Epson... what a bloody good printer company. Just when you think Canon has come out with the next best printer with all the magical implementations thrown onto it to make us users drool, along comes Epson with it's fat arse and a cheaper quality professional printer to quench it's fire. If ... Read review
Advantages: Prints like Cheetah on speed, quality is like 20/20 vision with vision enhancing glasses, decent value for money. Disadvantages: Cannot use cheap alternative ink, has an arse bigger than my aunt May.
...us users drool, along comes Epson with it's fat arse and a cheaper quality professional printer to quench it's fire. If I wanted to be crude, I could of said that the Epson Stylus Photo 1290S A3 printer was the Epson Stylus Photo 900 A4 printer, with an erection. Epson rocks my wok.
I was at Comet the other day, searching for my first A3 printer so that a lowly mortal, such as myself, could be given the powers of A3+ printing. I searched ... ...make it weep' printer.. the Epson Stylus Photo 1290S. Wow I thought... Epson...
Wow, until I saw the prices. What in name of Jesus Christ's holy mother is that price tag doing there underneath the printer I wanted? £299.99? You're having a laugh! The Canon and the HP printers weren't far off either. Canon was a nasty £389.99, and the HP was £229.99. I looked at the bloke and asked him, "Can I buy the Epson display model mate so ... more
Epson... what a bloody good printer company. Just when you think Canon has come out with the next best printer with all the magical implementations thrown onto it to make us users drool, along comes Epson with it's fat arse and a cheaper quality professional printer to quench it's fire. If I wanted to be crude, I could of said that the Epson Stylus Photo 1290S A3 printer was the Epson Stylus Photo 900 A4 printer, with an erection. Epson rocks my wok.
I was at Comet the other day, searching for my first A3 printer so that a lowly mortal, such as myself, could be given the powers of A3+ printing. I searched high and low, but could not find the printer I was looking for. And then, as I was giving up, a Comet salesman comes up to me with a smile on his face and a message on his forehead reading 'Buy something from me, I want a bonus.'
With his smirk and really badly gelled hair as if he ran it down the side of a greasy oven door, he asked me in broken English, "Can I help you sir?"
I asked for an A3 printer, and without even flinching, took me to the area with three A3 printers on display. One was the HP DeskJet 1280, one was the Canon i6500, and one was the legendary... the 'I wont bust open your wallet and make it weep' printer.. the Epson Stylus Photo 1290S. Wow I thought... Epson...
Wow, until I saw the prices. What in name of Jesus Christ's holy mother is that price tag doing there underneath the printer I wanted? £299.99? You're having a laugh! The Canon and the HP printers weren't far off either. Canon was a nasty £389.99, and the HP was £229.99. I looked at the bloke and asked him, "Can I buy the Epson display model mate so that it is cheaper?"
He goes, "No."
Well, you can't blame me for trying.
Anyways, after that incident, I decided to head home and do what the most civilised and financially organised people do. I checked the prices online.
I found the Epson Stylus Photo 1290S for £244 at www.cameras2u.com. The cheapest anywhere that I could find it and it came with free next day delivery as well. I did have a look for the Canon and HP just in case, but many people made fun of the HP printer, calling it crap, lame, and much worse. And the Canon... well it is a decent printer on par with Epson, but the price for it was always above £300. Therefore, in the arts of the price VS quality techniques passed down to me from generation to generation in my family, I chose the Epson printer. I got my mate to pay, he owed me a birthday present.
Now if you were wondering what the S stands for. It stands for Silver Edition. There was a plain 1290 back in the day, and according to social legend it was plagued with print head clogging problems. Thus, the silver version was born with the error solved, and they even coloured it grey and silver to match the name. Yay, now you know.
Ah... sweet ignorant bliss as two hundred and forty four pounds of my mates money left his bank account and flew into the hands of Cameras2u, I received the printer the next day... and by golly gosh great big fat banana trees... it was such a massive box!
The box was big, fat, tonks, any word you can think for big, you put it here and it will describe to you the immenseness of the box that I got. It's only an A3 printer, why does it have to be so big? Well, I unpacked the printer with my strong arms (and scissors), and lifted it out of the box. Hey what's that? Oh look! Loads of manuals and leaflets, a pair of paper roll holder thingies, the driver CD, a power cable, a grey stick-like plastic thingy that I have no idea what it is for, the paper support for the back of the printer and a pack of A4 sample photo paper to test out the printer's printing prowess. Oh wow... A4 photo paper... it's a bloody A3 printer for crying out loud, give us sample A3 paper! We've all seen the A4 photo printouts for goodness sake!
Hey what the heck? No USB or parallel port cable? Typical Epson arse wipers, they never give you a printer cable! You have to get one yourself if you want to get it chatting to your PC. On the subject of chatting, how does the printer chat to the PC? "Hey mate! Here's a 1 and a 0, and a 1 and another 1. Hey look another 0!" Binary chat or something?
Well, the printer can use either parallel port or USB, and being such the brilliant computer user that I am, I got myself a USB cable that I had hidden somewhere in my garden being used as a clothesline, and plugged it into the printer. Yay! It fits!
After setting up the printer on my floor since there was absolutely no room for it on my desktop due to it's fat ass, I put the CD into the PC and ran the setup program. It did everything for me installing all that I needed. It even gave me a DING sound when it was done. How sweet! It tells me to switch on the printer so that it can detect and install the printer. Aye aye... I did that and it goes all good no problems. Nothing has blown up so far...
Ah... the installation is completed! I feel my PC yearning to print out an image document in the My Pictures folder. What's that my beloved PC? You want me to print out that picture of Mariah Carey with her knockers hanging out? Oh... you dirty dirty machine! Ok then!
The printing was a doddle. If you ever had printing experience before using A4 printers etc, then just apply that knowledge here and adjust the A4 setting to A3 in the page setup. Sorted! You can select quality options, and on certain paper types you can choose the ultimate in printing quality... the crème de la crème of Epson ink spitting technology on paper. Choose the option 'Photo Glossy Ink Paper' and you will have the option of choosing 2880 dots per inch for your printouts! Man... somebody spank me!
Of course, the quality isn't only due to the printer, it is also down to the quality of the computer picture and the paper type. There is no point printing highest quality on shabby thin newspaper type paper. It's like using cling film as a condom. The quality of the picture plays a big part as well, since the printer can't make a really small crappy A6 image and turn into a big A3 amazingly sharp picture. You need it at a high resolution beforehand!
I've gone crazy, printing out pictures at A4 to A3, and even A3+! I've gone through qualities of 360 dots per inch, 720 dots per inch, 1440 dots per inch and the biggest, baddest, most ink hungry of them all! 2880 dots per inch. In my honest and humble computer user opinion, I cannot see much difference between 1440 and 2880 dots per inch. Therefore, in my infinite wisdom, I suggest you stick with 1440 so that not only do you save ink, but also speed up printing time.
Hehe, the speed you're asking about? But of course darling! It is one of the fastest A3 printers I have ever laid my hands on. It's fast, and it's silent as well (silent compared to other printers, although it can sound like an old man farting in a silent room at times.) A 1440 DPI A3 print out took 1 minute 20 seconds flat. Usually I can go and make a cuppa tea, get a few Rich Tea biscuits before watching a few minutes of Easties until it finishes. Now, the prints finish even before the waters boiled. It's quite frustrating in a way, since I don't have time to relax before its done printing. Old habits die hard hey? Dammit, I'm not old! don't even think that!
This is a printer for photos. This is a printer for professional and home users. It has 6 colours which are black, cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan and light magenta. It has super fast drying ink so that prints say vibrant for longer, and no stray splash of water can make the colours run. Fast, quiet, blah blah etc. You get the idea. You want an A3 printer that's good value for money buy this printer! No streaks or anything, just smooth, vibrant, sharp images with very accurate colour renditions.
You want a problem with it? You want to know what is wrong with it? Geez, you guys are always looking for something bad about anything aren't you? If there is one problem with it, is that you should never use cheapo alternative brand compatible ink cartridges. Epson originals are pretty pricey, at £15-ish and the alternatives are a lot cheaper... say at www.prink.com you can get a 2 black and 2 colour ink cartridge set for £10.99. Pretty seductive but however, use the alternative and your printer will have more problems than a 70 year old man with kidney stones the size of beach pebbles. Ouch... painful... and that's just the printer moaning at you on Windows XP. Other than that, highly recommended. If you can get it with a free printer cable at a similar price to how much I bought mine for, you better pounce.
Advantages: Superb photo printer. Prints to A3+. Cheap for what it does. Disadvantages: Large footprint
...When my trusty old Epson Stylus Photo 870 finally gave up the ghost last October, I decided to upgrade from A4 to A3 capability. For exhibition work, having the ability to produce large prints of near perfect quality is essential. The 1290S was the obvious choice. I've now lived with this machine for 9 months or so and cannot fault it in any respect. I bought mine from Amazon for £249.99, which was the cheapest I could find it at the time. It arrived ... ...packed! As with all Epson printers, it does not come with a printer cable, but fortunately I had a 2 metre USB cable spare so no problems there. After loading the superb Epson software, I plugged it in and, bingo, after 5 minutes or so I was up and running. So, as far as installation is concerned, this, like all Epson printers, was an absolute doddle.
The printer came with a copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements and the ability to handle roll paper, ...
richkw 29.06.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Epson Stylus Photo 1290S
Advantages: Price, Quality of Print, Ink Price Disadvantages: Mac Software
The Epson 1290S is used as a professional proofer by Printing Companies. I've used the machine both professionally and as a domestic user.
It has quite a big footprint, so you'll need plenty of room around your PC or MAC, (The supplied software is compatible with both platforms) and you'll need a usb or serial cable to get going.
The machine is very easy to set up and the software installs automatically. The inkjet cartridges are a 5 colour unit ... ...black. Surprisingly you can pick up compatible cartridges very cheaply and they have all worked perfectly for me so far. In fact the ink is so cheap that you can import from the US via Ebay for 'peanuts' and even after the £10-£15 postage you are still saving money on the corresponding price in the UK.
The machine takes up to SRA3 paper which means you can print out a full size A3 (420 x 297mm) spread with bleeds (Where the ink runs over the edges) ...
tribeca737 03.01.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Epson Stylus Photo 1290S
Advantages: 6 colour printing Disadvantages: price of cartridges, appearance
...recommend you use the real Epson printer cartridges as the cheap ones often leak and clog up your printer heads. In my case this situation is always followed by about half an hour of cleaning them with cotton buds and toilet roll! So if you can afford the real thing, get them! Bearing in mind they may set you back at least £20 a time - and depending on how many photos you wana print off, this could prove costly! But if its quality you are after than ... ...a 6 colour printer - perfect for all those budding photographers! However, in all due respect, the quality of compatible cartridges depends on the manufacturer themselves - im sure there are better ones out there than the ones i used - you'll just need to shop around. Asking for recommendations from friends and retail staff could be wise move.
The printer driver was easy to install, although it can be slow if you are using Windows 2000 or below. ...
jdeacon_162 04.11.2006 (05.11.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Epson Stylus Photo 1290S
Advantages: Vg with orig cartridges, gd B&W on 3rd party's. Gd sheet store, duplex facility, not noisy Disadvantages: Epson cartridges too dear - must use 3rd party's for volume output.
...drawings and at the time Epson was almost the only one in a reasonable price bracket - hats off for that. My first Epson was an MX 100 back in 1982, so I was emotionally hooked anyway. Maybe the 'S' is faster than the original 1290 - must see if there's an upgrade for mine. Doing 6-8 drawing prints is definitely something to be done while doing loads of other things and certainly not just as you need to go out the door ! Maybe I've missed a programming ...
jonembi 17.01.2009 (10.01.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Epson Stylus Photo 1290S
Product Information for "Epson Stylus Photo 1290S" »
Scanner
Type
Flatbed scanner - desktop
Scan Mode
Single-pass
Colour Depth
48-bit colour
Optical / Interpolated Resolution
2400 x 4800 dpi / 12800 x 12800 bit
Manufacturer's product description
The Epson Stylus Photo 1290S inkjet printer provides lightfast 6-color Photo Reproduction Quality to professional photographers and photography enthusiasts with results more than comparable to standard photo-lab prints. The Stylus Photo 1290S becomes a desktop photo lab, exquisitely printing everything from portfolios and proofs to letters and web pages - delivering edge-to-edge output without the need for cropping. Using the Photo Reproduction Quality technology incorporating the Epson Perfect Picture Imaging System, true photo-quality performance comes as standard without the need for additional upgrades, while printing on plain paper has been improved even further. The Stylus Photo 1290S offers breakthrough 2880 dpi resolution for pinsharp text, graphics and photo images, combined with Epson's 4 picoliter Ultra Micro Dot and Variable Sized Droplet Technology for finer detail and gradations. Improved edge-to-edge printing now means that photos can be printed with no surrounding white space on standard 4"x6", A4, A3 and A3+ paper, meaning that special oversized paper and cropping are unnecessary. For panoramic prints, a roll holder is also supplied that can take 100mm, 210mm and 329mm wide roll media.
