Rating: 
Summary: Terrible Experiences with Tech. Support and This Product
Review: 1 1/2 year ago, I cleared half my desk waiting for this printer to arrive. But when it did, the first set of pictures came out red and fuzzy. I called their Tech Support right away and was told I should be using professional software to print. After I installed Photoshop 5.0, bought original premium paper and had someone caliberated the printer for that type of paper, the print quality didn't improve much at all. So I called again. This time, they whined I should have had Photoshop 6.0 and up. The dispute went all the way to their Customer Relations, who did help to arrange a replacement. But the replacement was no better: the pictures were light and pale. I called yet again. The Tech Support told me that my original warranty expired and they wouldn't extend it to the replacement. I digged up my old receipts to find out the original warranty did NOT expire! Still calling them now.
Rating: 
Summary: 1280 - One of Epson's best!
Review: As a long time owner of many of Epson's printers there are some great models and some that aren't. The 1280 is destined to be a great workhorse printer as the high resolution print quality is superb and the durability is excellent. However, if you are going to afford to own a 1280 you MUST invest in a CIS ink system of one kind or another as Epson intentionally includes the very tiniest of ink cartridges that are emptied very quickly. It appears to be a deliberate move by Epson as the printer has plenty of room to include huge cartridges. If you print at 2880 resolution you can watch the ink drain right out of the cartridges. Otherwise, a superb, quality printer.
Rating:
Summary: I'll not buy EPSON again
Review: EPSON has taken selling consumables to the max with this printer. No matter how much time you spend and how carefully you set up your print, the 1280 will find a way to trash it. Print borderless and it will crop the heads off your subjects. Spend too much time to set up the print and the nozzles are clogged. Then if you're not out of ink or paper, and you can get it to load without scrapping the paper, get ready to calibrate your project all over again because this printer can't place a print in the same spot twice.
Rating:
Summary: Great large format printer - Use with CIS only!
Review: Great quality large format prints. Not recommeded for occasional use or you will experience frustrating head clogs. Best and cheapest when used with CIS -continuous inking systems. You can find a CIS between $150 and $250 on-line. These systems give you print heads that always read full and are hooked into ink bottles at the side of your printer. Never worry about buying expensive ink cartridges or messy refilling. Just refill the bottle's when they go below 1/3 full. It's as easy could be and buying high quality ink is actually dirt cheap in comparason. Print forever!
Rating:
Summary: How does it work with OSX?
Review: I am a graphic/interface designer and am considering to get a 1280. I have a PC (Win XP) and am getting a Mac soon. There are couple reasons why I am not sure about 1280 yet, and I would like to hear how you feel about these points after using this product:- No Firewire: I see this product has been in the market for a while and doesn't have firewire. Is USB too slow? - Mac OSX: I went to Epson site and it says "Note: OS X does not support certain features." But I also saw Apple website lists 1280 as one of the "Built for OSX" printers. How is your experience? I am pretty loyal to Epson and want larger format than 8.5x11, so my alternative would be Epson 2200, which I am not too fond of. But since my main design machine will be G5 I would appreciate your opinions. Thank you!
Rating: 
Summary: great photos and a lot of complaints
Review: I bought one of these because it was the only printer available off-the-shelf that prints 11x17. I need to print engineering drawings in B&W on 11x17. For the first 7 months, the printer was great. I even printed some digital photos on the sample paper that they gave, and the photos are absolutely gorgeous. The printer does spit through ink like there's no tomorrow, and the ink is expensive. At about 7 months though, I began having problems. It seems like the printer is going through B&W ink at double speed. I get lines in my printouts, so I go to Epson's handy Nozzle Check and Head Cleaning parts of the driver software. I run the tests, do the Head Cleaning, and the results come out the same - at least 7 sections of the test pattern do not show up. I continue doing the same testing/head cleaning. The results get slightly better or slightly worse, but the machine never recovers. Finally, I go to the store and buy another ink cartridge and everything is fine afor about 2 weeks. Then I repeat the entire process. The ink level shows my cartridge as still being half full, but I still have to chunk it in the garbage and replace with a new one. So, now I have a ink-guzzling printer that is now guzzling ink at twice the normal speed. Please note that I'm not printing heavy, black regions - simple lines and text nothing else. HP really sucks, so I suppose that my next shot will be with Lexmark. Well, enough procrastinating on my part - I'm off to the store to buy another ink cartridge.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Buy
Review: I had for 2 years and 3 days after the extended warrany expired the print head went bad. It cost just as much to repair as to buy a new one. Don't buy from CompUSA, they are rude and were no help! I have seen many other people with the same problems. epson sucks. This was my first and last epson! The print quality was great but horrible reliablility!!!
Rating: 
Summary: It drinks ink for pictures that are worth every drop
Review: I have an Epson 1280 and it consistently produces prints that are as good or better than any laser fiery printer I've ever used. As an advertising copywriter, I depend on this printer to make new copies of my work and it comes through every time. Now, this is not the perfect printer, because it does drink ink something fierce, but the print outs are worth it, just ask any professional. In fact, it was a photographer who first turned me on to this machine. At the time I was looking at a Lexmark or HP. As any graphic designer will tell you HP's are word processing printers and with only rare exceptions any good at graphics and Lexmark is just to be avoided. You get what you pay for, and with Lexmark that isn't much. Epson wrote the book on graphics and photo reproduction printing and with the 1280 they have added another proud chapter.
Rating: 
Summary: Driver issues and OS 10.3.3
Review: I have been using this printer for about 2 years now with a Dual PowerMac G4 with 1GB RAM. Most of the time it delivers good prints, therefore it receives at least 2 stars. I said most of the time because the printer works a bit unpredictably. On upgrading to OS 10.3.3 and upgrading the driver to 1.6bA (release date March 6, 2004), the printer refuses to finish prints once they begin. I have been printing 13x19 pages and it works fine about 50% through the document. It will then stall, stop the print, extract the paper, put the print on hold and when you go to the printer utility to the start print button, it will print from the beginning again and stall midway.
I contacted Epson about the situation and they emailed me back with their copy and paste email response with the generic (condenesed version): go to the macintosh HD and delete your Epson Driver Folder and go to support.epson.com and download the driver, follow the instructions and reinstall. And of course, it did not work. The problems persist which means the printer is not compatible yet with OS 10.3 no matter how much Epson swears it does. I have resent Epson emails and they have not responded.
Rating:
Summary: Super great printer
Review: I have owned the 1280 a little over a year now and find it to be an excellent photo printing machine. I have entered two pictures at the fair, printed by my 1280, and have won ribbons on both. I have had no break-downs with the printer. The quality is very good. Dan
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