Epson PictureMate 290

Epson PM290 The best photo printer I have ever owned
I am not going to go into all the jargon of what the machine can do, that you can read any where. What I will tell you is my experience in using the machine.

Let me start by explaining, I have owned a few bulky printers in the past, that you are meant to be able to print photos on. All top names including an Epson SX600FW which I still have. All of which I used through printing directly from my laptop or bluetooth. They all seamed to drink the ink like mad, even the ones with single coloured cartridges. The photo's never seamed to be as good as when you pay for your photos to be developed.
But then I read about Epsons PictureMate printers. Orginally I was going to buy the 280 model, which had very good reviews across the internet, but thought I would pay extra and get the top model 290. It prints direct from my bluetooth gadgets including my mobile phone. I can load my camera's sd memory card into it and not only view all the pictures I have taken, but can also save all the pictures straight onto a disc.

Quality:
The print quality is excellent. Everyone I show my pictures too, are totally surprized when I inform them, that I print them off myself.
Compared to my mother in laws photo printer, you can still see the slight grainy look on her pictures., and even the glossy paper she uses, the pictures still look dull up agianst mine. Hence she now wants an Epson PictureMate as well. Even thow I have the top model 290, if your on a budget then I would still recommend the 280 model ( which I will most likely buy for her and even the 240 looks ok.
When zooming in and printing larger areas of your picture, you do not loose any quality like the pixels looking like squares for example. But like all the pictures you print, your picture quality is only as good as your camera. My husbands casio was good enough until i purchased a 10 mega pixel Fugi camera. At first I thought my pictures on the screen view of the camera were bad because they looked like shiny bright marks all over the picture. But when I printed them they came out 40% better! I then realised my new camera was capturing more colour ect... and when printed out the difference was amazing in sharpness, colour and real life likeness.

Print Speed:
Very quick. Its about 20 - 45 seconds depending on the picture size etc... and the ink is dry enough to move the picture without ruining it before it is completely set. (About another 60 seconds).

Control Speed:
The more pictures you have loaded on an sd card or disc, the longer the machine takes to load them and move through them for viewing. For instance I have an sd card totally full up with pictures and you do have to wait up to around 10 - 20 seconds to jump from viewing the first picture number 1 to picture number 50 for example.
Editing controls are very quick, no waiting at tall to change settings or adjusting quantity of pictures to print.

Colour sensitivity:
I found the colours of my prints to be very good but excellent on the 'auto enhance' quality setting. It brings everything colour and focus sharper. Saying this I was still happy with my prints before I used this setting. But once USED my greed for even more perfect printing wont let me turn it off.

Ease of use and functions:
So easy I didn't even open the booklet until after I had printed nearly 150 pictures. The menu displayed on the printer, is self explanatry, on most of the settings you would use. If you make a mistake you just press the back button. You even have a pre-view button so you can check before you print. To be honest I only looked at the booklet one night just to see what else the machine done.
As soon as you turn the machine on, it starts telling you what to do via the nice size LCD screen. The paper lines up very easy, you basically just drop it in. I have Never had a paper jam yet! You can edit your pictures by zooming in and cropping. Print full size 4 x 6 inch pictures to small passport photos. I usually print 2 x 3 inch which is two pics on the same page in the settings menu. Either by selecting to print, two of the same pics this way, then cutting the finished pic in half so I have two copies one to keep and one to give away. OR by printing, one pic which will leave the other half of the print paper blank, which I then turn round and select a different pic and then print that. So I end up with two different pictures on the same print paper, so then I just cut them in half and have handy size prints to fill my photo album /or/ to put in my purse to show my kids pics to the nannys ect... This is also a good way to Save Money, so I will explain that next....

Value For Money:
Not as reasonable as taking to the shops to develop or waiting for prints by post.
I find the best value for money Is the 150 pack size. (Not the 50 pack size) The packs have the picture of the scoober divas flippered feet on the top of the sealed lid. These are the offical Epson packs. I personally have ruined at least 3 printers in the past by using un-offical ink in them. I have read you can get cheaper ink for your Epson but I am going to stick with the proper ink, to be on the safe side. The cheapest as I said is the 150 pack. Inside this pack you get the complete ink cassette, (very easy to install, instruction pictures on back of printer). And you also get included in the pack, 150 ultra gloss blank prints.
These packs usually sell for up to £35.00, on ebay and PC World last time I looked.
I usually pay around £28.00 for offical packs on ebay (so look out for them). OR buy online from Epson offical site price about £29.95.

So your looking at about 19 pence per print ~ NO not exactly ~ .
For full 4 x 6 inch prints I find the ink starts running low at about 135 prints and you get the lines across the pics (usually because one colour has run out). When this happened I switched to my half print method on auto enhance print (as described earlier) and found I could get 10 more perfect prints 2 x 3 inch size pics. But was still left with about 5 blank prints left per pack (depending on what pictures and pixels your printing at remember). Mine are quite high, lots of colour and detail.
So NOW because I have lots of kids pictiures to print for us and the rest of the family, I nearly always print with my half and half method, (two of the same /or/ different picture (s) on one 4 x 6 inch print paper. Then cut in half. So this way i double my picture quantity and get say at least 290 to over 300 pictures for around 10 pence each. Which I can edit how ever way i wish, when I want, and where I want. At home, which I usually use with the plug straight into the mains, or take with me to the families house and use battery pack or take the mains plug with me, which works out cheaper.

Reliability AND Maintanence:

I have owned my Epson PM 290 printer for nealy a year now. Never had a problem yet. I found the best way to keep it running without problems is to : Either print all your photos in one hit (use until ink very low and it wont print anymore) but do not take the ink cartridge out until you next replace it, so nozzle holes or what ever you want to call it does not totally dry out. Which I done and left for about 3-4 months before using again, then you need to install new ink and run an ink cleaning setting (again V.easy to do, just follow instructions in the LCD menu. This will eliminate lines across printed pics and does not seam to use much ink even with the test result print out at the end. I have run this setting 3-4 times one after the other to get quality back again for best photos. But this cleaning is not always needed!
OR stagger your prints so you print one or more once a week. Other than that just keep dust of it and the LCD clean with a clean cloth duster. I wouldn't leave a disc in the machine when you switch it off. And I do not leave the machine plugged in when not in use.
In 4 x 6 inch full size prints, so far I have printed the total equivellent of nearly 800 x pictures or in 2 x 3 inch prints 1600 x prints. And my printer is still working as good as new

Design:
Nice smart and neat looking. Not too heavy and has handy carry handle. Control buttons easy to use. Colour silver should wear well over time and not show diss-colouration like white for instance. LCD is protected by flip down lid, with window viewer. Disc loads from a pop out tray on the side so is not in the way of front flip down paper catcher, which also folds neatley up. Making this a nice compact design.

Instruction Manual:
Booklet not always needed but handy for full use of the machine. Clear instructions on LCD screen and in menu settings. Handy back button and stop/cancel, can't really go wrong, pre-view before you print.

Manufacturer Support:
I have never needed to use their support on this machine but in past experience on my other Epson All- in- one printer, in my opinion they were not very helpful as they would not give what I call technical help. Their basic lack of knowledge made them suggest that my machine should be returned to the shop or posted to them, at my expense, even under guarrantee.

My overall opion of the Epson PM290:
Compared to all the over printers I have used this is the best quality printing I have ever seen. It does not look un-professional. I have experimented with using non Epson paper from a pound shop that stated high gloss on the packet but it came out looking a dull matt colour. But you get enough paper in the ink pack so no worries there.
The only down side to this printer I can think of is the print size. Your limited to printing 4 x 6 inches being the largest print it produces. Hence why I have to use my other Epson for printing up to A4 size, which seams to cost me more in ink.
Would I buy this type of printer again? YES but if i were to only use the standard printing part, I would be just as happy with the 280 model which is cheaper in price and also takes the same ink as the 290.

I hope my review has been helpful for you