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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Excellent
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 14 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Mac and PC compatible; built-in PCMCIA Type II slot; excellent print quality.
The bad: USB only; noisy.
The bottom line: This midpriced, well-outfitted photo inkjet offers a good balance of output quality and speed with just a few annoyances.
Specifications: Printer Type: Photo printer - Ink-jet - Color ; Max media size: A4 (8.25 in x 11.7 in) , Legal (8.5 in x 14 in) ; Connectivity technology: Wired ; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 05/17/2001
Balancing act
The $249 Stylus Photo 875EPX is a midpriced photo inkjet--about $50 more than the Kodak Personal Picture Maker 200 and about $150 less than the Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart 1215. Yet all three printers share major features, such as memory slots for printing directly from your digital camera's memory card and small displays that let you perform some printing and photo-management functions. What the Stylus Color Photo 785EPX has that its competitors don't is the best balance of speed, output quality, and price.
The Stylus Photo 785EPX is compact, measuring just 18.4 by 10.1 by 8.4 inches out of the box. Count on needing an extra 6 inches above and in front of the printer, however, once the paper trays are extended. The printer also has a sleeker, industrial look compared to that of recent Epson inkjets, with a rounded body and cool blue-gray colors. But one hereditary characteristic couldn't be hidden: that Epson's printer noisiness, which seemed particularly amplified on the Stylus Photo 785EPX, especially during the printhead alignment.
The printer's built-in Type II PC Card slot can handle the memory cards used by most popular digital cameras. A CompactFlash Type I adapter is included with the printer, along with a coupon for a SmartMedia or Memory Stick adapter. Simply send Epson the coupon and the CompactFlash adapter, and you'll receive the one you want, postage paid. The Stylus Photo 785EPX also supports IBM and Secure Digital memory cards; however, you must buy an adapter for those cards. The HP PhotoSmart 1215 offers more slot options in its standard configuration but for a much higher price.
Fun with photos
To use the Stylus Photo 785EPX as an everyday inkjet would be a waste of its prodigious photo-printing powers. Once you insert your camera's memory card into the printer's Type II slot, the printer lists the photos on the card via its generously sized, 2.25-by-1.75-inch LCD panel. You can't view photos on the LCD panel, as you can with the Kodak Personal Picture Maker 200; for that, you'll need Epson's $99 preview monitor. However, you can print a thumbnail index for reference. The Stylus Photo 785EPX also allows you to change various settings via the front panel; images can be brightened, darkened, color-balanced, or sharpened. You can even turn a color photograph into a monochrome image or apply sepia tones, all without turning on a computer.
Hook me up
The front-panel features on the Stylus Photo 785EPX work fine, but for finer touch-ups and a much bigger view of your shots, you should connect the printer to your PC. Installation takes only a few minutes using the easy-to-follow Start Here poster. The CD-ROM includes drivers for Windows 98, 2000, and Me and
Mac OS 8.5.1 or later. (Note: The printer connects solely via USB, and you must provide your own cable.) The CD-ROM also includes two image-editing packages: Epson's Film Factory and ArcSoft's PhotoImpression. For users who can't afford Adobe's standard-setting Photoshop program, Film Factory is an adequate image-organizing program, but as a photo-enhancement package, it's pretty limited. We found Arcsoft PhotoImpression even less impressive.
Speeds and costs
In CNET Labs' speed tests, the Stylus Photo 785EPX's performance indicates that this inkjet is better at printing photos than memos. At 360x360 dots per inch (dpi), the Stylus Photo 785EPX printed text at a sluggish 1.9 pages per minute (ppm), essentially equal to the Kodak Personal Picture Maker 200's performance but only half as fast as the HP PhotoSmart 1215. Fortunately, the Epson was much more competitive at photo printing, turning out a full-page, color photograph at 720x720dpi in 4.3 minutes. By comparison, the PhotoSmart 1215 took half as long, at 6.5ppm (2,400x1,200dpi), and the Personal Picture Maker 200 labored for 18.1 minutes (600x600dpi).
An "A" student
CNET Labs' print-quality tests also showed that the Stylus Photo 785EPX's forte is photos. While the inkjet delivered near-perfect output across the board, however, its one misstep was plain-paper text, which looked good (for an inkjet) but fuzzy at its default resolution of 360x360dpi. Color graphics looked excellent on both plain and coated papers at default settings. When put to the ultimate test, the Stylus Photo 785EPX produced a beautifully crisp, perfectly color-balanced 8x10-inch photograph on Epson's Premium Glossy Photo paper. The Stylus Photo's cost per page is reasonable: 5.1 cents per text page and 26 cents per color page.
Epson provides a standard one-year warranty with one- to four-year extensions available for $70 to $160. You can call automated telephone support 24/7 or speak with a technician Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays PT. The Epson Web site also offers the latest drivers, manuals, and FAQs.
The Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX straddles a comfortable middle ground between the less-expensive (but much slower) Kodak Personal Picture Maker 200 and the pricier HP PhotoSmart 1215, which has a few more features but is slower at printing photos. For family shutterbugs and more serious photo hobbyists, the Stylus Photo 785EPX offers a wide variety of features and near-perfect output, even at its default settings.
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Inkjet printer speed (text only) Pages per minute; longer bars indicate better performance  |
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Inkjet color speed test (photo) Minutes per page; shorter bars indicate better performance |
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Inkjet printer quality
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| The Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX printed faster when it counted most--during photo output. And you'll be pleased by the excellent color graphics. |
User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 14 reviews
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
"Good prints for both text and photos at the right settings"
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