Epson R285 Printer

[Davey]

Looking at getting a new printer, mainly for photo prints on home machine and seen Epson Stylus Photo R285 Printer for £60 but never seen it and reviews vary in reliability and standard. Does anyone have experience of using this printer particularly for printing photos, I will be getting it from scan.co.uk because get free delivery (well kind of as have big order going in next week so I will tack onto that order).

It's mainly it's quality of photo printing I'm concerned with, as far as speed etc goes I don't care since it's not going to be large volume print jobs just personal occasional use.

[Dave Humphries]

As a brand, having previously owned Lexmark (never again), HP and Epson, I'd now always plump for Canon. Over the last 3 years, the whole family has migrated to the Canon brand for quality, performance, costs and reliabilty. In total, that's 4 printers (one MF) - all still working I hasten to add. That said, we are only using 2 or 4/5 cartridge models, no experience of their 8 ink models. (I think R285 is about 6 or 7)

Regards,

[Bill44]

Second the Canon recommendation. I have a Canon MP980 all in one, 6 cartridge including Photo Grey for B&W work. Might be outside your budget though. AU$332.00.

[Davey]

Yeah my budjet is low since I don't actually need it and it's just for personal use (definately wont be heavy use) so nothing special.

I guessed a single function would be better since I dont need the extra functions and all in one tend to be more expensive for equivalent printer quality ( hence all in one are of poorer performance than single function of equal price).

Canon Pixma IP4600 seems to be similar price at £75 so think will go for that, thanks. I've never tried canon, although I've tried several epson and HP printers. Good thing is the place I'm ordering from does canon inks too (cheaper than highstreet prices). Yeah the epson one was 6 inks, this canon one is 5 but I'm not over concerned with ink numbers since I'd get important stuff printed elsewhere.

I did see multi ink 42" printers from same place, they looked nice but the £10,000 kind of put me off them

[Dave Humphries]

Yes, I've got the IP4300, probably a generation or two before the 4600.

I doubt you'll be disappointed, although I will say don't use the cheapest supermarket photo paper, use Canon or at least 'deluxe grade' if another brand. Oh and I always use Canon inks too, but that's another whole thread's worth!

Dave

[Davey]

yeah I found issues with none branded inks in past so only really trust official ink. As for photopaper I was planning on Esys (HP) A4 Gloss Photo Paper 200gsm. The other brand was Mirror but never heard of it but it's not much so might get some to try it (one of their better ones anyway like heavy super glossy one).

What paper is the best to use? Since I'm looking at occassional use price isn't that big a factor since I wont be running off sheets of it a week. Obviously if it's double the price for a negligible improvement then it doesn't matter but big differences does.

[Dave Humphries]

I'm currently using Canon for 6 x 4 (50 sheets with a pack of the 3 coloured inks) and Epson Glossy Photo Paper for 7 x 5 (@ 225 gsm).
I have A4 by Canon, Kodak and Tesco, but I don't print on that size so much these days.

Not heard of Mirror either.
I'm sure I saw an article where the major paper brands had been tried on same and different brand printers. The results were variable; some 'different matches' worked Ok/well together, others didn't. I'll see if I can find it.

[Davey]

My canon ip4600 arrived today and I can happily say I'm more than satisfied with it. It produces nice images an much quicker than I expected. Speed wasn't a consideration for me anyway but even if it was it's more than fast enough even on high quality settings.

Thanks for the recommendations, I ended up buying from different place since the one I was getting the order i was going to tack it to sold out and was looking at 7 days before back in stock and couldn't delay the order as was urgent. I did get a couple of types of the mirror brand paper but not for personal use so will let you know when use it how it fares to others when get to try it (it's only £3 for 50 sheets of 260g high gloss from place I order a lot of components from but is at least double that price on amazon and the like).