Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

The 785EPX was very easy to set up, I followed the simple "poster fold out" instructions. I hooked the 785EPX up as a second printer for printing photos using a USB cable (you will need to purchase one). Took less than 15min to set up. I have not used photo software in the past so the included software seemed just fine. I was able to easily manipulate pictures, create greeting cards, calenders, etc. The price of the 785EPX is very competitive! Okay last but not least - the print quality is excellent! It is very difficult to tell the difference between the 785EPX prints and photo shop prints....these may be even better! A couple of side notes: I did a great deal of research before buying, the 2 most common "cons" were: 1) printer drinks lots of ink, and 2) printer is noisey. Don't let this deter you.....printer cartridges for the 785EPX are very reasonable, and as far as noise....it's an inkjet printer.....it should make some noise!

FYI - I Ordered the printer from Amazon Sunday evening, received it Wednesday morning, great service - thanks Amazon.

I recently purchased the Epson 785EPX following a positive review in "Outdoor Photography" magazine to replace my HP 952c. I'm a semi-professional photographer starting to do more work in digital, and like to use the ink jet copies as proofs to see how images will print. The quality of the images is very good. I haven't had any problem with color matching, poor printing (vertical or horizontal lines) or jamming. If you really want photo quality you have to use photo paper. I mention this in case someone is just starting and is unsure about the difference. I've also done a fair amount of "regular" printing, and have been very happy. While photos print slowly (the HP was a bit faster, but the Epson's quality is better), letters and pages from the web print very fast, and are quite clear and professional looking on regular ink jet paper.

The ability to make prints directly from the printer - without using the computer - is very cool. You can easily make an index print (thumbnails) of all the images on your card, or a selected folder. I did find these images to be a bit too small to be truly useful, but I'm sure there has to be a way to change the size (I hope!) It comes with a PCMCIA adapter for a Compact Flash card which plugs into the printer. If you use different media, Epson will trade you the CF card for what you need.

One minor problem with printing is that it uses ink at a much faster rate than my HP did. Plan on buying a replacement cartridge soon. Epson gives you the ability to order supplies through the printer software; clicking on the appropriate button takes you to Epson's web site. A replacement cartidge from Epson is about ($$$).

The software that comes with the printer is excellent. There are, as always, some extra programs you may or may not find useful. The printer's software controls are very clear, easy to access and provide many useful printing options, such as easily being able to change the type of paper being used (regular paper, matte photo, glossy photo, etc.)to maximize results.

I really have only one big complaint: This thing is noisy. All the ink jets I've ever used were whisper quiet. This is loud enough to interfere with conversation, and it makes noise for a while when first started, before printing and while printing.

In brief, if you're willing to deal with the noise (I am, so far), this is an excellent machine for the price. Because it has features that I haven't explored yet, I think that it has enough depth to please all but those who demand high end performance.

This is my second Epson printer. My last one, before purchasing the 785 EPX, was the Stylus 850. I had no problems with the print quality of that printer, but the printheads clogged on a regular basis. Just after the warranty expired, the printheads clogged for good, and the printer was rendered useless. I brought it in for repair at the computer store where I purchased it, and was told that the heads could not be unclogged. I decided to try once more myself, before throwing the 850 out, and low and behold, it worked perfectly! I used it for a few months afterwards, with no problems, then I moved, and put the printer into storage for several months. Of course, after not using the printer for a while, I experienced the same printhead clogging that I did in the past. I decided that it was time to buy a new printer. This burned me up. The thought of shelling out more money to replace a printer that went bad from NON USE! After extensive research, I chose the 785 EPX. I was amazed at how much ink it consumed, after only a couple of days of use. After I printed only 8 prints (8x10's) the color cartridge was near empty. Epson puts a computer chip in their new cartridges, which makes them very costly (in my opinion). I did find after market cartridges for the EPX for (dollar amount) (...), but this is still way more than the (dollar amount) I paid for the 850 ink cartridges. One month after getting this printer, I went on vacation for 3 weeks. Now, the printheads in the EPX are clogged. I am livid! I performed 12 cleaning cycles with no luck. I do not like the fact that both the black and the color cartridges are cleaned together...no option to clean them separatly, using more ink than need be :( I called Epson, and the Tech person immediately offered to send me 2 free cartridges to help remedy the clogged printhead problem. I was happy about that, but still angry at the fact that I have to be a slave to this printer (all Epson printers?) for it to function. I don't do a ton of printing, just occasionally. It's my opinion, that this printer is not made for occasional use, however. I guess if you don't mind starting the printer up every few days, to keep the ink flowing, all the power to you. Just hope that there is still ink left in the cartridge when you want to make a print, as just turning the printer on uses ink to prime the heads. What good is exceptional print quality, which this printer supposedly has, (I have not seen it yet) if you can't get the printer to work? Good luck to all the Epson printer owners out there. I will look for another brand.

This is my third printer and my first Epson and I bought it based on the reviews on Amazon. My other two printers were HP's and I still have my Deskjet 952C but I do considerable printing and I wanted the Epson for the increased flexibility the second printer brings. The Epson was very easy to set up but remember it only uses USB cable to connect to the PC. The printer is a little bulky compared to some of the newer printers on the market today so be sure and check your available space for the printer. Photo quality is very good and is better than the HP 952C with the colors deeper and prints photos with surprising speed. You can print from the PC or from a compact card from your digital camera. The printer comes with a PCMCIA adapter and Epson offers to exchange the adapter for a SmartMedia adapter or a Memory Stick adapter. Printing envelopes is a snap but you do have to take the paper out but I think it's a minor inconvenience. You can print up to 52 borderless snapshots at a time on roll paper and the printer comes with a roll paper adapter. I've not had an opportunity to try out the roll paper yet but I think the concept of roll paper adds increased flexibility to the printer. Black and white document printing speed is acceptable and is about as fast as the HP 952C. The only downside to the printer is the noise the printer makes while loading paper and printing or, perhaps, I didn't realize how quite the 952 is. At any rate, the noise was not such a problem that it caused me to deduct a star on the rating. I've not had the printer long enough to develop an opinion on ink usage. Inkjet cartridges for color and black ink are reasonably priced on the Epson website and are less expensive than HP products but I'm still unsure of overall ink usage. I've had no problems with the printer since sitting it up and feel it's a very good all round printer and would recommend it for the home/office user.

I've been a happy Epson customer since 1997, and when it came time to look for a photo printer I really only wanted to look at the Epson line. I did research others, though, but I kept finding excuses to favor Epson over any other brand.

And I'm not disappointed. When matched with Epson papers (especially the Premium Glossy Photo Paper), the output is better than all but the most professionally produced studio prints. And I can do it myself.... easily.

The internal card reader is a nice feature if you want to print directly without waiting for the PC to boot up, but it also transfers the photos to the PC without the need to hook up your camera.

All in all, it's worth every penny!

I bought this printer today and love it. I still use my Canon laser printer for plain b&w printing but now use the Epson 785EPX for all my color prints as a seoncdary printer. It connects via standard USB, but the cable is not included. Wish they told me that beforehand on the box somewhere. Doesn't even come with a standard serial printer cable so you must buy a USB cable before thinking of even setting up this puppy. After turning it on and inserting the ink cartidges, it only takes a few moments to install the software. The sofware isn't hard to use at all, but the interface is a bit strange from the standard photo software you usually get. It's actually pretty easy once you know what all the fancy icons mean. However, it is as one poster said, a fairly basic photo manipulation software. Might want to invest into Adobe photoshop or something similar if you want to truly manipulate photos. I bought a Kodak DX3600 digital camera with dock in conjunction with this printer. Pictures are very, very good up to an 8x10 photo. After that, you'll notice a bit of pixellation. Not much, but it's still there if you look. At 8x10 or lower, it's just as good as the photoshop except now you can manipulate your own pictures and adjust brightness or redeye during your pics or after with photo software so you don't have to rely on those dweebs at the photoshop.

Recently I purchased the Epson 785epx and am very happy with the results I've been having. The quality of the prints are incredible! It's hard to tell the difference between "regular" photos and the ones that I've been printing with this printer. It's also easy to use and very fast. It does'nt get much better than this.

I have read both the positive and negative reviews of this printer prior to making my decision to purchase it. I am extremely glad that I made the decision to "upgrade" from my more expensive HP photosmart P1100 (...) to the Epson Photo 785epx (...). I have printed two 8x10 photos on the included glossy and matte paper and a borderless 8 1/2x 11 on matte paper. I have only used the 1440dpi print mode and with the quality of prints that I recieved at this setting, I see no reason to print at 2880dpi. I cannot find one negative aspect of this printer, even the ink is inexpensive - half the price of my previous printer. I don't think that it is possible to find a better quality printer..., but if you do, please let me know. I never imagined actually saying this about digital, but I think that the output is even better that film and chemical prints. All I can say is where's the sixth star?

Thank you Epson!!!

I picked the 785EXP based on other users' positive feeback and (my small budget)pricing while being concerned after years using of only HP ~[cost] inkjet models.

The highest quality output of this Epson is well beyond the best of my HP units. Even the 1400 dpi mode using matte paper makes me happy every time. Vivid contrasting of colors help make the digital darkroom efforts worth every moment. I even love the sounds it makes grabbing the paper and during printing. (Then again I love to hear my modem working too!)

Although Epson recommends single sheet feed of heavier papers, (sometimes I don't) it has never missfead any of the many brands and types tried. (HP Well....hmm..Love cleaning out jammed ex-photo paper, while being scared that it will never work again?)

I was very concerned after reading several negative "users comments" and have found most to be unique to their situations. Things as "too many choices" in the printer driver outputs (I love choices!) "Too hard to install" and "slow to start printing" I had no problems like that. I did have problems with USB device conflicts during printing causing lost communications errors or stopped printing until I unplugged the USB cable on the HP Deskjet that was not powered at that time. I have experienced problems of this sort with many USB devices that have proven to be OS related as well as the mix of software/equipment drivers on a given system.

I wanted to write this to share my opinion and say this is a great printer! Maybe not as fast as some more expensive units but great value and quality. Plus it prints pictures so well that it motivates one to get the camera out and take more and if possible even better pictures!

To the reviewer who complained about pizza wheel (tiny little indentation) marks from this printer, a quick call to tech support would have answered your question and solved the problem! This printer requires heavy weight papers such as Epson's. In fact, only Epson paper will maximize the ink delivery system, so even if you use a heavier weight (10.4, for example) paper by another brand, photos won't achieve the best possible color quality. Once you realize this, however, the printer is capable of fantastic results--above and beyond others in it's price range, in my opinion.