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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 22 reviews
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Product summary
The good: The Epson Stylus CX7800 makes photo printing and copying very easy; has a color LCD on front panel; shows good scan and text print quality; uses individual ink cartridges.
The bad: The Epson CX7800 is extremely slow at printing text; its photos and graphics look dithered; LCD has no print preview function.
The bottom line: The Epson CX7800 all-in-one is remarkably easy to use. Too bad its photo printing is merely average and its print speeds are ridiculously slow.
Specifications: Office Machine Functions: Copier , Printer , Scanner ; Printing Technology: Ink-jet ; Scanner Optical Resolution: 1200 x 2400 dpi See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 05/26/2006
Where the CX4800 relies on a strip of buttons for its all-in-one functions, the CX7800 has the aforementioned LCD, plus a series of buttons arranged in clusters according to function. There's a three-way cluster that toggles through copy features (fit to page, 100 percent), memory card features (print select photos, print all/PictBridge, print index sheet, print from index sheet), and film/photo features (where you can specify what type of material you're scanning). Other buttons on the top panel include a Setup/Utilities button that runs through basic functions such as cleaning and aligning the print head, and borderless printing. But it also offers task-specific functions such as number of copies (1-99) when you're in copy mode, and the ability to select what type of film or negative you're scanning when you're in film/photo mode. There are arrow buttons for things such as increasing quantities and scrolling through photos on a media card, plus buttons for toggling between paper types and sizes (say, plain, photo, 4x6, letter), and a big old start button for launching your selected task. The whole interface is intuitively designed and everything is clearly labeled so that one turn through the menu for each function should be enough to learn how to use the CX7800.
Below the instrument panel is a bank of slots for CompactFlash Type I and II, MultiMedia Card, IBM Microdrive, xD-Picture Card, Sony Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, MagicGate Memory Stick, SmartMedia, and Secure Digital media cards, and a PictBridge port for printing directly from a PictBridge-compatible digital camera. The media card slots will show up as a drive on your computer, so you can move files to and from the cards.Because the Epson CX7800 has a 1.5-inch color LCD, it has slightly more functionality than the LCD-less CX4800. With the CX7800, you can print selected photos directly from a media card; the CX4800 lets you print only the whole contents of a card or select individual photos to print from an index sheet. The CX7800 also lets you enhance photos on the LCD before printing, but the options are extremely limited. Epson's options include only a color restore function that brightens up faded old photos, slides, and negatives, and three preset autocorrect modes: PIM (print image matching, an Epson communication protocol helps ensure colors and details translate correctly to the printer from a PIM-enabled camera), PhotoEnhance (an auto-enhance effect that you can also select through the CX7800's print drivers), and EXIF (whereby data is stored on the image about things such as exposure and shutter speed, then translated to the printed image). The ArcSoft PhotoImpression 5 software that's included on the installation CD does offer more enhancement options, such as cropping; resizing; red-eye removal; wacky effects such as honeycombing and bas relief; and the option to add text, frames, or create calendars and scrapbook pages, but all this must be done through your computer.
We were a little disappointed that the CX7800's LCD does not have a print preview function, a feature that's useful for photo printing, which can sometimes get tricky. To be fair, the CX7800 takes pretty much all the guesswork out of photo printing, so there's not much danger of wasting expensive paper with ill-fitting photos (see our Tech Nightmares: Printer terrors feature for more on this). Still, it's nice to know what you're getting yourself into before you hit the start button. We also wish the CX7800 offered an easy way to fit multiple smaller photos on a big piece of photo paper, and it's too bad you can't scan from the printer to your computer. Instead, you have to launch a scan from the Epson Scan software on your computer.
The Epson Scan software is easy to use and has three modes for beginners, intermediates, and more advanced users. The print drivers are much the same: beginners can simply tell the printer to make a Best-quality photo; advanced users can set the individual color, brightness, and contrast levels.
We appreciate that the Epson CX7800 uses separate ink tanks for each color and black. This way, you can replace a color as it runs out, rather than replacing everything when one color runs dry. There's also no special photo ink to buy for the CX7800; the four pigment-based inks that come with the printer are all you need no matter what type of printing you're doing.The Epson CX7800's performance was about as uneven as that of its less-expensive sibling, the CX4800. We thought it did a good job scanning color and black-and-white documents. Both documents, scanned at 150 dots per inch (dpi) (the maximum interpolated scan resolution is 10,200x14,040dpi; the highest optical scan resolution is 1,200x2,400), had a slightly soft-focus appearance as if the documents had been scanned through silk, and the color document had a somewhat somber cast to it. However, the scanner picked up fine details quite well and there were no errors or artifacts in either test document.
Print quality was mixed. The text in our test document was adequately dark and looked pretty sharp at a glance. A closer look revealed feathering around the edges of letters but none of the horizontal striping we saw in the CX4800's text. In our graphics test document, dithering was plainly visible no matter how high we bumped up the quality setting (5,760x1,440 optimized dpi is the maximum print resolution), meaning that we could plainly see the individual cyan, magenta, and yellow dots that made up the document. In the photo elements of our document, we noticed patches where yellow droplets predominated, giving areas that should have more contrast, such as facial features, a flat look. The photo test document was marginally more smoothly blended than that of the CX4800, but still too dithered to earn high marks from our jury.
The CX7800's speed when printing photos is about average: It churned out our 8x10 test photo in about 2.08 minutes. Its text speeds were downright sluggish. Like the CX4800, it toiled through our 10-page test document at 1.57 pages per minute.
At this time, Epson is not making its ink consumption data public, but given that the CX7800 uses individual ink tanks, which cost $12.34 each for colors and $18.99 for black ink, the ink costs should be reasonable over time.
(Longer bars indicate better performance; numbers represent pages per minute)
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Copy speed | |
Color scan speed | |
Grayscale scan speed | |
Photo speed | |
Text speed |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Color scan | |
Grayscale scan | |
Photo | |
Graphics on inkjet paper | |
Text on inkjet paper |
The Epson CX7800 comes with a one-year warranty, which is standard for an all-in-one inkjet printer. The company offers phone tech support via a toll call; hours are Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT. There are several free tech support options, including toll-free fax-back or audio recording support which is available 24/7. In addition, Epson's Web site has driver downloads, manuals, FAQs, and an e-mail support form. There's also a link to Epson's recycling program, whereby you pay $10 for the privilege of helping the environment and get a $5 coupon towards your next Epson purchase. Epson's on-printer options include a quick-start poster that helps you set up the CX7800 and troubleshoot basic problems, a slightly longer pamphlet that deals with all the basic printer functions, and a more complete user guide on the installation CD.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 22 reviews
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Showing 3 of 22 user reviewsSee all 22 user reviews
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10 out of 10 people found this review helpful
"An amazing well rounded printer. Great for those photo freaks, and simple enough for the starters."
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9 out of 10 people found this review helpful
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7 out of 7 people found this review helpful
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