Pricing starts at $99 for a version that supports 13-inch printers (like the Stylus Photo R2880), going to $199 for 17-inch printers, $399 (24 inches), $599 (44 inches) and $799 (64 inches).

On the surface, the 3880 offers a few incremental improvements over the Stylus Pro 3800, adding the Vivid Magenta inks, an improved printhead, and new screening algorithms. The case design, print engine, and ink system (with its spacious 80ml cartridges and 8-channel head that requires switching of matte and photo black inks) are identical to the 3800, which is testament to that printer’s design and its success in the market, as well as the relative maturity of the photo printer industry.

Here’s a rundown of the new features in the Stylus Pro 3880:

• Vivid Magenta inks. These two inks (vivid magenta and vivid light magenta) will give the 3880 a slightly wider gamut over 3800’s stock UltraChrome K3 inks, especially in the blues and the violets. They will also help with black-and-white printing, helping provide much more neutral prints, when used in conjunction with the new screening technology.

  These inks debuted more than two years ago in the high-end Stylus Pro 4880, 7880 and 9880 printers, and Epson even leap-frogged the 3800 last summer, incorporating the set in the $800 Stylus Photo R2880.

• Improved screening. The new screening algorithm, called AccuPhoto HD2, is probably the most important enhancement to the Stylus Pro 3880. Epson says that this technology provides “smoother color transitions and better highlight and shadow detail” on photographic prints, even at lower print resolutions. It should also further reduce the dwindling instances of metameric failure, a condition where the the human eye detects a shift in color when viewing a print under different light sources.

  AccuPhoto HD2 is the result of an ongoing partnership between Epson and the Rochester Institute of Technology (which also resulted in the Stylus Photo R1900’s Radiance technology). When used in conjunction with the printhead and the UltraChrome K3 Vivid Magenta inks, we should see much richer prints on a wide variety of media, with smoother transitions and improved shadow detail.

• Ink-repellent printhead. While the 3880’s printhead utilizes the same 8-channel design found in the 3800, Epson has updated the printhead to include the ink-repellent coating found in in higher-end and consumer-level photo inkjets, which will help minimize ink clogs and spatter over the life of the printer.

For those new to this sector of the market, it’s worth listing the other notable characteristics of the 3880:

• Print resolution up to 2880 by 1440 dpi with a minimum ink droplet size of 3.5 picoliters;
• Nine inks (eight printing), which include the aforementioned vivid magenta inks, cyan and light cyan, yellow, two light-density gray inks (light gray and light light gray), and two black inks, matte and photo black. The black inks share one channel to the printhead, and automatically switch when you move between glossy and matte (or fine-art) papers;
• Maximum cut sheet size of 17" by 22" (with panoramic sizes available through the custom print dialog box), and borderless printing from 4" by 6" to 17" by 22";
• Three paper paths, including a straight-through path for media up to 1.5mm thick;
• USB 2.0 and Ethernet (10/100) interfaces;
• Compact size: 27" wide, 15" deep and 10" high (with doors and trays closed.)

What’s missing?

There is bound to be some disappointment with this announcement, especially from photographers looking to the 10-ink UltraChrome HDR inks in the Stylus Pro 7900/9900 wide-format printers, or the 12 inks in HP’s Designjet Z3200. But, while you might get a slightly larger gamut with more inks, it’s highly unlikely that it would be worth the extra mass and expense for a desktop printer that already has sterling print quality.

The real issue that will come up is the ink waste when swapping inks, but in the two-and-a-half years that I’ve used my 3800—and spoken with many, many 3800 users—it really has been a minor issue. Yes, in an ideal world, we would all want a 9-channel printhead with no ink waste whatsoever, but the reality is that, on the 3800, this is a problem that rarely gets in the way, thanks to the 80ml cartridge capacity, which makes it much more economical to print. (And don’t think that there isn’t ink waste in all inkjet printers; there is.)

Does it change the market?

Over the past 18 months, there has been a pretty steady drumbeat of anticipation for an update to the Stylus Pro 3800. Not a week goes by where I don’t get at least two or three emails from readers looking to buy a 3800 and worrying that they’ll get caught off guard with an announcement from Epson. My response is always the same: “It’s a great printer, and if you need it now, buy it now,” and I can’t see any reason that will change with the 3880 release.

The Stylus Pro 3880 is definitely an incremental update to the Stylus Pro 3800, but it shouldn’t be dismissed as a placeholder upgrade. The new inks, when combined with the AccuPhoto HD2 screening, should represent a slight, but noticeable improvement in print quality for discerning artists and photographers, especially with tricky images, black-and-white prints, and anything being offered for sale. And the 3800’s basic design has been proven again and again as the go-to desktop printer for the professional photographer.

Part of this is a tacit acknowledgement that we’re running out of room when it comes to big enhancements in photo quality; the bar has been set pretty high by Epson, and we just aren’t going to see the type of generational print quality changes that we saw in the early parts of this decade. (It’s worth noting that both HP and Canon have raised the output quality level of their professional printers as well.)

As much as we all might want some magical desktop photo printer that costs next to nothing and produces prints for even less, the fact remains that the Stylus Pro 3800 was a great product that sat uniquely in the market, with no real competition. The Stylus Pro 3880 should slip effortlessly into its place.

The big question is whether HP or Canon decide that the 17-inch desktop market is now worth playing in: both companies have been extremely silent while Epson has maintained a sizable lead in the market. Epson has proven that there is a middle ground for the professional photographer who prefers a more compact unit with economical printing over wide-format, roll-fed photo printers.

The Stylus Pro 3880 will be priced at $1,295; a Graphic Arts Edition, which comes with a ColorBurst RIP for proofing and design applications, will be available for $1,495. Epson expects both models to ship in October; if Epson’s past history is any indicator, we would expect a few early units to get snapped up quickly, with wide availability by the end of this year.

The Piezography K7 inkset is optimized for Roy Harrington’s QuadTone RIP software, and comes with profiles for a number of papers from Epson, Innova, Hahnemuhle and more.

The kit is priced at $508, and includes everything you need to get started, including inks, cartridges and profiles. Inkjet Mall is offering $75 off through March 17 – use the code ‘BEST2880BW’ when checking out.

For those of you interested in a color-based CIS for the R2880, Cone isn’t yet offering a version of its ConeColor system; you can send an email requesting one on this page.

• The Pixma Pro9000 Mark II is an 8-ink, dye-based printer priced at $500. It reportedly offers three times the print speed of the first-generation model.
• The Pixma Pro9500 Mark II uses 10 pigmented inks—including matte and photo black inks and a gray ink for neutral black and white output—and is priced at $850. Canon says that the 9500 Mark II’s print engine is 1.5 times faster than the earlier version.

Both printers have USB 2.0 and PictBridge ports; a top-loading paper tray that will hold up to 150 sheets of paper; and a straight-through paper path that can handle fine-art media up to 1.2 mm thick. They will include Canon’s Digital Photo Professional and Easy Photo-Fix software, as well as Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 6.0. The printers will run on Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista, and Vista users will be able to take advantage of Canon’s Ambient Light Correction software in the print driver, which “optimizes print color for the lighting conditions where the final print will be shown.”

As noted, the new models are using the same inkset and printheads as the previous generation, but print speed gains will be quite welcome, especially in the Pixma Pro9500 Mark II: the older 9500 was painfully slow compared with Epson’s Stylus Photo R2400 and R2880 (see our R2880 review for more details). The Pixma Pro9000, on the other hand, was already quite fast, beating even Epson’s Stylus Photo R1900 in our standard- and high-quality print tests.

The first-generation versions of the Pixma Pro printers were both solid units that had little to distinguish them from their counterparts by Epson and HP. The Pixma Pro9500 (see my Macworld review here) was a good printer overall that produced true-to-life photos on both matte and glossy papers, and did a good job with black-and-white printing as well. To me, its weakest point was the poor quality of the ICC profiles that came in the box, but properly profiled, the 9500 was capable of printing excellent photos, and we know more than a few photographers who are happy with their units.

The Pixma Pro9000 was also a good printer, matching up well against Epson’s Stylus Photo 1400 with vivid, dye-based output and good print longevity (an estimated 100 years, under glass, for Canon’s glossy paper). Thanks to its eight inks (vs. the Stylus Photo 1400’s six), the 9000 had an edge in color gamut, although it really didn’t translate into quantifiably better images, especially when you factor in Canon’s inattention to the profile aspect of the printing equation.

We’ll plan to run both units through our standard test suite once they’re available in May. If you want more info, you can check out the press release on the Canon site.

[Updated March 10 with more details on the print speed changes.]

The free application lets you print photos wirelessly to any local networked HP Photosmart printer from an iPhone or iPod Touch. It is limited to 4" by 6" prints, and will automatically choose the appropriate tray if your printer has a dedicated photo paper slot`.

iPrint’s interface is simple. It lets you browse all of the installed photos on your iPhone. Selecting one displays a Print button, which sends the image directly to the printer when pressed. There aren’t any extra options, other than a “chooser” for multiple printers. I downloaded the program from the iTunes App Store, and, upon launch it instantly found the Photosmart C7280 on my network, and printed borderless photos without any hiccups.

All-in-all, a pretty slick implementation/proof of concept. And, while iPrint Photo is limited—at least for now—to photos, you can use the iPhone’s built-in screen capture feature in a pinch if you want to print a map, email or other iPhone data.

The Stylus Pro 4880, which is another great printer, is currently $1,808 at Amazon. With the rebate, it drops to $1,328, which is an amazing price for such an industrial-strength machine. (Our pal Duncan Davidson is testing our Stylus Pro 4800, and I think his first impressions have been pretty good.)

B&H and other online outlets also have the 3800 and 4800 at similarly low prices, in case Amazon isn’t your thing.

You can find the rebate info for all of Epson’s current promotions on their Pro printers at Epson.com (There are also rebates for the R1900, R2880 and other consumer-level printers, which can be found on this page.)

Just note that you have to submit your form within 30 days of purchase.

This is understandable: while the R2880 is a very good printer, it does suffer from a few issues, notably the smaller ink tanks and the necessity to swap the matte and photo black ink cartridges when you want to move between matte and glossy papers. The 3800 also requires a switch, but the process is automatic and requires no user intervention. The 3800 does waste a few dollars of ink per switch, which is troublesome, but given the rarity with which people change paper type—and its high-capacity (80ml) cartridge size, this is a lesser issue for many pro users.

Right now, the Stylus Pro 3800 is under $1,200 at Amazon (a savings of $100 or so), while the R2880 is priced around $650 ($150 off the list price). If you’re looking at the two printers, how do you choose between the two? I think it’s pretty straightforward: what follows are some of my thoughts, based on fairly heavy usage of both printers (and nearly every other photo printer in the $300 to $5,000 price range).

Why a two-year old product is still the best printer on the market

The Stylus Pro 3800 was introduced two years ago, and Epson currently has no stated plans for a replacement. In that time, HP and Canon have introduced printers that significantly increased the competitive pressure on Epson (especially in the $300-$800 range), but they haven’t really dented Epson’s hold on the photo printer market. And no one has really come out with a printer that rivals the 3800’s basic specs:

The biggest number to look at is the 3800’s extremely low $0.75 per ml ink cost, which is 35 percent less than that of the R2880 (and 40 percent below HP’s ink costs for the B8850 and B9180 printers). That alone will mean that you’ll save money on ink if you print lots of images.In our testing of the Stylus Pro 3800, the HP Photosmart Pro B8850, and the Stylus Photo R2880, the ink cost per 8" by 10" photo on glossy paper at the printer’s standard print mode was 61 cents per page for the 3800, 78 cents per page for the B8850 and 90 cents per page for the R2880. (The HP printer, while having a higher per-ml ink cost, laid down less ink on the page than either of the Epson printers, which is why its cost per page came out lower than that of the R2880.)

Ink capacity and cost

It gets even more interesting when you start looking at the ink cartridge costs. While the 3800’s ink cartridges list for more than four times the price of those of the R2880, you get 80 ml of ink for free with the 3800, while you need to purchase seven sets of ink—totaling $837—to get the same amount of ink with the R2880. That total cost, over $1400 (adding the $650 for the printer), is more than the cost of a 3800.

When my friend (and professional photographer) James Duncan Davidson came to visit Printerville a while back, we had a discussion about the economics of the ink regarding this: his post Inkonomics, does a much better—and more thorough—job of explaining this than I could, but the central conceit is the same: if you are planning on printing in any appreciable volume on larger paper sizes, the economics of the Stylus Pro 3800 are hard to beat.

By way of illustration, when printing our 200-page ink test, using a full set of ink cartridges on a fully primed printer, I had to make four cartridge swaps with Epson’s R2880, which cost me roughly $53. The HP B8850 required two cartridge swaps, which cost $68. The Stylus Pro 3800, on the other hand, was still ready for more—a lot more.

The quality equation

When it introduced the Stylus Pro 3800, Epson made a big deal of the new printhead, advanced screening algorithms and highly precise dot placement as the reasons why it produced the best prints of any desktop printer on the market. While it’s easy to lay that all as marketing hype, I can say—with plenty of backup from other photographers—that the 3800’s output is regularly better than any printer at its price range or below.

Does the Vivid Magenta in the Stylus Photo R2880 give that printer an advantage over the 3800? With some images it might, but it’s hard for anyone to see on a consistent basis, and, when you add the higher cost per page for the R2880, it’s hard to see why a pro photographer would go with the R2880 for high-volume printing.

And, while HP has made huge strides in the wide-format market with the new 12-ink Designjet Z3200, the B-size B9180 and B8850 just aren’t printing at the same level as the 3800—or the R2880, for that matter. (HP will also have its hands full competing with Epson’s recently announced Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 wide-format printers, which could ensure that Epson continues to stay at the top of the image quality heap.)

The 3800’s drawbacks

The 3800 is far from perfect, but it’s pretty darn close. Working with two units, and observing the usage of about five other units among colleagues, there are three things that regularly cause grief, some big, some small:

• Ink swapping. While much less impactful on the 3800 than it is on Epson’s desktop inkjets (the R2880 and the older R2400 and Stylus Photo 2200), is still wasteful. We know that many photographers have looked to HP and Canon printers as an alternative, but the print quality—especially at the price—remains in Epson’s favor.
• The rear manual-feed mechanism. It often requires multiple attempts to load a piece of fine-art media via the rear tray. Again, this is a minor issue. However, if you’re thinking of printing on thick fine-art media regularly, using a roll-feed printer like the Stylus Pro 4880 is a better long-term alternative.
• The flimsy plastic front door. The 3800, like many of Epson’s recent photo printers, folds up nicely, which helps keep dust out of the paper path. Unfortunately, the front door, which slides down and out, generally breaks off after a month or so of use.

Most of these issues are generally minor, but they’re worth mentioning in a context like this.

What about the R2880?

Does this mean that we don’t think that the R2880 is not worth buying? Not at all. If you want excellent prints, are looking to print less than 50 photos per month, and the the idea of spending more than $1,000 is anathema to you, the R2880 is a great buy. As we said in our review, the ink swapping is really the biggest problem with the printer, and, if you rarely switch paper types, then you won’t find it as big an issue as we did.

The other thing that constantly comes up is the mythical “Stylus Pro 3900 ”, the unannounced successor to the 3800. Epson has given no indication that such a printer will ever be made available, but we continue to hear from people who won’t buy a 3800 because they believe such a printer is “around the corner.” But we don’t put any stock in it, especially given the logistics of building a high-volume, 9-channel printhead when they’re already moving to a 10-channel head with the UltraChrome HDR inks in the Stylus Pro 7900. (See my comment below for more on my thoughts here.)

Given Epson’s track record, the 3800 is probably still going to be the company’s flagship printer for the foreseeable future, and with HP staying out of the 17-inch market and Canon still floundering—despite the decent reception surrounding the (pricier) imageProGRAF iPF6000 and iPF6100—the 3800 remains the best printer in the class.

Wrapping up

I’ve worked with nearly every major photo inkjet that has been released in the past decade, and in all that time, there have been few printers that have both the high quality and design for hard duty. I have banged hard on two 3800s for nearly two years, and they rarely have disappointed me. Like Epson’s other Pro-series printers, the 3800 doesn’t clog, prints quickly on a wide range of media, and produces gallery-ready prints. Sure, there are little problems here and there, but the comments I made more than 18 months ago regarding the 3800 still stand:

If you’re looking to sell your work professionally, and you don’t need anything bigger than a 17-inch-wide print, the Stylus Pro 3800 is without a doubt the current benchmark at this level of the market. There are some fine photo inkjet printers priced under $1,000, but they’re not designed to be workhorses that will churn out print after print. The 3800 will do that in spades.

 
[Edited 12/10/2008 to clarify competitive set and to add comment link.]

The 7900 and 9900, which have maximum print widths of 24 inches and 44 inches, respectively, use Epson’s new 10-color UltraChrome HDR inkset, which adds two new ink colors—orange and green—designed to give the printers the widest possible gamut available in inkjet printing today. According to the company, the new inkset, in conjunction with improved screening algorithms, will produce “greatly enhanced photographic print quality with exceptionally fine photographic blends.”

Both units incorporate a 10-channel micropiezo printhead with an ink-repelling coating (also found in the Stylus Photo R1900 and R2880) designed to reduce clogs and improve ink efficiency. The 10-channel head also lets you switch on the fly between matte and photo black inks.

Another first for Epson is the inclusion of an optional spectrophotometer from X-Rite, the SpectroProofer, designed to provide a streamlined color-management process for prepress and proofing situations.

The Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 will be available in November for $3,995 and $5,995 respectively. We hadn’t received pricing for the optional spectrophotometer at press time; we’ll pass that information along as we receive it.

Epson is billing the 7900 and 9900 printers as the ultimate inkjet printers for packaging, signage, and other commercial applications, as well as the top-of-the-line photographic printer on the market today. From the limited number of prints we’ve been able to see, we think that the company has once again taken a leap ahead of the competition in terms of print quality and performance. We’re hoping to get our hands on a unit to test: we’ll keep you posted.

The Z3200 is the successor to HP’s the Designjet Z3100 Photo Printer, which, when it first shipped late in 2006, was one of the most innovative photo printers we had seen in a long time. The Z3100 utilized 12 pigment-based inks (including a gloss optimizer) to produce high-quality, gallery-ready prints, but it was the printer’s embedded spectrophotometer (from X-Rite) and seamless integration with networked Macs and PCs that set it apart from competitors like Epson and Canon. HP spent considerable effort streamlining the process of printing: everything from unboxing the device to profiling and adding new paper types had been thought through by HP’s hardware and software engineers. The result was a printer that created top-quality prints and was a joy to use, day in and day out.

We’ve had a production version of the 24" PostScript model, the Z3200ps, for about three weeks, and have tested it fairly thoroughly with a variety of papers and applications. Overall, we’re very impressed with the printer’s performance: HP is obviously determined to keep the pressure on Epson—the market leader—in the pro photo space. As was the case with the Z3100, we think that the Z3200 should be looked at by anyone seriously evaluating a wide-format device to create salable prints.

Seeing Red

Not wanting to make too many changes in an already solid product, HP kept most of the Z3100’s feature set when designing the Z3200, keeping (for the most part) the 12-ink Vivera inkset, the same paper-handling options, spectrophotometer, and on-board OS. Most of the Z3200’s enhancements are inside the printer. In fact, aside from the nameplate on the front of the printer, you would be hard-pressed to find a cosmetic difference with the Z3100. The biggest change is in the ink: to expand the printer’s color gamut, HP has swapped out the red ink found in the Z3100, replacing it with a newly formulated red ink, called Chromatic Red. According to HP, this new ink significantly widens the printable gamut, producing much richer color that is more true to life.

For designers, the ink change is also important. With the Z3200ps, the model with Adobe PostScript 3 built-in, HP claims that it can reproduce nearly 95 percent of the Pantone color library, and the printer includes a number of features for dealing with Pantone spot colors in layouts, as well as a utility for creating Pantone swatch books directly from the printer’s front panel.

In our comparison testing, the Z3200’s output was very similar to that of the Z3100; the reds were definitely more pronounced with many images, although other prints showed little differentiation. This isn’t surprising; we are now in an age where the generational changes in print quality are truly incremental. Prints made with desktop inkjets are of such high quality that the average consumer is more than satisfied. Professionals, however, continue to look for even the smallest improvements that will realize their artistic vision, and changes like those in the Z3200 ink set are the things that they’re looking for.

To us, the ink change in the Z3200 mirrors Epson’s change to the Vivid Magenta and Vivid Light Magenta inks last year. As was the case with HP, Epson claimed that the two new inks increased the color gamut of their Stylus Pro printers, but they also admitted that many customers wouldn’t be able to detect the changes between the old inks. We’ve seen a number of test prints from the Stylus Pro 7880 that show similar sorts of improvements in color rendition and fidelity to those we’ve seen in the Z3200.

Other improvements

While HP hasn’t done much to the paper-handling features with the Z3200, they have made some small usability enhancements throughout. Loading cut sheet media is a bit easier than before, thanks to some adjustments to the feeder. (We do wish, however, that HP would add a paper guide for feeding sheets.) And, when creating paper profiles with the integrated spectrophotometer, among the parameters you can now set is the height of the ‘starwheels’ that hold the paper in place while the printhead is laying down ink. This is another intelligent solution to a problem that can come up when you’re using thick fine-art papers.

Speedwise, the Z3200 was significantly faster than its predecessor in our testing, showing more than 20 percent faster print speeds at times. For example, a 24" by 36" image took only 16 minutes to print on the Z3200, while the same image took more than 22 minutes on the Z3100. For high-production shops, this alone will help sell the Z3200.

The whole process of adding a new paper type to the Z3200 print driver is (thankfully) identical to that of the Z3100. You simply put the paper in the printer, and, via the HP Print Center utility, tell the device to print and scan calibration and profiling charts. Depending upon how much time you want to wait for paper drying times, you can be up and printing with your new paper in as little as 30 minutes (we generally dry our papers overnight and profile them the following day). In the Z3200, HP has added the capability to export paper presets, which include hardware settings, profiles, gloss enhancer settings and more.

HP is also announcing new media types with the Z3200, including a fiber-based paper called HP Baryte Satin Art Paper, and two lower-priced photo papers, HP Everyday Pigment Gloss and Everyday Pigment Semigloss. The Baryte paper is especially nice, and initially will be available only in roll format. (It reminded us of Canon’s Polished Rag—another of our favorite fiber papers—in feel and weight.)

How will it play?

As we’ve indicated, the Designjet Z3200 is more of an incremental upgrade than a ground-breaking new model, but that’s not a bad thing. HP is playing the game the way that it needs to be played. With Epson’s well-deserved hegemony at the top of the pro-printer market, HP has to continue to innovate and make substantive changes to be perceived as a true competitor, and we think that the Z3200 does just that. We know that some photographers felt that the Z3100 wasn’t as good in the reds as Epson’s comparable printers, and the Chromatic Red should go quite a ways towards alleviating those complaints.

The Z3200 has some strong attributes that should appeal to the pro photographer, but its best attribute is its print quality, which—for both color and black and white images—rival those made by Epson’s Stylus Pro wide format printers. When you add the advanced paper-profiling and usability features, the Z3200 becomes a very compelling printer for this key market segment.

While we think HP has the goods, they still need to execute, and, in the U.S. at least, it’s been a tough road for them. In addition to Epson’s well-earned reputation for products, they are firmly entrenched in the professional photo retail channel, and have a much greater mindshare among professional photographers and artists than HP and Canon combined.

In the coming months, we expect that Epson will make a U.S. announcement of the Stylus Pro x900 series, which include the Vivid Magenta inks, a 9-channel printhead that eliminates the matte- and photo-black ink swapping, printhead improvements and—like HP—an optional spectrophotometer. Given Epson’s position in the market, we have high expectations for those models, and HP needs to use any lead time it has to push the Z3200 hard in the market, and make sure that there is ample support in the channel.

As we repeatedly say, competition and change is a very good thing, especially at the high end of the market. As print quality becomes less and less the differentiator between products, other factors— usability, price, ink efficiency, and so on—enter into the equation, which help drive innovation. And, as innovation sticks, key features move on down the line to the consumer space, where an even greater group benefits.

The Designjet Z3200 Photo Printer will ship in October, priced at $3,395 for a 24" model ($4,695 with Adobe PostScript 3) and $5,595 for a 44" model ($6,795 with PostScript).

What’s new?

What does the R2880 have that sets it apart from the R2400 (and its competition)? Here are some of the primary advantages:

• An improved version of the UltraChrome K3 inkset used in Epson’s flagship Stylus Pro printers, incorporating the Vivid Magenta inks;
• A new color-matching technology, Radiance, designed to improve color constancy, reduce grain and improve ink efficiency (also found in the new Stylus Photo R1900);
• New mechanisms inside the printer that are designed to reduce head clogging and ink buildup;
• A tray for printing on inkjet-printable CDs and DVDs;
• Two USB ports, on different circuits, allowing multiple computers (PC or Mac) to be connected to the printer simultaneously; and
• Faster performance.

While the R2880 has plenty of enhancements, it also inherits one unfortunate trait from the R2400: the need to physically swap matte and photo black ink cartridges when you switch paper types. Given that both Canon and HP have been able to engineer ink delivery systems that incorporate both black ink types, this is a big disappointment, and one that puts Epson at a competitive disadvantage. For many photographers, this fact alone will eliminate the R2880 from consideration, regardless of the print quality or other strengths. We don’t think this is a fatal flaw, especially given the excellent print quality, but it is a major drawback.

UltraChrome K3 Vivid

Epson added the vivid magenta and vivid light magenta inks to its Stylus Pro wide-format line in September 2007, claiming that the new inks offered a wider gamut and improved black-and-white performance over the previous K3 inkset. In conjunction with the new inks, Epson is using a new color technology called Radiance, developed in conjunction with the Rochester Institute of Technology, that purportedly provides more efficient ink usage, higher quality images, and improved color constancy when viewing prints under different lighting conditions. (If you’re interested in a bit deeper discussion of Radiance, we recently covered some of the technology behind it.)

Attacking the clogged nozzle issue

Clogged print nozzles are a fact of life with inkjet printers from every manufacturer, and the R2400 seemed to be one of those printers that had more than its fair share of problems in this area. With the R2880, Epson is incorporating some new technology to try to eliminate the problem entirely.

The biggest culprit in creating clogs is time. It’s quite simple: if you leave your printer primed and unused over a significant period of time, some ink deposits can solidify and block nozzles. This is one of the reasons that most printers will run a cleaning cycle occasionally if the device hasn’t been used. Of course, this wastes ink, and it doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be clogged nozzles, but we’ve found that it does help.

Epson has added two features to the R2880 designed to reduce clogging: an ink-repelling coating on the printhead, and the addition of tiny glass beads to the ink cartridges. The coating keeps ink from building up on the printhead, theoretically lowering the chances of blocked nozzles, and the glass beads help ‘stir’ the ink while the printer is in use, keeping the viscosity optimal.

The company has also implemented an ink-collection technology that is designed to reduce the stray ink buildup that occurs inside every inkjet printer on the market—tiny amounts of ink that never make it to the paper. (These enhancements are also found in the R1900.)

If you use an inkjet printer long enough, you’ll notice that ink deposits and tiny amounts of paper fuzz can accumulate underneath the printhead’s carriage. This can often lead to paper jams and ink smudges on prints, and Epson representatives say that the R1900’s mist collection system, which uses a special electric charge to capture any ink overspray, is one more little feature that will help reduce printing problems over time. It won’t reduce the tiny amounts of paper dust that slough off a page as it goes through a printer, but it should reduce the sludge that builds as a result. (This is a problem that has begun to plague owners of HP’s Photosmart Pro B9180; for more, check this field report from our colleague Duncan Davidson.)

While we will want to see longer-term reports from the field on the anti-clog features in the R2880, we can say that, having printed more than 1,500 images on the R2880—and another 800 or so on the R1900—we have yet to see a clogged nozzle. We left the printer on for five weeks, with only intermittent printing, and never had a problem, something we couldn’t say with our Stylus Photo R2400 or our Photosmart Pro B8850. (We also left the R1900 on for eight weeks, printing a page here, and a page there, without running into any clogs.)

Setup

Like most inkjets today, the R2880 sets up quickly and with minimal effort. The 11ml ink cartridges snap easily into place, and the only real choice you need to make is what type of paper you’ll print on; Epson includes both matte and photo black cartridges with the printer. It doesn’t come with a USB cable, though, so you’ll need to pick one up.

Because it is a large-format printer—capable of printing up to 13" wide—you’ll need a large enough space for the printer to reside upon, but the top-loading paper tray and the output tray fold nicely out of the way when you’re not using the printer. It also helps keep dust and dirt out of the printer, which is another plus. This design was first used in the R1900, and we like it much more than the one found in Epson’s Stylus Photo 1400, R1800 and R2400: those models’ spring-loaded output tray was flimsy and poorly designed.

The printer has two rear-feed paper slots, one for rigid media, the other for standard photo and matte papers. Like most of Epson’s printers in this class, you can also use roll paper; the attachment isn’t the sturdiest, but it works well when set up. It would be nice to have a built-in paper cutter, however.

The R2880 comes with print drivers for both Mac OS X and Windows (XP and Vista). In addition to the drivers is a background application that displays the printer’s ink levels every time you print, an ink-reminder utility (that can be disabled), and PrintCD, a program for creating DVD and CD labels. The drivers for Mac and PC are almost unchanged from those used by the R2400, although the R2880 does add 16-bit printing support under Mac OS X 10.5.

Print quality

At this level of the market, the thing that matters most is print quality, and frankly, the R2880 offers the best prints of any desktop inkjet printer we’ve used. The addition of the vivid magenta inks does appear to create a slightly wider gamut, but it also helps increase the quality of black-and-white output, especially in the shadows. No matter what the type of image, or the paper chosen, viewers consistently picked the R2880 output over the R2400, the R1900, HP’s B9180 and B8850, and Canon’s Pixma Pro9000 and 9500.

The R2880 did a great job regardless of the paper type. On glossy papers, prints exhibited minimal gloss differential (sometimes referred to as ‘bronzing’), and papers like Epson’s own Exhibition Fiber (Amazon link) or HP’s Professional Satin (Amazon) produced stunning, richly detailed prints, with vibrant colors. On matte-style papers, the R2880 did an excellent job of reproducing deep, rich blacks and a fairly broad tonal range. Nearly all of the fine-art papers we threw at the R2880 reproduced well, including Epson’s Ultrasmooth Fine Art (Amazon) Red River’s Aurora Natural and Moab’s Somerset Photo Satin. It’s also worth noting that none of the R2880 prints—on matte or glossy media—exhibited any signs of scuffing or ‘pizza’ tracks, which is important to anyone interested in selling their work.

For anyone interested in black and white printing, the R2880 is a stunner. On both matte and glossy media, the R2880’s output is drop-dead neutral, with the widest tonal range of any printer we’ve seen under $1,000. In fact, its black-and-white prints can rival printers more than twice its price. For example, when comparing R2880 prints with those made with the Stylus Pro 3800—our favorite overall printer in the under-$2,000 category—viewers couldn’t find noticeable differences in most color prints. But, with black-and-white prints, most observers felt that the R2880 did a slightly better job than the 3800. On some fine-art papers, like Hahnemuhle’s Photo Rag, the R2880 was able to hold detail much better than the 3800. Overall, this isn’t surprising; part of the reason Epson went to the vivid magenta inks was that it would help increase the tonal range in black-and-white printing (even when using Epson’s Advanced B&W printing mode, some color inks are used), and the R2880 is Epson’s first large-format inkjet to use the new inks.

All of this should come as no surprise; Epson has long focused on quality, and the company has spent untold sums in improving their printheads and screening algorithms, all in the quest to produce the highest-quality prints. We feel that it’s worth noting that the improvements we found in the R2880’s print quality won’t be noticed by many consumers: the R2400, R1900, Photosmart Pro B8850, B9180 and Pixma Pro9500 all produce very good prints on a variety of media types, especially if they’ve been profiled properly. However, if you’re looking for the best possible color and black-and-white prints in a sub-$1,000 device, then the R2880 is your printer.

Ink life

We’ve spent a lot of time this year dwelling on the topic of measuring ink cartridge life in an everyday setting (as have our friends at Red River Paper). One of the knocks on every vendor is the cost of ink, and while we really don’t want to fuel the ink-consipracy theorists, we think it is important for people to get a sense of what it will cost to print. Using a methodology similar to that of our initial testing (and that of Red River’s), we printed 200 8" by 10" pages of Bill Atkinson’s Profile Test image on the R2880, and, using the weight of full and empty ink cartridges, were able to come up with a measurement of the total ink used, and a cost per print (of ink only).

Using this data, we can derive an ink cost per square inch, which lets us come up with an estimated cost per print size, as shown below:

While we’re still in the process of measuring a wide range of printers, we can say that the numbers for the R2880 are comparable to those of HP’s Photosmart Pro B8850 and other printers in this class. We want to be careful in setting expectations: the primary function of these tests is to give a comparable set of metrics across a broad range of printers from competing vendors, with a freely available test chart. Depending upon the type of photos you print, the number of copies and print quality levels, you might find that you’re using more or less ink than we are.

Performance

Looking at print speed, the R2880 is a very good performer, showing a modest improvement over the R2400, and leaving its primary rivals, HP’s B9180 and Canon’s Pixma Pro9500, in the dust. As we regularly note, speed is rarely at the top of our list for choosing a printer in this class, but it should be a consideration, especially if you believe print quality is relatively comparable across the different vendors’ units.

The first chart, shown below, displays the times (in seconds) for prints at the printers’ default photo modes. This is the setting most people will use, and one that produces very good results for snapshots and everyday use. As might be expected when looking at the newest member of the class, the R2880 is the speediest performer. (Click on the image to see a full-size PDF of the results.)

The second chart shows the print speeds at the highest resolution setting, the one that produces the most optimal prints, but which also uses up more ink. We rarely use this setting except for when we’re dealing with problematic images, ones with wide dynamic range, or when we want to create gallery-quality prints. Here, the R2880 continues to do well, although the gap is not as wide as it is at the lower quality setting. (Click on the image to see a full-size PDF of the results.)

The rough spots

For the most part, the R2880 really shines as a high-end, consumer-level photo inkjet, but there are a few things that prevent us from making the printer an unqualified, “must buy”:

• First and foremost is the ink swapping. After nearly six years of using separate black ink cartridges (dating back to the Stylus Photo 2200), we shouldn’t have to swap inks when changing paper types. HP and Canon have been able to engineer printheads with separate channels for the matte and photo black inks, and yet Epson—the originator of this market segment—has yet to come out with an affordable inkjet printer that incorporates similar technology.
• We also think that a large-format inkjet, capable of printing 13" by 19" borderless prints with ease, should have larger-capacity ink cartridges. HP’s ink cartridges for the B8850 and B9180 are more than twice the capacity of the R2880’s 11ml cartridges, and, while they are both comparably priced when you factor the cost per ml., you’ll need to purchase more cartridges sooner than you will with the HP printers. As a point of reference, we had to purchase eight additional ink cartridges (which cost nearly $110) to complete our 200-page ink use test on the R2880, while we had to purchase two cartridges (at a cost of $72) for the same test on our B8850.
• Epson continues to provide no mechanism for easily adding new papers to the print driver. If you use a third-party paper, you have to remember which comparable Epson paper type was used to profile the paper (whether you did it, or you’re using the paper manufacturer’s profiles). This is a usability issue, and, as print quality improves, photographers are going to demand much more user-friendly tools. Epson should be a leader here.
• Related to the driver/paper problem, Epson doesn’t even include a driver setting for their flagship Exhibition Fiber paper, which the company claims is optimized for the UltraChrome K3 ink set. The ICC profiles for the paper aren’t even on the Epson Web site; you need to go to the Pixel Genius site to download them. While it’s great that a third-party is producing high-quality profiles, Epson really should have them in the box with the printer.

With the exception of the ink-swapping issue, these really are minor problems that mar an otherwise excellent printer. We can—and do—live with them as small annoyances in our quest to produce the highest-quality prints. And, if you are like most photographers, you’ll gravitate to a few paper choices, all of which will be either matte or photo, and ink changes won’t be a concern. But if you want the widest flexibility in media choice, you’ll either have to choose an alternative printer, or put up with the lost ink used when switching (which we estimate at roughly $1.75 to $2 per ink change).

Conclusions

The Stylus Photo R2880 is a bit of a conundrum. The steps forward Epson has made in print quality and reducing clogs are hamstrung by the continued necessity to swap black inks. If Epson had eliminated the cartridge-swapping issue with this printer, it would be a nearly perfect product; as it is, it’s a remarkable printer with one significant drawback. In the end, if you’re looking for a printer in this class and price range, and print quality is your overarching concern, there is almost no reason not to go with the R2880. As much as we wish that Epson would improve some of the rough edges in their consumer-level printers, the R2880’s prints speak for themselves.

Epson R2880 Large Format Photo Printer (C11CA16201)

Epson, Electronics, Too low to display