Review: Epson Stylus R1900

I've had my Epson Artisan 800 for a while now, a great "all-in-one" printer which scans, prints, copies, faxes and does everything except make coffee. However I'd been coveting a wide screen printer for a while but held off because I was "making do" with the 800. Work-arounds make things work right but I was Jonesing to be able to make layouts with LARGE photo's that spanned the whole 12x12 page, so when I was asked if I wanted to review one of Epson's large format printers I jumped at the chance! I relegated the all-in-one to the living room for communal printing (love the wireless feature on the Artisan 800, I can even print from my iphone using Epsons iPrint app!).

Firstly let me just say that the Epson Stylus R1900 printer is big, obviously it is going to be big, it's large because it prints large photo's. But if like me you had the Artisan 800 prior to this then you'll be pleasantly surprised to see it basically fits in the same space. This is my usual printer spot and the R1900 takes up exactly the same space! Which is good as free space is a premium in my office!

One thing that sticks out immediately about this printer when you begin to set it up is the cartridges: Epson UltraChrome Hi-Gloss 2 is a new 8-color pigment ink system that produces unparalleled glossy prints with rich, vibrant color. In the package are the usual colors cyan, magenta and yellow but then things get different with Photo Black, Matte Black, Red, and Orange.

Then comes the Gloss Optimizer! Now coming from the 800 I had no idea what this was, but apparantly it's the new thing in home printers and not to skip to the end of the review or anything but WOW this stuff ROCKS MY SOCKS off! Anyway we got our ink cartridges installed and we were ready to go!

Obviously eager to get going with the printing to see what this baby is capable of, I got some large 11.7"x16.5 photo paper, quickly arranged some photo's in photoshop and went to town to see what this printer can do.

When the photo came out I was speechless, then there was the OMG this ROCKS! Both Bob and I could NOT believe the quality of the photo. OUTSTANDING! Is it the extra colors? The photo black? The Gloss optimizer? Heck I don't know, all I know is I NEVER got photo's this good printing at home before!

I know it's stupid to take a photo of a photo (which doesn't do it justice) but really this photo is SO realistic! The detail is AMAZING! It's one of those photo's you want to touch because you aren't sure if it's real or not. The detail on the grass in the foreground and the crisp leaves of the floor, WOW! The print quality is remarkable. On close up photo's of the dogs you can see EVERY HAIR! Even those on the furniture! This is going to change the way I scrapbook FOREVER!

For a full list of the specifications on this printer you can check out the Epson site, so much information there! And if you wanted to purchase one for yourself (LOVE mine and a few of my Facebook friends have this printer and love it too) then check out the Epson Stylus R1900 on Amazon for deals or check the Epson site right now priced $349.99 (that's with the $150 mail in rebate)

The Espon 1900 printer like the Artisan 800 also prints on CDs/DVDs which I LOVE. I have used this function and it works beautifully, however I can't share details yet as I used the CD as my project in my February article for Scrapbooking.com. I will share that as soon as I can!

Also maybe not for everyone's tastes but with this printer you can print on rolls of paper using the enclosed roll attachment. I haven't had the opportunity to use this yet but I can see this is going to be FUN for fitness events and birthdays etc! Printing my own banners will be so cool!

The only downside, if I had to pick on, would be that there is no function to print from a media card. I liked that function on the Artisan and other all-in-one printers. But this printer isn't an all-in-one. When they make an all-in-one that prints in wide format I'm sure there will be more than me beating down the doors!

All in all I am amazed at the print quality of the photo's from this printer! I thought the Artisan 800 printed good photo's but this knocks the socks off those photo's! I'm sure I will have more projects to share soon using this printer and I'll update the blog accordingly as I use new functions!

Di

Disclaimer: A PR company sent me these scales for free in exchange for an honest review. As with all my reviews the opinions herein are my own honest and true opinion. The fact I got this product for free did not alter my opinion whatsoever, each review I post will reflect my opinion good or bad – I keep it real like that!