 1 Color = 1 Cartridge
3. OS Compatibility
4. Network Aware
5. Low Cartridge Costs
6. Large format Capability.

If you have any questions please zip me an e-mail at pmvw ( at ) wbcable.net

Piet van Weel