Epson Stylus R320 Photo Inkjet Printer

Rating:
Summary: Great Photos
Review: I bought the R320 after a little research and faith in the Epson name. My old Stylus color 760 printer, in my opinion, did a good job printing photos, but I wanted something a little better. I had no idea how great the photos printed from the R320 would be. All of a sudden all those photos I printed on the 760 looked dead and lifeless. You practically need a magnifing glass to see the pixcelation with the R320.
Ink seems steep, but it is worth it. I actually bought another USB cable and hooked my 760 up for non photo printing.

Rating:
Summary: An unexpected surprize!
Review: I bought this printer based on reviews and some blind faith.

My wife wanted a printer to print occasional text and some photos. I was under the assumtion that you either want to print photos period or text period and if you want to print text then you're better off with a laser printer and if you want to print photos then get a good dedicated photo printer.

My wifes camera is a small digital. She's been printing pictures from her mothers printer which are painfully pixelated. I didn't want to get something that poor, I insisted on something somewhat better. I thought I'd have to spend $500+ which you can, but she insisted she didn't want something that expensive for scrapbooking. I saw this for $200 and bit my lip. The printers I use at work cost thousands. I thought this would be painfully slow, cheap, marginal quality.

This printer prints amazingly well. It's considered on the high end for a photo printing ink jet. The 8 colors would be better but I've found the quality is as good as a 1-hour lab. That's a lot or a little depending on your expectations. But for $200 I think it's a very good deal.

If you want to print simple text, for reference and not graphics it prints pretty well and faster than I thought.
It seems substantial and well constructed. It has features I didn't realize they put into $200 printers.

This model, the 320 has a little flip up screen for viewing your images if you want to print directly from a memor card. the 300 doesn't and this was $20 more. My wife likes that option. I prefer retouching and printing from the computer.

I knew that I wanted separate ink cartridges for each color. This printer uses 6 colors and 6 separate ink cartridges. Some printer using 6 colors use only 2 cartidges with 3 colors each. The trouble with that is if you run out of 1 color and the others are half full, you'd be wasting money having to replace 3 colors when there's still ink left in the others.

You can even print wireless if your printer supports Bluetooth technology. $69 will get you the adapter for the printer.

If you're planning to print postscript files from a postscript drawing program then you need a postscript compatible laser printer or perhaps you could use this type of printer with a postscript emulation software. I haven't looked into that yet. Don't even ask anyone at Circuit City or similar retail outlets since they don't know what "postscript" means.

Overall I am very very happy with this printer.

Rating:
Summary: Good Purchase
Review: I love the flip screen, and the ability to print directly onto a CD. No complaints about this printer. Am in the process of buying of buying another printer for my mother as a gift.

Rating:
Summary: Great affordable, versitile inkjet photo printer
Review: I was initially going to give four stars because I hate to give five - but I honestly can't find anything wrong with this printer. It does just what it claims to do, and does it well. Being able to print directly to printable CD-R or DVD-R media is a novel plus, and fun to do. The quality is great on photo papers (Epson paper is best), CDs, and plain paper. The printer operates very quietly. It's a great printer for the price. The six color ink system and Epson's inks yeild very high quality photo prints. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Not for Mac
Review: I was very dissapointed to find out that I could not print Microsoft Word 98 documents or any other files in Mac's OS X classic mode. The only way to do it is to completely restart in OS 9. I was also frustrated with the lines in the pictures. I tried everything in the manual to fix this, but nothing works. I gave up and returned it.

Rating:
Summary: Photo focused printer
Review: I've owned a long line of HP DeskJet (ink jet) printers. The R320 is my first EPSON, so what induced me to switch?

1. Direct printing of labels onto CD/DVDs -- only EPSON (of the mainline brands) offers this feature. The disks have to be special printable disks (appear to be readily available) with a matt white finish on the top surface. When archiving photos onto a CD, I use one of the pictures to remind users of the included content in addition to the printed description. My Dad really likes this because he can tell at a glance what's on the CD. My daughter uses it to include cover art on music compilation CDs. EPSON's CD/DVD label printing system combines an easy label maker software program on your computer and an included carrying tray that lets the printer handle the printable disk like an envelope tray on many other printers. Very slick and useful addition.

2. Durabrite ink -- EPSON's ink system resists water spotting and looks more like a photograph from traditional film processing.

3. Borderless 4"x6" photo printing -- using EPSON's photo paper, the resulting snapshot photos are indistinguishable from traditionally processing film. (I've also tried KODAK paper with equally good results.)

4. Individual ink cartridges -- when one color runs out, you don't have to replace a cartridge still half full of other colors. In practice you do need to keep a full set of spares on hand (six different cartridges), but the cost of ink seems reasonable compared to my experience with HP.

5. The R320 allows printing directly from a camera, external hard drive or various memory cards through the included card slots and viewer window. I have not fully used this feature, but it could be handy at a party or function where you want to provide instant gratification. My routine is to archive and sort on my computer, but the option is nice. The card slots are great since most computers (like my laptop) do not yet have card readers.

All in all the EPSON R320 is a great match for digital photography and CD/DVD production of any kind. I also looked at multifunction printer/scanner units but decided that best of breed of individual printers and scanners was still worth the extra space requirements. Even EPSON's multifunctions didn't offer the CD/DVD label printing option directly on the disk, and this was the key feature that decided in favor of the EPSON R320. It was the right choice. It is a very good printer with excellent print quality. (I would expect the same to apply to whatever printer follows the R320 in the EPSON line.)

Rating:
Summary: Perfect DVD & photo printing on Mac OS X!!
Review: This printer works beautifully and is the perfect printer for users who burn a lot of DVD's or CD's. I edit all of my home movies and burn the to DVD and it is so nice not to use that crummy stomper label any more.

The user who could not print from Office on OS X in Classic mode, is mistakenly blaming the printer. The OS X version of Office prints perfectly, he just needs to update his software. Don't be afraid of this printer if you are a Mac user it is perfect...!!!

Oh and one more killer feature, it has a built in USB2 card reader that is iPhoto compatible!!!

Rating:
Summary: BEST!!!
Review: This was the best printer best buy had and so i bought it and to my surprise it totally kicks ass i love this thing i've been takeing photos and printing them with studio quality. my family was amazed with the speed from flash to photo in under 5 minuts. great printer.