Epson Stylus Photo 785epx

Wow! I just purchased this printer and it is great! I had the HP Photosmart p1100 and while the prints were acceptable, they were a bit "dotty" and skin tones were not smooth because of this. I returned my photosmart and bought the 785. I had not seen any samples of the quality, but looking through the boards, I saw that Epson printers were highly respected. So, after reading comparable printer reviews, and a high praise on CNET, I decided to buy. I paid $249.00 at Office Depot. This printer BLOWS AWAY the HP that I had. Photos are smooth and I have yet to see the "dot effect". Colors are vibrant and I have fooled everyone at work with the photos I have printed. One co-worker even asked, "Where did you get these printed at? They are so vibrant!” I had to tell her 4 times that they were printed from home because she thought I was lying!!! The only thing that I do not like as well as the HP is the text quality on plain paper. The HP’s text is sharper and the black is much darker. That is my only gripe, but the Epson’s text is more than acceptable (even though it is a bit fuzzy). I would definitely recommend this printer. If you own this printer, I would like to know your thoughts on it, and would like to discuss it with other owners. Go out and buy one…TODAY!

I am sending mine back tomorrow. It quits printing about halfway through the print and stops. Epson tech support is totally worthless. I have had 5 successful pages print out of 30. The 5 that completed printing were excellent quality though.

Brent said:

Wow! I just purchased this printer and it is great! I had the HP
Photosmart p1100 and while the prints were acceptable, they were a
bit "dotty" and skin tones were not smooth because of this. I
returned my photosmart and bought the 785. I had not seen any
samples of the quality, but looking through the boards, I saw that
Epson printers were highly respected. So, after reading comparable
printer reviews, and a high praise on CNET, I decided to buy. I
paid $249.00 at Office Depot. This printer BLOWS AWAY the HP that
I had. Photos are smooth and I have yet to see the "dot effect".
Colors are vibrant and I have fooled everyone at work with the
photos I have printed. One co-worker even asked, "Where did you
get these printed at? They are so vibrant!” I had to tell
her 4 times that they were printed from home because she thought I
was lying!!! The only thing that I do not like as well as the HP
is the text quality on plain paper. The HP’s text is sharper
and the black is much darker. That is my only gripe, but the
Epson’s text is more than acceptable (even though it is a bit
fuzzy). I would definitely recommend this printer. If you own this
printer, I would like to know your thoughts on it, and would like
to discuss it with other owners. Go out and buy one…TODAY!

Click to expand...

John,

Don't send it back. You have some USB issues, as many of us have had. I resolved mine. You may have a Via chipset on your board. Start with usbman.com You need a few patches, bios upgrade perhaps. Some people resolved this with spooler changes.
I am pleased beyond expectations with this printer.

I second that............ it's the best $249.99 printer around. I bought mine at Office Depot 2 weeks ago and it came with a $50.00 Money Card......... hell of a deal! Don't send it back

Scott said:

John,
Don't send it back. You have some USB issues, as many of us have
had. I resolved mine. You may have a Via chipset on your board.
Start with usbman.com You need a few patches, bios upgrade
perhaps. Some people resolved this with spooler changes.
I am pleased beyond expectations with this printer.

Click to expand...

I do not have a via chipset. I talked to Epson again today and they are going to exchange it for another one. They are even paying for the return shipping charge. I think I just got a faulty printer. The few pictures I was able to print were outstanding. If the second one still has problems I will definately have some usb issues. I don't think that I do though. I tried the printer on another computer that already had a usb printer working flawlessly and my printer did the same thing on his as it did on mine. I think that is why Epson was willing to exchange it.

G@tti said:

Scott said:

John,
Don't send it back. You have some USB issues, as many of us have
had. I resolved mine. You may have a Via chipset on your board.
Start with usbman.com You need a few patches, bios upgrade
perhaps. Some people resolved this with spooler changes.
I am pleased beyond expectations with this printer.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

John said:

I do not have a via chipset. I talked to Epson again today and they
are going to exchange it for another one. They are even paying for
the return shipping charge. I think I just got a faulty printer.
The few pictures I was able to print were outstanding. If the
second one still has problems I will definately have some usb
issues. I don't think that I do though. I tried the printer on
another computer that already had a usb printer working flawlessly
and my printer did the same thing on his as it did on mine. I think
that is why Epson was willing to exchange it.

Click to expand...

Yep, sounds like you got a clunker. I believe someone here had to go through three printers before they got one which worked so don't give up. If Epson's willing to keep sending printers, I'd let 'em. From what I've read here, they've been pretty good on the customer service.

I have this printer as well, just bought it two weeks ago. So far, I love it! I have been using the borderless 4x6 and 8x10 epson photo paper for amazing results. It's hard to tell between 1440 and 2880.

The only thing that might worry me is that when it does borderless printing, it sprays the ink onto a foam surrounding the print area. After a day or so, the ink still appears to be wet. Every so often, I soak up the ink with a paper towel. Not very high tech, but it works. I just don't like seeing the foam soaked with ink.

otherwise, what a bargain for the features. I also wish you could print 1440 prints from the internal reader.. it only does 720. You need the computer to do higher res.

jason

Brent said:

Wow! I just purchased this printer and it is great! I had the HP
Photosmart p1100 and while the prints were acceptable, they were a
bit "dotty" and skin tones were not smooth because of this. I
returned my photosmart and bought the 785. I had not seen any
samples of the quality, but looking through the boards, I saw that
Epson printers were highly respected. So, after reading comparable
printer reviews, and a high praise on CNET, I decided to buy. I
paid $249.00 at Office Depot. This printer BLOWS AWAY the HP that
I had. Photos are smooth and I have yet to see the "dot effect".
Colors are vibrant and I have fooled everyone at work with the
photos I have printed. One co-worker even asked, "Where did you
get these printed at? They are so vibrant!” I had to tell
her 4 times that they were printed from home because she thought I
was lying!!! The only thing that I do not like as well as the HP
is the text quality on plain paper. The HP’s text is sharper
and the black is much darker. That is my only gripe, but the
Epson’s text is more than acceptable (even though it is a bit
fuzzy). I would definitely recommend this printer. If you own this
printer, I would like to know your thoughts on it, and would like
to discuss it with other owners. Go out and buy one…TODAY!

Click to expand...

I can actually tell you're lying on the co-workers bit because you mentioned that the HP produces better text and its sharper. If epsons are regarded as being the defacto standard for photos then would'nt it make sense that they are the defacto standard for graphic artists (illustrations). I have yet to see text from my 870 or 780 come out at worse quality then a HP. Hey if you dont believe me try printing a PDF file or photoshop file at 300DPI with text on it or some colors to it on epson matte paper or bright white inkjet papers.

TZZDC said:

I can actually tell you're lying on the co-workers bit because you
mentioned that the HP produces better text and its sharper. If
epsons are regarded as being the defacto standard for photos then
would'nt it make sense that they are the defacto standard for
graphic artists (illustrations). I have yet to see text from my 870
or 780 come out at worse quality then a HP. Hey if you dont believe
me try printing a PDF file or photoshop file at 300DPI with text on
it or some colors to it on epson matte paper or bright white inkjet
papers.

Click to expand...

I did not understand what you are saying.
did you mean text quality on the Epson is better than the HP?

Lior.

I'm not very familiar with these two printers but in the past HP has used pigment based black ink which have traditionally given them a darker and richer text. The reason HP prints better on plain paper is that they use a smaller picoliter per dot and are able to get better blends at a level that doesn't saturate regular paper. Because of this and other design issues the HP also uses much less ink to print and doesn't always require the high end paper; thus making it a much more affordable over the life of the printer.

Brent said:

Wow! I just purchased this printer and it is great! I had the HP
Photosmart p1100 and while the prints were acceptable, they were a
bit "dotty" and skin tones were not smooth because of this. I
returned my photosmart and bought the 785. I had not seen any
samples of the quality, but looking through the boards, I saw that
Epson printers were highly respected. So, after reading comparable
printer reviews, and a high praise on CNET, I decided to buy. I
paid $249.00 at Office Depot. This printer BLOWS AWAY the HP that
I had. Photos are smooth and I have yet to see the "dot effect".
Colors are vibrant and I have fooled everyone at work with the
photos I have printed. One co-worker even asked, "Where did you
get these printed at? They are so vibrant!” I had to tell
her 4 times that they were printed from home because she thought I
was lying!!! The only thing that I do not like as well as the HP
is the text quality on plain paper. The HP’s text is sharper
and the black is much darker. That is my only gripe, but the
Epson’s text is more than acceptable (even though it is a bit
fuzzy). I would definitely recommend this printer. If you own this
printer, I would like to know your thoughts on it, and would like
to discuss it with other owners. Go out and buy one…TODAY!

Click to expand...

Umm, no, I am not lying. The photosmart was the 2nd HP that I owned in a 4 year time frame....so I am familiar with how a HP Printers text looks compared to the Epson. On the Epson the text is fuzzy and is a bit light (but still acceptable for printouts) on plain paper. When you compare two documents from the same printer text wise, the HP wins hands down. Hp's text is crisp and bordering on lazer quality. Epson's is not unless you use inkjet paper and turn the printer on a high resolution. You mentioned that they should also be the standard for graphic artists, well if a graphic artist uses the epson I highly doubt that they will print their jobs on plain paper. They will use coated or inkjet paper, which will result in better text. So as I said before, on plain paper the Hp's text is better than the Epson's.

Brent

TZZDC said:

I can actually tell you're lying on the co-workers bit because you
mentioned that the HP produces better text and its sharper. If
epsons are regarded as being the defacto standard for photos then
would'nt it make sense that they are the defacto standard for
graphic artists (illustrations). I have yet to see text from my 870
or 780 come out at worse quality then a HP. Hey if you dont believe
me try printing a PDF file or photoshop file at 300DPI with text on
it or some colors to it on epson matte paper or bright white inkjet
papers.

Click to expand...

The Epson blacks on matte paper are the blackest I've seen with a printer and it seems logical since Epson printers are highly regarded as being you know THE standard for professional shops that do stuff on Photoshop and Illustrator and have mac systems. The graphics and colors it churns out from photoshop are even BETTER then the HP printers and the blacks are the purest blacks I've seen and they are laser sharp.

Thats only my observation

TZZDC said:

The Epson blacks on matte paper are the blackest I've seen with a
printer and it seems logical since Epson printers are highly
regarded as being you know THE standard for professional shops that
do stuff on Photoshop and Illustrator and have mac systems. The
graphics and colors it churns out from photoshop are even BETTER
then the HP printers and the blacks are the purest blacks I've seen
and they are laser sharp.

Thats only my observation

Click to expand...

Thomas, I believe Brent was talking about TEXT output... not "PhotoShop" output. The text output on an HP is darker and sharper otherwise mine would've been gone long ago. In PHOTO printing, I agree with you... the black is a truer black on the Epson Photo Stylus series. But in text output, you gotta give HP it's due. I've produced identical documents on both my Epson 870 and my HP 970 and the HP just did a better job. Both were GOOD but the HP's printout was better. The document was a brochure with graphics, text, and product photos. The printout from the HP matched the screen colors better, the text was sharper, and the photos were clearer and more vivid. Also, this was done on plain paper... not matte paper. And how is it you KNOW that Epsons are "THE standard for professional shops"?

Terry Thorn said:

Thomas, I believe Brent was talking about TEXT output... not
"PhotoShop" output. The text output on an HP is darker and sharper
otherwise mine would've been gone long ago. In PHOTO printing, I

Click to expand...

I have to disagree. On my HP 820cse on best quality and plain paper and my Epson 875DC on plain paper and best quality, they are both EXCELLENT. I have found that Epson's Normal setting is worse than HP's normal. It's about as good as HP's EconoFast...

Member said:

was better. The document was a brochure with graphics, text, and
product photos. The printout from the HP matched the screen colors
better, the text was sharper, and the photos were clearer and more
vivid. Also, this was done on plain paper... not matte paper. And

Click to expand...

Thay's interesting about the photos. I would have expected them to be better on the Epson...

-Matt

Terry Thorn said:

TZZDC said:

The Epson blacks on matte paper are the blackest I've seen with a
printer and it seems logical since Epson printers are highly
regarded as being you know THE standard for professional shops that
do stuff on Photoshop and Illustrator and have mac systems. The
graphics and colors it churns out from photoshop are even BETTER
then the HP printers and the blacks are the purest blacks I've seen
and they are laser sharp.

Thats only my observation

Click to expand...

Thomas, I believe Brent was talking about TEXT output... not
"PhotoShop" output. The text output on an HP is darker and sharper
otherwise mine would've been gone long ago. In PHOTO printing, I
agree with you... the black is a truer black on the Epson Photo
Stylus series. But in text output, you gotta give HP it's due. I've
produced identical documents on both my Epson 870 and my HP 970 and
the HP just did a better job. Both were GOOD but the HP's printout
was better. The document was a brochure with graphics, text, and
product photos. The printout from the HP matched the screen colors
better, the text was sharper, and the photos were clearer and more
vivid. Also, this was done on plain paper... not matte paper. And
how is it you KNOW that Epsons are "THE standard for professional
shops"?

Click to expand...

Actually in all fairness the text from Photoshop, Acrobat, IE, Netscape, etc all come out better on the Epson. That is if you want to print at 720 to 1440dpi. Printing at 360 dpi and 600dpi on a HP is apparently going to give HP a slight edge on text quality. As far as text goes if you have a brochure to print and want the best job I'd get one of the Epson 780/890/1280's to print it out with the maximum color reproduction (6 color vs 4 color) and I'd print at 1440 with the borderless option turned ON. The Epson as I've said MANY times durring the past year or so I've been posting here has produced better photos thats matched pretty much color for color as whats on my screen. In terms of brightness well thats easily tweakable with the drive. I'm sorry to say this Terry bit if YOU cant produce decent prints from a Epson 870 and produce amazing prints from a HP then I feel your biased against the Epson is clouding your judgement.

Epson is clearly the winner and if you'd like I can send you some samples.

Daniel said:

I'm not very familiar with these two printers but in the past HP
has used pigment based black ink which have traditionally given
them a darker and richer text. The reason HP prints better on plain
paper is that they use a smaller picoliter per dot and are able to
get better blends at a level that doesn't saturate regular paper.
Because of this and other design issues the HP also uses much less
ink to print and doesn't always require the high end paper; thus
making it a much more affordable over the life of the printer.

Click to expand...

I know Epson uses dye based inks in almost all their printers except for the Epson 2000P which uses pigment based inks. Also the HP's have bigger picoliter ink drops then the Epson. 5 picoliter for HP and 4 for Epson but even then if that does'nt make that much of a difference I bet either the driver or the way the Epson prints makes a difference when printing. Photos on the Epson are near dotless where as on the HP I can see the dots more.

TZZDC said:

Actually in all fairness the text from Photoshop, Acrobat, IE,
Netscape, etc all come out better on the Epson. That is if you want
to print at 720 to 1440dpi. Printing at 360 dpi and 600dpi on a HP
is apparently going to give HP a slight edge on text quality. As
far as text goes if you have a brochure to print and want the best
job I'd get one of the Epson 780/890/1280's to print it out with
the maximum color reproduction (6 color vs 4 color) and I'd print
at 1440 with the borderless option turned ON. The Epson as I've
said MANY times durring the past year or so I've been posting here
has produced better photos thats matched pretty much color for
color as whats on my screen. In terms of brightness well thats
easily tweakable with the drive. I'm sorry to say this Terry bit if
YOU cant produce decent prints from a Epson 870 and produce amazing
prints from a HP then I feel your biased against the Epson is
clouding your judgement.

Epson is clearly the winner and if you'd like I can send you some
samples.

Click to expand...

Why do I even bother with you, Thomas? Did you not see where I specifically stated that I did this on PLAIN PAPER? I tweaked my Epson 870 driver until I was blue in the face and it STILL didn't do as good as my HP 970 did for producing a DOCUMENT... not a PHOTO. I didn't have to do ANYTHING to the HP's driver. How does 6 colors vs. 4 colors translate into better BLACK TEXT? That one eludes me, Thomas. Looking at both documents side by side, the HP text was thinner and crisper especially in the serifs. The colors of the GRAPHICS (not the product PHOTOS) more closely matched what I saw on the screen with the HP print. As far as the product photos, the HP prints showed details that weren't discernible on the Epson print. These were very small photos of custom made scented candles and with the HP print, I could easily read the labels but with the Epson, I couldn't. Again, I'm not talking about using PHOTO paper to do this... I used PLAIN paper. Besides all that, the HP did the job faster and, with the auto-duplexer it did both sides of the paper without having to re-feed all those brochures back through the printer.

And it's not BIAS that's causing me to say these things... just the evidence that I have in my hand. Like I said before, if I felt the Epson would do the same job as well and as economically, I'd have gotten rid of my HP a long time ago. Why would I bother to keep TWO printers, buy TWO sets of supplies, and take up valuable deskspace with TWO printers if ONE would do EVERYTHING??? The plain and simple answer is that I WOULDN'T. If you'll observe the conversations here, MANY, MANY Epson Photo Stylus users here ALSO have another printer to handle their general printing chores. Why?

matt said:

Terry Thorn said:

Thomas, I believe Brent was talking about TEXT output... not
"PhotoShop" output. The text output on an HP is darker and sharper
otherwise mine would've been gone long ago. In PHOTO printing, I

Click to expand...

I have to disagree. On my HP 820cse on best quality and plain
paper and my Epson 875DC on plain paper and best quality, they are
both EXCELLENT. I have found that Epson's Normal setting is worse
than HP's normal. It's about as good as HP's EconoFast...

Click to expand...

I've never used or seen an HP 820 so I can't say how an old HP would compare to a new Epson.

mbryda said:

mbryda said:

was better. The document was a brochure with graphics, text, and
product photos. The printout from the HP matched the screen colors
better, the text was sharper, and the photos were clearer and more
vivid. Also, this was done on plain paper... not matte paper. And

Click to expand...

Thay's interesting about the photos. I would have expected them to
be better on the Epson...

Click to expand...

On photo paper, they are better on the Epson. On PLAIN paper, they aren't.

mbryda said:

-Matt

Click to expand...

Terry Thorn said:

I've never used or seen an HP 820 so I can't say how an old HP
would compare to a new Epson.

Click to expand...

It's an older HP printer. (I think about 4-5 years old) 600 DPI B&W, 300DPI Color, same as all the older HP 800 series.

Specs are at:
http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_doc/bpd02945.html#P80_1656

It does decent photos (for an old printer), text is really good and fast. But the Epson on Best is just as good. (Although the 875DC is SLOW)

But, if you do a lot of text, nothing beats a laser.

Member said:

On photo paper, they are better on the Epson. On PLAIN paper, they
aren't.

Click to expand...

Comparing my 2 printers, on plain paper - there is no comparison - the Epson wins. Even comparing print samples in OfficeMax, the Epson wins. You can see the dots in HP, not in Epson or the 6 color Canons.

-Matt

matt said:

Terry Thorn said:

I've never used or seen an HP 820 so I can't say how an old HP
would compare to a new Epson.

Click to expand...

It's an older HP printer. (I think about 4-5 years old) 600 DPI
B&W, 300DPI Color, same as all the older HP 800 series.

Click to expand...

Um, I'd say that was a VERY fair comparison. A 4-5 year old HP vs. a new Epson. I remember when I got my HP 722 and a friend of mine had an older HP 800 series, I saw a noticeable difference between the printouts.

mbryda said:

Specs are at:
http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_doc/bpd02945.html#P80_1656

It does decent photos (for an old printer), text is really good and
fast. But the Epson on Best is just as good. (Although the 875DC
is SLOW)

Click to expand...

And watch that black ink level indicator drop like a stone. Epson on "Best"? Where did you see that? I can't find it on my 870 driver.

mbryda said:

But, if you do a lot of text, nothing beats a laser.

Click to expand...

True enough but we aren't discussing laser printers.

mbryda said:

mbryda said:

On photo paper, they are better on the Epson. On PLAIN paper, they
aren't.

Click to expand...

Comparing my 2 printers, on plain paper - there is no comparison -
the Epson wins. Even comparing print samples in OfficeMax, the
Epson wins. You can see the dots in HP, not in Epson or the 6
color Canons.

Click to expand...

You can and SHOULD see dots on ALL the samples. And if you get a decent sample print out from an Epson on display, you're damn lucky. Even the Epson rep at my local CompUSA had to ORDER sample prints from Epson because the display models there produced low quality samples. I'm not bashing Epson but it's something I've noted for a long time. If you try to get sample prints from HP and Epson printers on display at a store, more often than not, the Epsons will either print a bad one or won't print one at all whereas the majority of the HPs will make good sample prints. I can recall one particularly humorous instance where I pushed the little "Try Me" button and I got the printout with the Windsurfer on it and the caption was "You've GOT to see it in Epson color!" Trouble was... there WASN'T ANY COLOR. It was just black and white. If it was like you and Thomas say it is, I don't know why anyone else even bothers to build another inkjet printer. Epson can do it ALL! But then, why are you hanging on to that 4-5 year old HP 820 of yours, Matt?

All I know is that I have two identical documents in my hands NOW printed out with both my Epson 870 and HP 970 and the HP just did an overall better looking job more economically and faster than my Epson 870 did.