19 out of 19 people found this review helpful.
Best Birthday Gift in Many Years!
Date of Review: Mar 8, 2002
The Bottom Line: This has to be a finalist in any inkjet buying decision, the ink technology may put it at the top of your list!
The Epson C-80 inkjet printer in this review was a gift from my brother. Saying this means little, unless you know that he is still using a dot matrix printer made in 1992! I am sure that he would have rather bought this printer for himself, but being an older brother, he did the right thing and gave it to ME!
I had been looking into replacing my ancient H.P. Deskjet 660 for many months, the search had brought me to this very Epson printer, but I never did get around to laying out the cash for it. Looking back now, I wish I had bought it sooner!
If you have a digital camera, run, don?t walk to the store and get yourself a new printer! Yes, the photo paper is expensive, and yes, the argument can be made that having digital images processed at your local drug store is less expensive, but the convenience of having the prints develop from your Epson ink-jet in less than 60 seconds cannot be matched in any other way. I find that grandparents are not all that interested in seeing photos on websites or even on a CD. Add the variables that photo software can provide, like greeting cards and mock magazine covers that you can design and tinker with yourself at home. Well, it?s a whole new world.
So far I have printed web pages, word documents, and hi-resolution photographs with this printer. I find the quality and speed to be outstanding. Printing images of my 8-month-old daughter on glossy photo paper and mailing the print off to the grandparents is less complicated than ordering prints at Eckerd. Yet, the prints from this Epson C-80 really approaches the quality that one might expect from old-fashioned photo processing!
The specifics about the Epson C-80 are impressive. But I think that the 20 pages per minute in black and 10 pages per minute in color is just the start. The most impressive decision-making factor in my mind is not actually the printer itself, but the ink that it uses. I am sure that more Epson printers in the future will use this ink system, but for now, the C-80 is the only model that I am aware of. What?s so special about the ink system? Well, beyond the super micro variable sized droplet inkjet technology and the other factors involved with 2880 X 720 resolution capability. The DuraBright fade resistant ink has an expected lifetime of about 70 years on a sheet of paper. The ink is extra vivid for photos and graphics projects. And the ink is water resistant.
All these factors should make it very expensive, right? Wrong! At least, not in my view, I can replace all 4 ink cartridges in this Epson C-80 for about the same price as replacing just 2 cartridges in my old H.P. 660. The other difference is in the fact that each cartridge can be replaced independent of the other three. And every time you print a page, you are presented with a software indicator showing just how much ink you have remaining of each color cartridge. With the old H.P., once the magenta ran out of the color cartridge, BOOM the whole thing had to be replaced, wasting the other two colors remaining inside. And you would always run out of ink at the most inappropriate time when a project was due, no heads up like the Epson provides letting you know way in advance which cartridge is getting low.
For other reviewers out there who have derided this unit for it?s noise output, I have one thing to say? Where were you in 1990? Elementary school? This has to be the quietest printer sans Lasers that I have ever used or have been near. My old H.P. actually would shake the desk while handling paper and printing. Chug-chug-kashoonk, the darn thing sounded like a steam locomotive compared to the Epson C-80.
If you are like me and are procrastinating with the decision to replace your aging mid 90's inkjet, DO IT NOW! I am telling you the difference is amazing! Speed, Color depth, text accuracy, simplicity of use... all have been greatly improved in this new generation of printers. At least they have at Epson.
And about my brother, he no longer is printing with a dot matrix printer... I gave him my old H.P. Deskjet 660, what else are brothers for?
