Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Quality but Helps to Know What You're Doing
Review: I have used the 1280 for about a year-and-a-half, mainly to print fine art photographs in large format. I use a quad black ink set from Lyson, rather than Epson inks. The machine absolutely delivers. It is consistent, reliable, and has remarkable paper handling ability.The head does have a propensity for clogging, since it is permanently attached to the printer and does not get replaced with each cartridge. However, I have found that cleaning the storage cap (right side, parked position) from time to time (with lint-free cloth!) helps. I also print a small full-gamut image once a week, if I am not cranking out the big stuff. Always check a company's web site for updated drivers when installing! My drivers (XP Pro/Presario) have been well-mannered. Also, if you aren't satisfied with the image, keep testing the profiles that come with the 1280. Be patient. It took me a while to get the right combination, even though Lyson provided profiles for its own ink set. But once I got it, I was off to the races. I am about to start printing fine art color, and for that I will buy a second 1280. Call me satisfied.
Rating:
Summary: It drinks ink for pictures that are worth every drop
Review: I have an Epson 1280 and it consistently produces prints that are as good or better than any laser fiery printer I've ever used. As an advertising copywriter, I depend on this printer to make new copies of my work and it comes through every time. Now, this is not the perfect printer, because it does drink ink something fierce, but the print outs are worth it, just ask any professional. In fact, it was a photographer who first turned me on to this machine. At the time I was looking at a Lexmark or HP. As any graphic designer will tell you HP's are word processing printers and with only rare exceptions any good at graphics and Lexmark is just to be avoided. You get what you pay for, and with Lexmark that isn't much. Epson wrote the book on graphics and photo reproduction printing and with the 1280 they have added another proud chapter.
Rating: 
Summary: Tough, Pro Quality Printer for serious Users
Review: I teach digital photography and computer graphics for a living. The community college I work for has had a 1280 for 2 years now. Students beat the heck out of this machine and it keeps chugging along with few complaints. We really put this machine through its paces by running water color paper and all sorts of media through it. I cannot say enough good things about its reliability! And yes, we use MACs for graphics, which is the way it should be! Epson has a great driver for OS X Jaguar. Download it from their website. Don't blame Epson if you're crummy Windoze XP goes belly up. It's NOT the printer.... That said, it's not a perfect printer. It really does suck ink like Kool-Aid. I'll be looking into the Lysonic inkset for this problem. Epson should have put individuals ink tanks on this thing.
It really is designed for high volume. The more we print, the better it seems to work. So do not buy this printer if you only occasionally print 4x6 snapshots. That's a waste of its capabilities and your money.
As for software, you should have Adobe Photoshop 6.0 or later. If you think you'll get a decent print from Jasc, Corel, or some other silly program, you'll be frustrated.
Some of the best Photo Quality inkjet papers are made by Ilford. Give them a try with this printer and you'll be impressed. It can even output negatives onto transparency material that you can contact print in a darkroom. I like the college's printer so much, I'm going to buy one for myself at Amazon! Did I mention it can make borderless prints too? It does.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best Photo Printers Available
Review: I've read all the prior reviews with interest. I bought my 1280 over a year ago based on reviews on several well known and trusted Digital Photography sites. I have been very pleased with the output of this printer. Yes, the printer takes more work to get a really GOOD print then the HPs. But then I have the HP printers also and they do not measure to pure quality of print. Yes, the ink cartridges are small and do not last long if you print alot of 8x10, 13x19 like I do. But, for 250 bucks you can buy a CIS (continual inking system) that pays for itself in 3 months. Yes, the Epson ink will jam the heads IF you do not use the printer at least once every few days. Again, the printer is for PHOTOGRAPHS, not text, not the occasional print job and certainly not the occasional picture. This printer is for the professional or serious amateur photographer. I have seen alot of prints from other printers and even with the flaws, this printer is the best. I wish a few things. Epson would update the drivers more often. The supplied software is marginally usable and they ding you 30 bucks for the real package. At 400 dollars for a printer, Epson could have given us the software given the price tag of the ink cartridges. I have run Epson, Illford and Inkjetart paper through this printer will very good success.
Rating: 
Summary: Driver issues and OS 10.3.3
Review: I have been using this printer for about 2 years now with a Dual PowerMac G4 with 1GB RAM. Most of the time it delivers good prints, therefore it receives at least 2 stars. I said most of the time because the printer works a bit unpredictably. On upgrading to OS 10.3.3 and upgrading the driver to 1.6bA (release date March 6, 2004), the printer refuses to finish prints once they begin. I have been printing 13x19 pages and it works fine about 50% through the document. It will then stall, stop the print, extract the paper, put the print on hold and when you go to the printer utility to the start print button, it will print from the beginning again and stall midway.
I contacted Epson about the situation and they emailed me back with their copy and paste email response with the generic (condenesed version): go to the macintosh HD and delete your Epson Driver Folder and go to support.epson.com and download the driver, follow the instructions and reinstall. And of course, it did not work. The problems persist which means the printer is not compatible yet with OS 10.3 no matter how much Epson swears it does. I have resent Epson emails and they have not responded.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Buy
Review: I had for 2 years and 3 days after the extended warrany expired the print head went bad. It cost just as much to repair as to buy a new one. Don't buy from CompUSA, they are rude and were no help! I have seen many other people with the same problems. epson sucks. This was my first and last epson! The print quality was great but horrible reliablility!!!
Rating:
Summary: Terrible Experiences with Tech. Support and This Product
Review: 1 1/2 year ago, I cleared half my desk waiting for this printer to arrive. But when it did, the first set of pictures came out red and fuzzy. I called their Tech Support right away and was told I should be using professional software to print. After I installed Photoshop 5.0, bought original premium paper and had someone caliberated the printer for that type of paper, the print quality didn't improve much at all. So I called again. This time, they whined I should have had Photoshop 6.0 and up. The dispute went all the way to their Customer Relations, who did help to arrange a replacement. But the replacement was no better: the pictures were light and pale. I called yet again. The Tech Support told me that my original warranty expired and they wouldn't extend it to the replacement. I digged up my old receipts to find out the original warranty did NOT expire! Still calling them now.
Rating:
Summary: How does it work with OSX?
Review: I am a graphic/interface designer and am considering to get a 1280. I have a PC (Win XP) and am getting a Mac soon. There are couple reasons why I am not sure about 1280 yet, and I would like to hear how you feel about these points after using this product: - No Firewire: I see this product has been in the market for a while and doesn't have firewire. Is USB too slow? - Mac OSX: I went to Epson site and it says "Note: OS X does not support certain features." But I also saw Apple website lists 1280 as one of the "Built for OSX" printers. How is your experience? I am pretty loyal to Epson and want larger format than 8.5x11, so my alternative would be Epson 2200, which I am not too fond of. But since my main design machine will be G5 I would appreciate your opinions. Thank you!
Rating:
Summary: it will kill your PC
Review: it will disable your OS! the product drivers that come with the printer managed to completely disable my system (Windows xp home). my computer would just shut itself off without warning, restart, and turn off, on, off, on, repeatedly. all by itself! after lugging the machine to CompUSA a couple of times and getting pissed off at them for no reason (in hindsight...) i FINALLY confirmed it was the printer after i tried (like a fool to install it for the 3rd time). The Epson tech support fessed up to the problem, and suggested i get the latest drivers from their website. 'sorry the software we sold you completely f**cked you over!' please, do not buy anything from Epson unless you enjoying executing a complete SYSTEM RECOVERY on your computer, which is what I am now doing... by-the-way, that means loosing all the files, programs, peripherals, etc. that you have ever installed on your computer. i hope you have it all backed up! enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: Good & Bad
Review: No reliability issues yet. I've had this printer about a year. I wanted prints that last a awhile longer, prints that look great, and <gosh> I didn't want a whole lot of trouble or expense to accomplish this. PLUS
+++ Produces the best looking prints when its working properly & all the set up is in order. Bad
--- Gulps ink.
--- It is not unusual for me to go 30 days without needing to print photos. As a result I have to clean prints heads, align, etc. (uses ink and paper for the tweaking, ie more waste) before using. I guess the ink clogs in the nozzles. On one occasion I used half the ink ($$) in the color cartridges before the printer was ready to produce decent quality prints. I can't recommend this printer for anyone unless they do a lot photo printing on a regular basis.
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