New printers - Epson vs HP

[carrida]

I posted the below on the General forum and someone was nice enough to point out this forum (I didn't know this forum was on the site):

I am in the market for a new printer, and with the new printers announced by Epson and HP, I am ready to buy one of them. However, I want to hear some reviews and comparisons. Does anyone know of any sites that provide reviews of printers, and that might compare the new Epson Stylus Photo R1800 and HP Photosmart 8750 Photo Printers?

My default inclination is to go with the Epson due to their photo printer reputation, but the photos that I want to print and archive are B&W, and with the photo gray inks, the HP may have the edge in B&W printing. I'm looking forward to reading the reviews, the question is where to find them. Also, if anyone here has opinions one way or the other, it would be great to hear that as well.....

Thanks,

- David

[Momto4boyz]

Go look at the Epson Picturemate. It produces archival quality prints that will last over 100 years in photo safe albums. My photos from the Picturemate are better than CVS developing and better than Walmart!!

I want photos that are going to last for generations. If they won't last, why bother printing them out.

[Robert]

In your search for a photo printer don't ignore Canon. Their new line of PIXMAs is pretty impressive. For a start checkout Steve's Digicam website he reviews many printers. Other than that go to the search engine GOOGLE and type in "photo printer reviews". It will take some time to sort out the ads from the actual reviews but you'll find them if you have a little patience.

[jaykinghorn]

I had a look at both printers at the PMA trade show in Orlando last week. The HP printer does give better black and white prints out of the box and their printer driver is more intelligently designed. Their prints are archival on a half dozen of their papers. I would not put anything but HP paper through that printer. At least for the time being. You run the risk of having your expected print life of 80 years drop to a few months.

The Epson R1800 appears to be the replacement for the 2200. It has 9 ink cartridges including both the photo black and the matte black for printing on fine-art papers. It has the smallest droplet size of any printer on the market and gives very smooth prints with vivid, punchy colors.

If I was purchasing a printer today, I would still choose the R1800. I think that it is a better printer and I hate being chained to 5 types of paper. (None of which are true matte papers). It is nice to see HP giving Epson a run for their money. I would not choose a Canon printer at this point because the permanence of their prints is not up to par.

I hope this was helpful.

Best regards,
Jay Kinghorn

[Rex914]

Up to now, all of my printers have been HP. Do they still do that silly thing where they combine all the inks on one cartridge, so when one color runs out, you have to replace the whole thing?