Review: Epson RX680

I mentioned in a previous post that I got a new printer recently, and I said I'd review it for ya incase anyone was looking at purchasing a new printer. Well it's been a month now and I'm in love! With this... the Epson RX680.


Now I don't say this lightly because I loved my Canon printer, but this new Espon is a 3 in 1 and has all these features that I couldn't not give it a chance. Again though, I've had a 3 in 1 before, and previously thought that they tended to be 'jack of all trades, master of none'. Meaning they did manage to do all three things, but didn't do any of them of them well. The RX680 however, has changed all that, and I'm a convert!!!

Now you might ask yourself "Di, why wait a month to tell us about this fabulous new printer?" and I will reply: "because it takes time to test drive it properly!" I'm not saying it's complicated, because quite frankly if *I* can figure it out, anyone can use it. But it just does so much that I wanted to thoroughly test it, really put it through it's paces and to do that I needed time

So lets look at this baby shall we? It was a little bigger than my Canon but it did more stuff, so we'll let that slide. Got it hooked up, unwrapped the ink cartridges (all separate, which is something I look for now in a printer, I'll NEVER go back to those with the bulky all-in-one cartidges) shoved them in and away we went! Naturally I wasn't using it for the sake of using it, so I waited till the next day when I needed to photocopy something. Now we've not had a printer that photocopies for.. um... years, and BOY it's only now that I realize how much I missed it! I had just filled out an invoice for Boxer and needed to photocopy the sheet for my records. Normally this meant, scanning it in, opening photoshop, saving as a jpg and printing. Now I flip the lid, place the document to be copied on the bed and press a button! Plus is has all these nifty features, I've only really used the color and b/w copy feature at 100% but I love having that option! It's come in really handy the last month!

Naturally one of it's other jobs as a 3-in-1 is it scans. Now I have an OLD (and I mean OLD) canon flatbed scanner, which does it's job but it's noisy and past it's prime. I'll be honest here and say that I RARELY scan layouts anymore just because it's so much hassle. It doesn't scan properly, cut bits off, and is a pain to get the edges lined up. So when I did a layout recently for Boxer and it was late, and therefor a photo was out of the question, I decided to try the scanner. I was really happy with the results!

Supplies:Boxer small lavendar dot paper, Boxer Pastels Trike paper, Boxer photo turns (black), Boxer start you engines stamp set, Boxer grosgrain twill (black), Worldwin cardstock and Darice ink.

First up, the printer comes with it's own software, like most printers these days, and naturally I'd installed it, so upon clicking inport: Epson RX680 up popped the Epson Scan box. Which has so many options! You get a choice of auto, home or professional mode. The main differences I could see between home and professional were more dpi (professional mode gives you 9600 dpi option!!!), and in the home version the document type has lovely icons instead of just a drop down box. I opted for professional mode, I like more things available to click! And as you can see it scans beautifully! I think I'm converted BACK to scanning too!

Now naturally my biggest use for a printer, is: printing photo's! I have to say I almost exclusively print my photo's as home so I was eager to see how they turned out on the Epson. The photo's on the above layout were printed on the Espon RX680 using Espon glossy photo paper and the look AWESOME! The colors are perfect and the quality is SO CLEAR!!! By far the best I've seen from a home printer (and I've used a few!).

So far I am VERY impressed and I'm still 'testing'!! I've have yet to use the CD printing, yes this sucker prints onto CDs/DVDs!!! But I have a project coming up that requires that so I'll be doing that then, and will review the printer further. Also, I have some future secret projects to share that I've used the printer on, so I'll be mentioning the printer a lot over the coming weeks so you can see the print quality.

In all, if you're looking for a printer I THOROUGHLY recommend this one! Understand that I really DON'T say this lightly. I was a total "Canon all the way gal" before I got this one, and it's changed my view completely. What's more it gets the "husband seal of approval" too! Something about it having bluetooth capabilities and other 'techy' things. What could Epson do to make it better? Hmmm, drop the prices on the 12x12 printers... would be a great start! HAHHAHA ok seriously, not much. It has everything I need: scans, photocopies, prints beautifully, and borderless too. There really isn't anything else they could add, it does it all and it does it all very well.

More projects coming soon with the Espon RX680 so stay tuned!!!

Di