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Epson Stylus Photo 780 Inkjet Printer

Epson Stylus Photo 780 Inkjet Printer

List Price: $99.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Best photo printer I've owned
Review: After owning two HP photo printers, I decided it was time to get a really good photo printer. I wasn't ready to spend the BIG money on a photo-only printer, but I was ready to spend some money and get something good. I spent months researching printers and reading reviews. I read comparisons of this printer to other printers four and five times more expensive. And the Epson 780 universally got top ratings. I finally went to the store and tested out a couple of them and this one printed beautiful photos.

The end of the story is I bought one and months later after sharing photos with my mother and sister, they each went out and bought one too! We've all been very happy with the printer. However, the one note is that it can be temperamental. The first one I bought had many problems and I could never get the ink cartridges working well. I went through two black and two color cartridges before I finally took it back and exchanged it. However, this new one had some instructions taped right onto the top of the printer stating that it is important to install the cartridges before the printer is hooked up to the computer. I cannot imagine why this is important, but when I followed these instructions exactly, I never had a problem again (and I've now installed this printer on three different computers!) I would suggest buying it from a reputable retailer where you can take it back if you have any problems.

I've been really happy with this printer and I love the photos I've printed. Someday maybe I'll get one of the outrageously expensive photo printers...but until that day, I'm sure happy with this one!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Junk
Review: Dont waste your money. This is the last epson I will ever buy. Uses too much ink, always clogs and is a moody piece of junk. I will be buying a cannon next. After owning four epsons in six years I have had enough! The scanner I bought was also an epson. It is a piece of crap too.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Stunning quality, exceptional value
Review: Epson revolutionized the printer marketplace in the early 90's with the first Stylus Color printer. This printer is another breakthrough product in terms of price.

For $150 after your rebate, you shouldn't even be thinking about buying this printer, just do it! Epson's piezo-electric inkjet heads are generally acknowledged by experts as being able to produce prints that exceed the quality of traditional chemical photo processing.

It is possible to get great quality output from a 2 to 3 megapixel digital camera and print sizes up to full bleed 8.5 by 11. Results are quite good even if you spend minimal to no time editing the images. If you are interested in photography as a creative process and have worked in darkrooms then you will be amazed at the power you have with a printer like this in conjunction with an editing program like Adobe Photoshop. What used to take hours and hours of trial and error in the field and in the darkroom can now take minutes.

To put the value in perspective, consider the following. The print heads in this unit are the exact same ones as found in the Photo 890 and the Photo 1280. This is a great buy on state of the art technology even if you miss out on the rebate.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: You get what you pay for...
Review: Epson's 780 does a very good job at printing near-photo-quality images. However, getting the colors properly calibrated took forever (and a lot of expensive ink and a lot of expensive photo paper!) The printer's color-matching mode didn't work well with my monitor, so I had to tweak the settings manually. Fortunately, the printer's interface is intuitive and the help files are actually helpful.

Also, the photo-editing software that came with the printer is terrible - you can find freeware versions of better photo editors on the web, or splurge on Photoshop or something similar.

Still, once you get it properly calibrated, it's hard to beat this printer for the price. Colors are rich and well saturated, especially on Epson's premium glossy paper. And black-and-white prints are crisp and clear, with nice subtle shades of gray. Now, if Epson would only drop the price of their ink...

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Very good pictures but uses alot of ink and is slow.
Review: First let me say that I think this printer has the capability of printing excellent photos.

However, there is a learning curve and cost associated with this printer. I have printed only 4x6 and 11 x 8 1/4 photos so far. I followed the setup procedures that came with printer. When I printed the larger photo's I kept having a problem where after completing 1/2 to 3/4 of the photo, the printer would stop and spit out the paper. I wasted a ton of ink.

It Took the 4th Epson customer service person to figure out the problem. If you have a decent digital camera and store/send a large mega pixel picture to be printed, the information is sent too quickly for the printer to handle.

On setup if you are using a parallel connection, you have to change the port from an epson port to a more standard setting. The good is that the pictures get completed. The bad is that the printing is slowed tremendously. It takes over 12 minutes to print out the larger photos.

I am already out of color ink as a result of this problem, I will update my opinion after more pictures are printed.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: the world's first disposable printer
Review: I bought this printer around a year ago and have not been able to print one picture correctly because the nozzles are ALWAYS CLOGGED. I have yet to receive a response to my email to the Epson site for help about this problem. I guess there is no solution so they do not bother to respond. I have also gone thru LOTS of ink compared to my last printer, an hp; so much that I took it in to get it fixed because I thought there had to be something wrong because of the way it eats ink. I usually do research before making a purchase of this type but this time I was in a hurry and took the salesclerk's advice. BIG mistake. Now I will throw this printer away and purchase a different one. (I would feel to guilty even to donate it and thrust its problems on someone else.)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great printer/great value
Review: I bought this printer looking for a photo-quality printer at the best possible price. From the research that I did, there is no printer available that gives this quality of printing for such a great price. The printer is indeed a bit slow and noisy, but I am able to print out photos that almost look like the original (and I am comparing this to professionally taken photos). If you want to upgrade to the 890 or better, then you can get the speed as well. Initially I had some problems installing the driver (my PC did not seem to be communicating to the printer) -- I called Epson tech support and within 15 minutes, it was working perfectly! My only complaint is that the photos come out looking more pink than they should, so I always have to adjust the color (about -12 on the magenta) before I print. Otherwise, I love it!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Nice for a second printer
Review: I bought this printer when my trusty Personal LaserWriter LS died suddenly after 8 years. Never have I taken such a backward step with new tech item. Don't get me wrong, I like the 780 but I would never recommend it, or any other ink jet for that matter, as the only printer for anyone who prints any volume of black and white pages. At its best, the black and white output is good but not up to the quality of my 8 year old laser printer the day before it quit. The color output is simply amazing when you use Epson photo paper. Take a good quality digital photo, set the 780 to the highest quality mode and with gloss photo paper you are hard pressed to tell the output from your average photo processing. For kids stuff, the low quality mode works well with normal paper as long as there is sufficient white space to not saturate the paper with ink. The 780 is both slow and loud, not the best combination. Of course, this is in comparison to a printer that was quiet and about 8 times faster. Compared to other ink jets, its is quieter and faster than any of the HP's I have used, faster but louder than the Cannon printers I have used. The first unit I got died after a month. The print would not align. I called Epson (toll call) and they sent me another one by UPS and a prepaid UPS to ship my old one back. It even included new ink carts (nice!). Save some empty ones if you ever need to do a service swap since they want them shipped with ink carts. All ink carts are expensive but the 780's are even more so. Actually, the entire "Photo" series (780, 790, 870, 890, etc) uses the same cart and they are much more expensive than the 760 family carts. Additionally they are smaller, especially the black cart. This translates to a higher cost per page. If you are going to use this as your primary printer, go with a 760 family printer instead if you cant get a laser printer. A nice printer but not up to daily, heavy use.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: The Good, The Bad, The Epson Photo 780
Review: I can say that I have had two of these printers. Not because I liked them so much, but because they can be very difficult to use. Original purchase was sent back to factory and it's replacement still has the same problems.
Worse yet, Print Heads constantly get clogged up and multiple cleanings are necessary to get a descent print.
Good photo output when you aren't fighting with the head cleaning feature or changing ink carts. Sorry Epson, I'm going to Hewlett Packard....

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER!!!
Review: I can't even begin to express the frustration that I've had with this piece of junk! I have owned this printer for just over 6 months and it has been a constant headache since the first week. Initially, I read all of the reviews and decided that this would be a good purchase because it had the same print technology as some of Epson's higher end models, bad mistake! I figured that as long as you turned off the printer when not in use, the heads would clean themselves out and I wouldn't have a problem with clogging, WRONG! All in all, I think I've printed 6 pictures out successfully. Oh yea, to get these prints I've used 3 black ink cartridges and 3 color cartridges. I've spent hours tweaking, cleaning and adjusting, all to no prevail. Last night I was working on my computer and needed to print some documents up for work the next day. When I started printing my printer made a horrible noise while I sat there and watched it grind its print gears until they were stripped. I tried to unplug it, but the damage was done. After cartridges I've spent $$$on this piece of ....! Please do not buy this printer! It is a nightmare. Don't listen to reviews from people who have only used this printer for one evening, they have no idea what they're in for.


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