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 1290SA3 printer was the Epson Stylus Photo 900A4 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.
Pictures of Epson Stylus Photo 1290S
The Epson 1290S in all it's grey and silver glory.
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Jul 17th, 2005
(Jul 18th, 2005)
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