Epson Stylus Photo 925 Printer

The problem is: you just don't know when it's NOT going to look great. You *must* baby-sit the printer, and about half way through each print (when you can actually see a portion of the image) decide if the printer is function correctly.

To get two transfers (at a each, just for the paper) we've had to print four times... wasting paper. 1st try: good. 2nd: oops - clean the heads (uses ink). 3rd: oops, clean the head. 4th: great! Tah-dah!

Post cards: same thing. Several great Xmas cards in a row, then wham! Bad one. Clean the heads. Several good, and another bad.

If you like babysitting, don't mind wasting money every now and then, enjoy listening to the printer cleaning the heads and printing test sheets, this printer is for you!

Love the instructions that come with Epson's transfer paper, too. "Place the printable side up," it says. Uh, could you be a little less specific? There's two sides, and this is my first time using the paper. Is that the smooth side, or the rough side?

"Choose 'Flip Image' in the driver." Uh, AIN'T no flippin' "Flip Image" option anywhere I can find!

On the plus-side: the printer has a small footprint so it doesn't take a lot of room on your desk. Ink cartridges are easy to replace.

On the negative side: any paper thicker than your normal printer paper requires you be present to hand-feed each sheet. Post cards, business cards, etc will feed multiple sheets and jam the printer. Another "Engineering" marvel.

Yeah, but when it works... nice pictures are assured! When I win the lottery, I'll try a different brand, and let you know how they compare.


Great Printer!   February 2, 2003
Travis Yee (Sacramento, CA United States)
25 out of 28 found this review helpful

Can't go wrong with this printer.

I had been doing some research on printers compareing Epson and HP and found this to be a good choice.

Pros:
- First of all, it has a great price. I got this for 250 dollars with a 50 dollar rebate. That price alone beats any HP Printer.

- Quality is excellent! It looks just like it came out of a photo lab if you are printing a high res file on photo paper.

- Automatic roll with cutter is a very neat device. The printer comes with a roll of glossy paper, and what this does is it prints on a 4 inch with roll and automatically cuts it to make it 6 inches. So it makes PERFECT 4x6 prints!!! (When you select "borderless" of course.

- Easy to use. This thing is very easy to use making it simple for a novice to work it. You can print without a computer also because it has an LSD screen and takes all kinds of memory cards. There are so many options on this thing it's awesome.

Cons:
- It doesn't come with a USB cable, so if you purchase this printer make sure to pick up a USB cable as well or else you won't be able to print things from your computer and only from memory cards, zip drives, ect. (Although, i think most PHOTO printers don't come with USB cables these days)

- Can't really think of anything else because i love this printer so much.

Review:
*****

Keep in mind that i haven't used another Photo printer, so i'm kind of biased towards this printer. However, i would recommend this product to anyone that's even just the slightest interested in printing out photos. If you're an amateur and are looking for a printer that prints good quality photos and is affordable, then look no further because this one's for you.

*note* I looked at the HP equivalent printer and printed out sample copies, and it seemed that both printers printed at the same quality; however, this printer is about 100 bucks cheaper!


Beautiful pictures, great customer service   April 11, 2003
K. Kohatsu (Chicago, IL)
15 out of 18 found this review helpful

I just bought this two days ago. I was switching from a Canon S800. I was extremely impressed with the pictures that were coming out. Much better than on my old Canon. Setup was a cinch. The best part is the true borderless prints. The 4x6's I printed look like they came from a photo developer. In fact, they're probably better looking than any one-hour photo I've used. And the pictures look great on matte or glossy. The epson paper is also cheaper than the Canon paper. I only wish Epson made precut 5x7 paper!

I haven't determined if it really is an ink hog, but for the quality, it's worth it. And I don't think the tanks are that expensive. A full set of the Canon's used to run me ~[$$], but these are under [$$] (color, don't really need black all that much). The printer is really really slow, though. Probably the biggest drawback for me.

I haven't played with the features on the display. I've been printing from the computer.

The best part has been that I had a paper jam that I caused, and couldn't fix. I called tech support, and they agreed to send me a new printer right away. I will send mine back after I get the new one, which should be 2-3 days. No hassling, or anything.

I've been converted to an Epson user.


Great Printer   January 4, 2003
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

This printer is great for printing pictures and you can even print them without owning a computer, as long as you have the memory or flash card. It is also capable of printing the long roll of 4 x 6 borderless photos and has a self-cut device that cuts out the roll for you.

When printing the glossy quality photos, it consumes lots of ink, so you might want to keep some back up cartridges, since they will drain out pretty quickly. Look for those generic ink cartridges for this model. They work well and save you money.

If you're looking for a printer that prints great quality picture and capable of doing the regular printing, this printer is for you. But if you're looking to print a regular color picture or just for printing documents, I suggest a cheaper printer.


Phenominal cost/performance Printer   April 27, 2003
Elton Dodson (Athens, GA United States)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

I would feel better about my opinion if I could compare a full size pic from this printer to the much more expensive 960. With that said, I love this printer. Really, this is a machine with split personalities (as are many of the photo printers out there today).

First, it is a printer attached to and used by your computer. There are a huge number of options once you hit the print button. So many, in fact, that it is easy to mess up the quality and/or colors in your print. But if you are patient, the results from this printer are amazing. Using premium glossy photo paper, I am amazed at how much the vibrant images seem to leap from the print. Really a stark contrast to the dull flat images of yesterday's inkjets. Print speed is okay, nothing wonderful. And, of course, don't use this printer to do regular docs. The quality is fine, but you're better off with one of the cheap (but fast and high quality) lasers out there, many about 100 clams.

Second, this is an independent digital camera printer. It has built in slots for compactflash, memory stick, and mmc. This is a great contrast to those printers with just a pc card reader (then yoiu have to purchase the appriate adaptor for you camera). I might add that the printer serves as an all purpose memory card reader exceptionally well. Any card you put in appears as a removebale drive on your XP computer.

I must say, the use of this printer independently is very limited right out of the box. That is becasue it lacks a preview monitor. Forget about being able to print the right picture from many on a memory card - impossible unless you waste time and ink and paper on an index page. Also, the fancy features for cropping, resizing, rotating, etc are worthless absent the monitor. Since the monitor must be purchased separately at a third of the cost of the printer itself (for a tiny, tiny monitor), this is problematic. While HP photo printers are more expensive, they generally have built-in monitors, making the price more even w/ this one. But, the good news is that I just ordered a monitor for an older epson photo printer of ... very, very cheap. I called Epson, which told me that the monitor will work fine, it is just white instead of black.

Finally, I want to address the paper roller. Included is a roll of premium photo paper on a 4" wide roll. This is a GREAT idea. Since this printer can print all the way to the edges, you can produce high volume 4X6 prints easily. The printer will print them onto the roll paper and automatically cut them as it prints!! The result are prints that make my account with on-line digital photo processors obsolete. The only complaint is that the prints curl pretty substantially since they are on a roll.

In sum, a great printer. Sturdier construction than Epson has produced in the past, exceptional quality prints. The status screen is hard to read if the printer is on a tall surface. The paper is actually kind of difficult to load correctly. The lack of a preview monitor (and its supplemental expense) makes many of the features unusable. But these are really just technical points. At the price this printer is going for, it is a must have for amateur photographers.