I have had scores of HP printers including three of the original HP
Photosmart printers (which I loved) and two of the HP 1100
PhotoPrinters which I have grown to hate.
The paper handling is my biggest gripe... along with the wheel
tracks that leave faint lines on glossy prints.
Tom, I used to own an Epson printer and hated it, so about a year
ago I switched to an HP PhotoSmart P1100 as my main inkjet printer
and I have never experienced any paper handling or wheel track
problems, but I am very interested in what you say about the Epson
1280 ...
I recently purchased my first Epson Inkjet... the 1280. I can tell
you, as a long-time loyal HP user, that I am blown away by the
radical difference in photo quality between the HP printers and the
Epson 1280. The HP is OK for snapshot quality pictures; but, it
can't even come close to the 1280's depth and richness.
So, for 4x6 quicky prints I still sometimes use the HP PhotoSmart.
But, for all the rest I invariably choose the 1280.
One word of warning. DON'T count on an Epson printer for daily
printing needs. The 1280 is too slow and the cartridges too small
for wasting on Word documents. So, I have BOTH hooked up to my
computer.
I forget the exact name of the Epson printer I had until a year ago
-- was it a PhotoStylus 750 (did A4 prints and when I bought it a
couple or so years ago it was Epson's top A4 photo printer). The
main reason I hated this printer was because the ink nozzles were
forever getting blocked -- there was a little test pattern that
could be printed to show blocked nozzles -- and I was continually
and repeatedly running the nozzle cleaning function. I also found
that the printer drank ink -- even when I had a period during which
I did very little colour printing (only black text) the colour
cartridge still managed to empty itself! The main culprit seemed
to be the ridiculous start-up ritual that the Epson went through
every time it was switched on, whereby the print head danced
backwards and forwards and there was much noisy whirring for no
obvious reason.
It was such a relief when I replaced the Epson printer with the HP
1100. Compared to the Epson the HP was faster (especially for
text), much quieter (both when printing and at start-up), there was
no silly dance at start-up, ink cartridges lasted MUCH longer (they
seem to last forever in the HP compared to the Epson) and print
quality was generally better (text quality was much better and
photo quality was probably similar to that of the Epson). And,
perhaps most importantly, the ink nozzles of the HP NEVER become
blocked, so no frustrating and wasteful (of both time and ink)
nozzle cleaning sessions every week.
But these days so many good words are said about Epson printers, so
I recently suggested to my wife that we should perhaps investigate
getting a 1280 or similar for photo work -- she responded that
after the hassle and problems we had previously she never wanted to
see an Epson in the house again!! In contrast, the HP has been
completely problem-free and 100% reliable. So, my question to you
Tom, and others, is: have Epson printers improved significantly in
terms of reliability, nozzle blockage and ink-consumption over the
last year or so? Does the 1280 do an irritating print-head dance
when it is switched on? Is the 1280 susceptible to the blocked
nozzle problem?
Thanks for any feedback.
Terry.
