Customer Reviews

Epson Stylus Photo 780 Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I work at a camera store. When I saw they lowered the price of this printer ... , I couldn't pass it up. After using it for a couple weeks, I'll say this: For the price, I don't think there's a better printer out there in terms of print quality. However, you get what you pay for, and yes, there are reasons this printer is so modestly priced:

a. It's slow. VERY slow. Printing an 8x10 photo at the *highest* resolution (2880 dpi) took well over twenty minutes.

b. It's fairly noisy.

c. It goes through ink pretty quickly (the cartridges are very small). Luckily the cartridges are fairly inexpensive.

d. One advantage HP has over Epson is that HP puts the jets right in the cartridges. That's nice because if you let the printer sit and the ink dries up and clogs the jets, you can throw out the cartridge, buy a new one, and you've got a whole new set of jets. That's not how it works on the Epson. The jets are part of the printer on the Epson. If it clogs up (which my printer already has once...at the time of writing this, I've only owned it for a month), you've got to keep cleaning the print heads over and over until it unclogs. To unclog mine, I actually had to use a solvent inside the printer. That kind of irked me.

If I were going to be printing photos at home a *lot*, I'd probably go for something better than this. However, working at a camera store, I have access to a $300,000 machine to print digital photos with. Because of that, I print photos at home only occasionally; a twenty minute wait every once in a while isn't a big deal. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to the equipment I do and therefore might do a lot more photo printing at home, which may make using this printer a bit more of a pain.

Conclusion: If you don't mind waiting a while, I highly recommend this printer. In printing the same picture twice, once on the Epson (on good photo paper) and once at work on our Fuji processor, it was hard to tell the difference between the two. That's saying a *lot* for printer in this price range. I had to rate it a three because of the speed/noise issue, plus the fact that it's already clogged once. However, if the rating was supposed to have been based on the quality of prints *alone*, I'd have given it a four or a five.

True it may be slower and somewhat noisier than other models, but the prints that come out of it are outstanding! At first it seemed like the ink went fast but it really lasts as long as any other printer I have used. One nice feature is it tells you how many prints are remaining like that last printed. Although the warning about the ink levels comes on, you do have the option to continue printing until the ink runs out and it lasts quite a few prints beyond the warning about the ink levels. The specifications were practically identical to the higher model with the exception of the sound level, speed and no roll paper. I am totally satisfied with this printer and the quality of the pictures..they couldn't be better. The prints on the heavy weight matte paper are stunning! I love the borderless prints..they rival any print lab. I would most certainly go with Epson again.

Epson revolutionized the printer marketplace in the early 90's with the first Stylus Color printer. This printer is another breakthrough product in terms of price.

For $150 after your rebate, you shouldn't even be thinking about buying this printer, just do it! Epson's piezo-electric inkjet heads are generally acknowledged by experts as being able to produce prints that exceed the quality of traditional chemical photo processing.

It is possible to get great quality output from a 2 to 3 megapixel digital camera and print sizes up to full bleed 8.5 by 11. Results are quite good even if you spend minimal to no time editing the images. If you are interested in photography as a creative process and have worked in darkrooms then you will be amazed at the power you have with a printer like this in conjunction with an editing program like Adobe Photoshop. What used to take hours and hours of trial and error in the field and in the darkroom can now take minutes.

To put the value in perspective, consider the following. The print heads in this unit are the exact same ones as found in the Photo 890 and the Photo 1280. This is a great buy on state of the art technology even if you miss out on the rebate.

I recently purchased a digital camera for my small photo business. Of course, I wanted to be able to print out the gorgeous pictures I was taking...so I started doing a little research. I didn't have [a lot of money] to spend but I figured I would have to for a true photo quality inkjet. After doing about 20 hours of research on the Internet, I read several reviews that put the Epson printers in a class by themselves (for photo printing.) WOW! I was not disappointed! My HP 842C printer can't touch the Epson 780's print quality with a ten foot pole. If you want your prints to look as good or better than silver halide prints from the photo developer...GET THIS PRINTER!

The Epson 780 is a fine photo and text printer. Photos being it's strong qualities. I recommend using Epson paper, as this product works best using it's own products especially for photo printing. The printer is no speed demon especially when doing photo quality prints with the highest resolution settings, however the results are excellent. Most will not be able to tell the difference between what the Epson puts out, and that of a photo lab. The average time for a 8 1/2" X 11" photo using premium photo glossy paper with printer set at 2880 dpi is about 14 - 16 minutes... using 5" X 7" took around 8 minutes. If quality is what you want, and speed isn't a factor, The Epson 780 is a very good choice. Not recommened for office use!

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the prints put out for a printer priced under $100.00. As I knew before I bought it the cartridges go through rather quickly, but then I use it only for work requiring better than average prints. If you are going to use this as a default or only printer you will need to buy extra cartridges up front. Sound level is more than expected but a good tradeoff for the good points. I was happy enough with it to buy a second one for my office as a backup for the laser unit there.

The unit worked good for a month but used up the color very fast as others have claimed. I changed the color ink ... and it was gone in two weeks even though I printed only 3 full size photos.. After 3 months, the photos being printed were much too dark plus the fact that I kept on seeing bands in the photos which meant that I had to clean the print heads often which also uses more ink. I was satisfied with the Epson 740, but I am very dissatisfied with the 780 and will buy a different color printer!

I spent too much time making my printer decision, with repeat visits to review sites and numerous comparisons with my friends who own photo printers. Looking back, it all seems simple now... after three months the Epson 780 printer is perfect so far.

The images themselves are 100% photo-lab quality (using images from my 3.3 megapix camera), even at sizes as large as 8 X 10. You cannot beat this print quality, in my opinion it exceeds the HP models. This is my third color printer (the others were older color inkjet HP), and I was impressed with how much better inkjet photo printing has become even in the last few years. I never thought $... could get me such a good printer.

The photo processing software is adequate (2 programs are included). The Epson product (FileFactory) has some nice retouch capability, but afterward (even after exiting and re-launching the program) the retouched version of the file is always displayed. It is a little awkward to back out to the original version of the photo, and it can be hard to figure out where the retouched photo files are stored by the program.

I use Windows 2000, and once or twice the print driver seems to lock up after printing and I have had to reboot. However, I have a very non-standard PC configuration that locks up on me a lot in general, so I do not believe this is an Epson-related problem.

The printer itself is somewhat loud and somewhat slow, and it does have small ink cartridges. I needed a refill on the color cartridge after a combined total of about three 8X10 and twenty 4X6 images. These minor issues, which have received a lot of attention in the reviews here, should not sway anyone away from purchasing this product.

I have been using an old Lexmark for years. Like many beginner photo enthuiasts, I decided to upgrade to a photo printer when I upgraded my digital camera.

The hours of necessary research I did proved to be sucessful. The installation process was simple and went smooth. There have been no clogs, jams or mishaps.

The photo quality far surpasses any other brand of printer in the same price range. The price of ink is very reasonable.

Yes, I too heard the clunks and clinks of the printer when it is preparing to print. However, it doesn't bother me in the least.

My advice it to try it. You will like it.

This printer provides great image quality at a low price, but the heads clog WAY too frequently. I have to do so many cleaning cycles, usually to fix black problems, that it almost isn't worth the low price. Don't get me wrong, when the printer works it is amazing (i was a commercial photo printer for many years). If only you could do cleaning with the color cartridge removed, but you can't, so you waste so much ink. The cartridges should be half the price because of this.