I ended up stealing one of these for $100. They retail for $400 currently. I also snagged 50 sheets of 13x19 canon satin paper in the mix. I've done a few test prints now and I am very impressed. Unlike the Epson and older Canon printers this one uses dye ink and man is it vivid. If you want to print stuff that looks like slide film this is the printer for you. I haven't tried any skin tones yet, so I'll maybe follow up this post when I print a few portraits from it. The review on imaging resource is looking pretty bad really. I think this printer is a lot better than what they present. I don't really know what settings they were using, but when you run your images through their plugin it seems to do a very good job with color using the stock profiles. The black and white I printed on canon paper seemed fairly neutral when I looked at it in direct sunlight. I actually print things for a living and have used large format canons for some time and always highly recommend them. I would do the same for this printer. Just know that ink costs are up on this model but a full set is only $109 for 8 carts. Not bad really. Individuals are $16.99 I think, up from the $13 the older ones were. You can probably get about 30-40 13x19s before you start swapping ink carts and of course your mileage may vary. Obviously B&W prints will kill the three black carts pretty fast. One full size print didn't dent the first cartridge set, but a black and white definitely moved the on screen indicators a bit. I prints up to 13x19 which is pretty decent really. I love 11x17 so this is perfect for a lot of things. Borderless 13x19 looks fantastic though you do give up some image along the sides. You can buy 13x19 frames too. It also prints CDs which is interesting.
If you are considering a printer I would definitely look at this. It has pretty much all the features and quality that the Pixma Pro 1 had and that cost $1000 new. The heads are easily replaceable on this printer as well. I think the epsons are still not user serviceable. One advantage that the smaller epsons have is that they print rolls as well. I think up to 20" wide right? so that gives the ability to print a bit bigger. Still I'm very happy with this and this is a lot nicer than the old 9500 mark 2 I used to use. Much better print quality with much more accurate color. If you are someone that can sell a lot of small prints this is a good printer to have around. I'm really hoping that they move to adding RGB colors like their larger printers have eventually. That would give them a huge color gamut. Still for 8 colors this thing does really, really well. Just know that its best to leave them on all the time so that they self clean which doesn't use much ink in the long run. Otherwise you have to use a lot more ink trying to purge and test print. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
