Epson Stylus R800 Inkjet Colour Photo Printer User Reviews:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Don't waste your time and money on this one
Comment: Avoid this printer like the plague. It gobbles ink like the worst kind of binge drinker and is no better quality than my daughters £30.00 HP 3 in 1 printer/scanner/photocopier. By far the worst investment I've made to date where printers are concerned. I am constantly replacing inks as it appears to dry up and simply vanishes after a few weeks of it not being used. I had an Epson Color Photo 600 for 10 years and loved it, this isn't a patch on it and I wished I hadn't given it away now. Don't buy this printer unless you have a lot of money and time to waste in buying and changing inks and for no good reason. I had to give it one star because it wouldn't let me give it a zero rating. I've had it from new for 2 years now and it's been like it since I bought it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't touch it with a barge-pole!!!
Comment: Epson Stylus R800 Inkjet Colour Photo Printer
Oh yes, the quality's great - until you don't do any printing for a week or come to change cartridges that is. The ink-wastage is unbelievable. I can't even begin to describe the amount of time and money wasted vainly trying to unblock the printheads. Nothing works - not even Isopropanol. My guess would be that a lot of the positive reviews are written fairly shortly after purchase or by very heavy users who print regularly. For normal use, this thing has been an unmitigated disaster.
Frankly, my personal opinion is that this printer is so fundamentally flawed that I don't believe Epson should even be selling it - it's about time they realised that there are a lot of people who will never go near one of their products again. If you are still considering purchasing one of these money-pits, check the internet - my experiences are commonplace.
Bottom-line an expensive waste of money that's gone in the bin after 1-year.
FYI, this is an independent review and I've no connection to any printer manufacturer, distributor etc.
Rant over.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Superb .... but you pay for it.
Comment: I have owned this printer for about 2 years now. It produces truly stunning photographic quality pictures, but is VERY expensive as an all round colour printer if you (or in my case the children) use it for simple colour printing (£80 for a set of Epson ink). I experimented with several makes of cheap (£25/set) *compatible* cartridges, and it appeared that if you print photos every few weeks then all is fine, BUT if you don't use ALL the different inks for a month or more they clog up and cause real problems (cleaning the heads uses LOADS of ink and sometimes I was forced to clean the heads 3 times before it printed peoperly). My solution has been to enforce my kids to use a cheap b/w laser as their *standard* printer with the Epson used as a 'special treat' and to buy the Epson original cartridges which seem to be fine if you don't print photographs for a month or more. In summary ... superb photographic quality and not expensive if you print hundreds of photos uisng compatible ink cartridges, but not a cheap all round colour printer if used just for the occassional photograph.
Customer Rating:
Summary: R800 Good but greedy
Comment: I've had this printer for a couple of years now and find it difficult to rate really. 5 stars for print quality and -5 stars for ink consumption. If you don't use the printer often it will require a clean and this seems to drink ink.
Example: I put in a new Cyan cartridge 5 months ago. I did 6 x A5 size photos, and have since only used it for mono (black ink only) text quite a lot. Blacks half-full and Cyan now empty. Other colours getting lowish. Why?? How?? (No, I don't want to know). It is truly terrible.
On the other hand, quality of photo printing (on a good medium) is truly excellent. Without a magnifying glass you'd be hard pushed to tell they hadn't been done in Boots. Works well with cheap Staples heavy photo gloss paper.
Obviously I am trusting Epson that the cartridges were filled properly and that the ink monitor is hopefully accurate. Difficult to prove.
Summary: Very expensive to run. Estimate about £60 per year if using genuine Epson cartridges. Brilliant print quality but ink costs are daylight robbery. I could not recommend it as an 'occasional' printer. Next time I buy a printer I'll do a bit of research into ink consumption (rip off) first.
Hopefully newer Epson printers have been to AA first to cut down on their drinking!! BUT check first, this is an important income stream for the manufacturers and to make it waste or use excessive ink is in their direct interests.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Can't agree that its a no-no.
Comment: Having agonised over several reviews and online forums concerning the Epson R800, I decided to mate it with my iMac. First prints were too dark. After brightening-up, they were acceptable and colour balance was almost spot-on. Tweaking the image in the advanced set-up in the driver was enough to produce a good print. However, first comparisons with my existing Epson R300 were that the R300 was better - had more punch. The R300 uses dye inks. The R800 uses pigment inks. After various test prints, I have decided that the R800 is offering more subtle shading and colour accuracy but not more detail. The prints from the R800 do however look like quality photochemical prints without a `digital' look.
I once showed some R300 prints to a colleague, who remarked that as good as they were they did not "look like the photos he was used to". I agree; they had that `digital look'. The Epson R800 does not. It crosses the barrier between the digital and photo look. It gives purer colours. I made a print of clouds in a blue sky and was amazed at how much more natural the sky was rendered by the R800. The R300 looked artificial in comparison.
Many uses have griped at the cost of the inks. I used to use Cibachrome Paper - expensive; and chemicals - expensive, run developing tanks at constant temperature - more expense. The point is; if you want quality then it is unrealistic to think that you can get it on the cheap. Technology costs money and the ink technology is quite specialised. People will spend £800+ on a digital SLR and balk at the £12 or so for an ink cartridge, even if multiplied by seven. There are cheaper printers available but if you are considering the R800 then you presumably appreciate quality. I'm afraid you will have to pay for it and not automatically assume that Epson are trying to put one over on you. My experience with compatible inks was not good; the price was right but the results were wrong - not a good trade-off. Epson Ultrachrome Inks have a predicted 75+ years resistance to fading. No compatible inks can touch this.
As to ink usage, I was quite suprised to see that ink levels did not decrease at the rate of galloping horses as some users report. I make 6x4 test prints and ensure they are right before ever printing to A4 (always using 'Best Photo' setting). On my first set of inks I printed about 30 6x4's, 4 5x7's and 10 A4's and the cyan, yellow, magenta and gloss optimiser inks are more than half full. The red, blue and Matt black seem little used at all, and the photo black about 25% used, despite using ink for the initial dosing of the system on set-up. I would say I am satisfied.
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