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Reviewer: David Em
Date: 11/10 Rating:
MSRP $499.99 / Amazon: $476.94
Product Website: Epson Stylus 1280
Select Specifications: specs
Summary: For independent photographers, designers, and "prosumers" who only need to generate a small number of high-quality prints at a time and don't want to spend many thousands of dollars, Epson's $499 Stylus Photo 1280 desktop inkjet printer is an excellent choice.
The 1280's capabilities are impressive, particularly when you consider its price. Its MicroPiezo ink jet has a maximum 2880x720 resolution and a superfine 4 picoliter ink droplet size. Its maximum print size is 13 X 44 inches, and the color quality of its six-color ink set is very good. The 1280's output rivals any commercial photograph you're likely to get from a third party. The Stylus Photo 1280 has a passionate following among designers and photographers that's well deserved. Its image quality, color range, and large format make it the best desktop inkjet on the market. (more)
(This review appeared in David's April 8, 2002 Byte.com column and is reproduced here with the permission of the author.)
For independent photographers, designers, and "prosumers" who only need to generate a small number of high-quality prints at a time and don't want to spend many thousands of dollars, Epson's $499 Stylus Photo 1280 desktop inkjet printer is an excellent choice.
The 1280's capabilities are impressive, particularly when you consider its price. Its MicroPiezo ink jet has a maximum 2880x720 resolution and a superfine 4 picoliter ink droplet size. Its maximum print size is 13x44 inches, and the color quality of its six-color ink set is very good. The 1280's output rivals any commercial photograph you're likely to get from a third party.
Inks and Papers
The 1280 uses dye inks that are rated to be lightfast for over 20 years indoors when printed on Epson's Matte Heavyweight paper, and around six or seven years on its Photo Quality paper, which is fairly water resistant. It also prints well on its less exotic Premium Bright paper, which comes in reams of 500 sheets for about $6, as opposed to 40 bucks for a 100 sheet package of 13"x19" Photo Quality paper. Agfa, Ilford, and Olympus also make papers that yield good visual results, although so far I have no reliable data regarding their longevity.
Epson caught a lot of flak for the inks that went with the 1280's predecessor, the 1270, due to a marked orange shift that occurred under mysterious environmental conditions in various parts of the globe. Epson officials assured me that the 1280 uses the identical ink system as the 1270, but I've heard from various sources that the inks have in fact been reformulated, as indicated by a driver change that accounts for an extended blue range. I don't know what to believe on this subject, but reports of the orange shift issue seem to have died down of late, so perhaps the inks have in fact been improved in this regard.
Printing at full 2880 dpi resolution is extremely time consuming. It sucks up ink, too; you can almost see the ink levels drain away before your very eyes as you watch the real-time supplies readout on your monitor (a nice feature of Epson's software). A new set of color and black ink cartridges runs about 50 bucks not including tax, so if you get around twenty 12"x18" prints from each set, each print including paper costs a little over three dollars. That's not cheap, but it's far less than having it printed by a commercial service bureau.
You'll save considerable time and money if you print at 1440 dpi rather than 2880. The difference between the two resolutions is hardly visible, even to a highly trained eye. If you look through a loupe, you'll clearly see the difference in dither pattern, but to the naked eye, the difference is negligible. 720 dpi is fine for proofing.
The 1280's paper-handling capabilities are quite good. Its input tray fits 100 pieces of paper, 30 transparencies, or 10 envelopes, and the output tray accomodates 50 sheets. Epson claims the 1280 can handle paper as thick as 150-lb., which I haven't gotten around to trying yet, but is very cool if true. The unit also comes with a 4-inch wide paper roll attachment. The 1280 does border-free printing, but only with Epson's included Film Factory software, so it's not entirely convenient.
The 1280's driver is very fast, although some of its functionality is a bit opaque. Figuring out what combination of settings to use took a good bit of fiddling around. The system has USB and parallel connectivity, and an Ethernet network option is available for $179. Its drivers work under Mac OS 8.51 or later and all versions of Windows.
PIM
The Stylus Photo 1280 is one of the first printers to incorporate a technology developed by Epson known as PRINT Image Matching, or PIM According to Epson's promotional materials "PRINT Image Matching technology ensures that PRINT Image Matching-enabled digital cameras and printers work together perfectly to produce the best possible prints."
The idea behind PIM is: 1) to define the gamma level, color space, contrast, sharpness, brightness, saturation, shadow point, highlight point, and color balance settings of an image in the camera; 2) to write those as metadata to the image's file header; and 3) to print an image that accurately reflects what the camera originally saw. PIM has tremendous support in the digital photography industry; it's been embraced by all the major players, including Nikon, Olympus, JVC, Panasonic, Pentax, Sony, Toshiba, and virtually all the other usual suspects.
When I first heard about PIM, it made total sense to me. After all, an automated color-matching system that really works and is supported by all the major players has long been one of the Holy Grails of digital imaging. The more I learned about it though, the less convinced I became about its prospects
Conclusion
The Stylus Photo 1280 has a passionate following among designers and photographers that's well deserved. Its image quality, color range, and large format make it the best desktop inkjet on the market.
Select Specs: (from product website)
- Printing Method
- 6-color (CcMmYK) Micro Piezo™
- ink jet technology
- Resolution (dots per inch)
- 2880 x 720 dpi; 1440 x 720 dpi; 720 x 720 dpi;
- 360 x 720 dpi; 360 x 360 dpi; 120 x 120 dpi
- Print Speed***
- Black text memo Approx. 9 ppm
- Photo
- 4" x 6" 54 sec
- 8" x 10" 1 min 50 sec
- Printer Language
- EPSON ESC/P® Raster; EPSON Remote
- Software Drivers
- Windows USB – Windows 98, 2000, Me or later
- Windows Parallel – Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000, Me or later
- Macintosh USB – Macintosh System 8.5.1 or later
- Software
- Adobe® Photoshop® LE
- EPSON Software™ Film Factory™ TE
- QBeo™ PhotoGenetics™ TE
- Special Offer on MonacoEZcolor™ profiling software package
- Standard Interfaces
- USB, Parallel (IEEE-1284)
- Printable Area (using No Margin setting)
- 13" x 19" (full-bleed Super B)
- Top margin 0" Left margin 0"
- Bottom margin 0" Right margin 0"
- Paper Capacity
- Input paper tray 100 sheets/10 envelopes/
- 30 transparencies
- Output paper tray 50 sheets
- Physical Characteristics (L x W x H)
- 24" x 12.2" x 6.9"/18.48 lb
- Ink Cartridge Life
- Black ink life 540 pages text (ISO/IEC 10561 letter pattern);
- 378 pages graphic (5% coverage)
- Color ink life 330 pages (15% coverage)
- Shelf life 2 years from production date;
- 6 months from first cartridge use
- Warranty
- Standard one year limited warranty including EPSON Exchange program
- (U.S. and Canada only)
* On EPSON Photo Paper, EPSON Premium photo papers and EPSON Photo Quality Glossy Film
** Lightfastness rating of more than 20 years, based on accelerated testing of prints on EPSON Matte Paper- Heavyweight, displayed indoors, under glass. Actual print stability will vary according to image, display conditions, light intensity, humidity, and atmospheric conditions. Epson does not guarantee longevity of prints.
For maximum print life, display all prints under glass or laminations or properly store them.
***Black text is in Economy Mode on plain paper. Color photo is in Fine Mode on EPSON Photo Paper.
Additional processing time may vary based on system configuration, software application and page complexity.