I love my Epson Stylus C80!

I finally got my new printer! My husband brought home the Epson Stylus C80, he has this one at work and loves it, so this is the one he wanted to get for our home. He says he bought it for me, but sometimes I wonder since he seems to find a lot of things he needs to print lately, but I've gotten a lot of use out of it too, so I can't complain, at least not too much.

Size

Depending on where you keep your printer, size does make a difference. We used to keep our old Epson printer on the second shelf of our old printer stand, this one sits on top of the printer stand since it won't fit inside. The size of the printer is 22.14"L x 17.81"D x 11.62"H, so you may want to keep this in mind when considering this printer.

Connection

The Epson Stylus C80 connects with either USB or parallel, the USB, of course, being the faster method. The printer cable is not included with the printer, that's something you have to buy extra right away, pretty stupid, but I've heard that Epson isn't the only one that does this.

Printing

Now here's where the big test came in. My husband just raved and raved about the quality with this printer, but I had yet to see anything yet, so I was skeptical on how great it was. My husband used to complain about our old Epson and when it died and we borrowed the HP Deskjet 960Cxi from a guy at his work, he said it was better than that. Now I liked the HP Deskjet 960Cxi and was considering purchasing one, but hubby said he wanted the Epson Stylus C80, now that we have it, I'm glad we got the Epson.

We print out various types of things from school projects to pictures of the kids. The maximum resolution you get with this printer is 2880 x 720 dpi and that's with using the Premium Glossy Photo paper, but even on plain paper, photos look great. Other resolution settings with this printer are: 1440 x 720; 720 x 720; 720 x 360; 360 x 360, and 360 x 180.

Speed

The Epson Stylus C80 is also pretty fast with printing, at least I think so. When printing with black only, it prints at 20 pages per minute, and prints 10 pages per minute in color. It's fairly quiet too, I mean yes, you can hear it printing if you're in the same room, but you can't hear it if you're in another room, even if it's next door.

Other Features

Individual Ink Cartridges - Along with the quality of print, this is what really sold my hubby on this printer. It uses 4 cartridges (Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) instead of only two. Which means if you print a lot in one certain color, only that one will run out instead of having to go out and buy a whole new color cartridge, like you would with other printers. The ink they use is called DuraBrite, it is supposedly water-resistant. Now I haven't put that water-resistant theory to the test, I mean why would I purposely get something wet that I just printed out?

150 Sheet Paper Tray - This seems to be standard with most inkjet printers. I haven't actually put 150 sheets in at a time, I usually keep about 25 to 50 sheets in it at any one time and then refill it when it gets low.

Media (paper) types - This printer can use various types of paper and envelopes. Plain paper, photo paper, transparencies, banner paper, basically any kind of paper 8.5" wide or smaller. They do recommend that you use only Epson brand paper, especially when it comes to the photo paper.

Windows and Mac compatible - The software includes USB drivers for Windows 98, ME and 2000/XP. Parallel drivers for Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000/XP and NT 4.0. Mac USB drivers for Macintosh Systems 8.5.1 - 9.1.

Standard One Year Limited Warranty - I haven't had any problems with this printer, but I have in the past had problems with an Epson printer and it was fixed under warranty with no hassles.

My Thoughts

So far, I am very happy with my husband's choice of printers. I have used the printer to print out emails, documents and word searches for the kids. My daughter has already used it for a school project, in which the teacher told her it looked nice. I have also used it to print pictures of the kids on photo paper and plain paper, the pictures look great even on plain paper. The color is crisp and the ink is quick drying, no more waiting for it to dry before handling it.

This would be a perfect printer for home use or even home office use. I love printing out pictures of the kids and the pictures I've printed out look great so far. The only complaint I have is the same thing I complained about with my old Epson printer, the fact it goes through a cleaning type cycle when you first turn it on. To me this wastes the ink, but the cycle with this one doesn't seem to take as long, but it still does go through it every time you turn it on.

Epinions has this listed for as low as $169 when buying online, I'm not sure how much my husband paid with his discount through work, he won't tell me, but even at the listed price Epinions has, it's a very good deal for what this printer can do.

If you're looking for a quality printer that prints crisp, clear images, I would definitely recommend the Epson Stylus C80.