Epson Stylus Photo 900

I have had my Epson Stylus Photo 900 printer for about 16 months. and I've had no problems at all with it. It prints CD's easier than anything else, and as for photos, they come out perfect every time. The software is easy to install and understand, and with the different formats you can save lots of ink. I print lots of photos and CD's (now), and for me there just isn't a better printer. I give it 10 out of 10 for price, quality, and value. my last printer was an Epson 680, so when I bought this I found it to be in a league of its own.

Unlike most people I have no desire to print CD's. I bought the Epson Stylus Photo 900 printer solely to do photo quality printing from digital cameras. It was well reviewed as such.

While in most respects it performs fine, I have found that the colours printed are a bad match for those actually captured by camera, or displayed on screen - they are much too vivid, and in particular greens (grass is especially bad) actually come out as almost fluorescent.

I've no doubt I can tweak the settings, but when set to defaults I would have expected a very neutral print. Yes, I do use genuine EPSON ink and paper !

I have had the Epson Stylus Photo 900 Inkjet Printer for nearly a year and still have not had any problems at all. The main reason for my purchase was for the ability to print to cd which is also simple to use. As long as the correct media is used the quality of the print is very good. If it stays the same I will not have to upgrade for a few years yet.

I dont know how anyone can have problems printing onto cd with a Epson Stylus Photo 900 if you follow the correct instructioins

put the cd in its tray and put it in the back of the printer.

use the guide slide at back to keep it straight (just like the paper size thing at the top of printer.

slide it in till you see the white line then press the button next to the power switch and the tray aligns itself for printing

then print

easy though before reading the instructions it would have been difficult

fantastic printer and the quality on the discs is fantastic

oh and got it from pcworld for 75 pounds

I bought this Epson Stylus Photo 900 as an upgrade from my very good epson 870 photo, because it could print onto CD's,

CD PRINTING.

This is very difficult, you have to push the cd drawer in at the back at exactly the right pressure, and guide it in at the correct speed or it will just spit it out on the other side without printing, while at the same time clicking the print button with your other hand, what a joke. The print is almost always off centre being fed in 2mm early or late and the print quality is poor.

PHOTO PRINTING.

This is my biggest gripe, being an upgrade to the excellent epson 870 you would havwe thought it would have been the same if not better, but I have seen much better jobs done with budget 3 colour ink jet printers, there are fine lines between each line of print (Before you say yes, the heads were clean and alighned)and there is a fine dusting of black ink all over the page, it is as though it's printing on economy mode. If you choose the finest quality (*JOKE*) then you get exactly the same 'quality' of print except it takes 12 minutes for one print.

HEAD CLEANING.

every time you switch this printer on you have to wait 3 minutes for it to clean the heads, this is the same if you switch it off and right away back on, and when you print it cleans the heads for 30 seconds - EVERY TIME which has consumed my colour and black in 12 CD's and 3 200mm x 175 prints.

CONCLUSION.

I took the printer back to where I bought it and I was told "it was not a fault, the quality is lower than the epson 870", so as I couldn't get a refund, I have now smashed it to bits with a very big sledge hammer and it felt good. Ithen found where all the ink went - into the felt catcher at the bottom of the printer, I managed to salvage a 3volt battery out of it though, so not a complete waste of money, thanks epson for raising my blood pressure.

Mike

Very good product, easy to install. Main feature for me was the ability to print to CD so I can customize and reference my CD's easily without the usual CD pen writing, or sticky labels.

Have to buy inkjet printable CD's (about 35p each)- the supplied software for creating the CD picture is good and you can print over almost the entire surface of the CD - ie everywhere except the inside 2cm and outside 1mm rim. I was a little disappointed in the slightly washed out colours of the final printed CD, and it's too easy to print off-centre as there's a little too much guesswork to line up the CD holder perfectly.

I was also disappointed in the photo quality prints - they are not as good as my ageing Epson C20 nor my Epson 760. I find this surprising - if I did not have these two printers I would be happy with the results, but the 900 is definately not as good as either of these other printers.

CD pintng is a long overwaited development - I have had mine for about 4 months and am generally pleased but can't help feeling that Epson could (and should) have done better on the above points.