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Epson Photo 960, Epson C82, Canon i850, or Canon S900?

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aphexII

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Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
 
I like what Canon has done to the droplet positioning in the i550. It's 5 picolitre system and does a decent job, but looks like a higher speed print from an photo quality Epson.

The i850 has less visible droplets at down to 2 picolitre. It misses 2 extra colors (half strength magenta and cyan) to be what I call a true photo printer. The S900 or S9000 might do the trick.

The Epson ink measuring system IS WALLET THEFT. If they wanted people to buy THEIR ink they needed to put refill kits on the shelf and stop polluting the world with their stinking HALF FILLED plastic cartridges. World Class Losers! After you get a new printer take a sledge hammer to the Epson. eL
 
Hello aphexII,

my experience:
after having bought the printer, the only thing that counts is image-quality.

I don't look at the printer, I look at the picture. That's the thing that must be as good as possible.

Epsons are not that fast, but neither is my looking at the prints.
The ink-cost may be above average, but only slightly above average.
The picture-quality is far above average.

A photo-printer must be judged as photo-printer only.
When you judge the print-out, you judge the quality on itself,
and not the quality in relation to the manufacturer of the printer,
and not the quality in relation to the price of the ink,
and not the quality in relation to the printing-time.
(If you do such, the best solution is a set of colour-pencils).

I use the epson 950/960 (after I have used the epson 895=875), and it's simply stunning and stunning and stunning again.

Bert
 
bert said:
Hello aphexII,

my experience:
after having bought the printer, the only thing that counts is
image-quality.

I don't look at the printer, I look at the picture. That's the
thing that must be as good as possible.

Epsons are not that fast, but neither is my looking at the prints.
The ink-cost may be above average, but only slightly above average.
The picture-quality is far above average.

A photo-printer must be judged as photo-printer only.
When you judge the print-out, you judge the quality on itself,
and not the quality in relation to the manufacturer of the printer,
and not the quality in relation to the price of the ink,
and not the quality in relation to the printing-time.
(If you do such, the best solution is a set of colour-pencils).

I use the epson 950/960 (after I have used the epson 895=875), and
it's simply stunning and stunning and stunning again.

Bert
Click to expand...
I have to agree about the 960 it printed beautifully straight out of the box. I was using an 820 before this and thought they were great prints until I saw what came out of this printer. Everyone likes my prints better than the originals when scanning to print and even from my digital to print. They can't believe they came from a home printer. Pam
 
I have a brother laser for text, an Epson 830 (820 in the US) for big photos and an HP130 for 4x6"'s

If you print a lot of text then ink jets are a real pain :) Expensive as well
aphexII said:
Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of
an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i
want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it
was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The
i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming
it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct
settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
Click to expand...
--
P9, PSel, HP130, Epson 830
http://www.pbase.com/wanchaiman
 
Wan Chai Man said:
If you print a lot of text then ink jets are a real pain :)
Expensive as well
aphexII said:
Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of
an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i
want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it
was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The
i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming
it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct
settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
Click to expand...
--
P9, PSel, HP130, Epson 830
http://www.pbase.com/wanchaiman
Click to expand...
As of now, 2 printers isnt too much of an option for me....
 
eL47288 said:
If they wanted
people to buy THEIR ink they needed to put refill kits on the shelf
and stop polluting the world with their stinking HALF FILLED
plastic cartridges. World Class Losers! After you get a new printer
take a sledge hammer to the Epson. eL
Click to expand...
My major reson for buying the S900. I wanted a printer that would be easy to refill. I print a lot and would feel guilty for throwing out all that garbage. It might not seem like a big deal but as printing photos at home becomes more popular we are looking at major source of pollution. I don't think that the ink is harmless. There are absolutely no technological reasons for packaging inks the way it is currently done. Only motivation is profit with zero concern for the environment.
 
pshead said:
bert said:
Hello aphexII,

my experience:
after having bought the printer, the only thing that counts is
image-quality.

I don't look at the printer, I look at the picture. That's the
thing that must be as good as possible.

Epsons are not that fast, but neither is my looking at the prints.
The ink-cost may be above average, but only slightly above average.
The picture-quality is far above average.

A photo-printer must be judged as photo-printer only.
When you judge the print-out, you judge the quality on itself,
and not the quality in relation to the manufacturer of the printer,
and not the quality in relation to the price of the ink,
and not the quality in relation to the printing-time.
(If you do such, the best solution is a set of colour-pencils).

I use the epson 950/960 (after I have used the epson 895=875), and
it's simply stunning and stunning and stunning again.

Bert
Click to expand...
I have to agree about the 960 it printed beautifully straight out
of the box. I was using an 820 before this and thought they were
great prints until I saw what came out of this printer. Everyone
likes my prints better than the originals when scanning to print
and even from my digital to print. They can't believe they came
from a home printer. Pam
Click to expand...
I get fairly decent results from my S900 (very much same output as S820 but faster). Here is a scan from a test I did (crappy scanner but you should get the idea of what the S820 can do)

 
I just upgraded from a photo 750 to a 960.

IT IS STUNNING how great the images are straight out of the box.

I had difficulty (darker areas looked blotchy on the 750) on some previous prints with my 750. With the 960, the exact same image came out PERFECT. Every single image I've printed has been just fantastic.

And it's TONS faster than the 750 - maybe 3x faster. AND even in economy mode B&W for plain paper normal printing, it shoots out paper about 3x faster than the 750 (maybe faster than that) and it's better print quality to boot.

Absolutely recommended.

Good luck in your decision.
aphexII said:
Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of
an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i
want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it
was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The
i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming
it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct
settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
Click to expand...
--
D60, 28-135IS, http://www.pbase.com/stevegrillo
 
just read this review, conclusion for the i850 rounds up nicely..

http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20021223/index.html
aphexII said:
Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of
an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i
want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it
was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The
i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming
it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct
settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
Click to expand...
 
Let me clarify what I mean when I say "better print quality". Besides no blotchiness, it's amazing how totally smooth all shading gradiations are. There's just no visible grain (that I can see).

(sorry I didn't clarify in my original post).
SteveDude said:
IT IS STUNNING how great the images are straight out of the box.

I had difficulty (darker areas looked blotchy on the 750) on some
previous prints with my 750. With the 960, the exact same image
came out PERFECT. Every single image I've printed has been just
fantastic.

And it's TONS faster than the 750 - maybe 3x faster. AND even in
economy mode B&W for plain paper normal printing, it shoots out
paper about 3x faster than the 750 (maybe faster than that) and
it's better print quality to boot.

Absolutely recommended.

Good luck in your decision.
aphexII said:
Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of
an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i
want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it
was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The
i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming
it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct
settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
Click to expand...
--
D60, 28-135IS, http://www.pbase.com/stevegrillo
Click to expand...
--
D60, 28-135IS, http://www.pbase.com/stevegrillo
 
Just got my 960 last Thursday, printed quite a few pics already and I am very impressed with the outcome. Another cool thing that comes with 960 is the roll printing and automatic cutters. I love that options, I was able to snap pictures, print them and give already cut pics to my guests at my party. Very useful feature.
aphexII said:
Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of
an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i
want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it
was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The
i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming
it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct
settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
Click to expand...
 
I have lurked the forum long enough! I've been a fan of Toms hardware since Tom actually wrote the articles, but I have big problem with thier printer reviews. Actually it's with the one author of thier printer reviews. Looking back over the last few years, you will find that he is incredibly Canon biased. Him and I have had discussions on his calculations for price per page and print quality, but to no avail. Just read the recap at the end of this year end round-up and you tell me. In his own words, the printer is expensive yet rates 4 out of 5, photos fade quickly so put them under glass or use HP paper.

I'm sorry, I'm ranting. For everything else, Tom's is the definative source. But not photo printers.
Soldier SiD said:
http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20021223/index.html
aphexII said:
Well since its damned near impossible to find a working sample of
an S900 printer in South Florida im still undecided which printer i
want.

I was very impressed with the quality i saw out of the C82, but it
was slow. It produced text that rivaled laser quality, no joke. The
i850 looked like crud from the test print i tried, but im assuming
it wasnt nearly printing anything worthwile with any correct
settings.

Out of these 4, which do you reccomend and why?

My needs:

1. Superb photo quality
2. Superb text quality
3. Speed (im sick of my Epson Photo 750 doing around 3ppm black).
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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