10 Year Inks

The new Ink cartridges complete with a microchip (see below) are designed to ensure the driver is always reflecting the estimated ink levels. So unless you figure out a way of resetting (very doubtful) the microchip, then refilling the cartridge in the way we did previously is History!!! Furthermore, "if" as seems VERY likely; Epson have designed the print driver to only allow printing from a cartridge with a microchip, then alternative non-Epson pre-filled cartridges are equally doomed (unless someone wants to pay Epson a License fee). Apparently all future Epson printer models will be similarly configured.

 

Roll Paper & edge to edge prints

 "10 Year Life Inks"

 

Selecting the "Status Monitor" from the "Utilities" Tab produces the dialog for "Ink levels" plus an "Information" button. Selecting this new button is actually quite interesting because we now see the type of information being fed back to the driver (there's a lot more, but not yet being used). Much has been made over recent weeks of the purpose underlying this new feature.

 

Ink Level Information

 

As suggested above many believe the purpose of the new "microchip" is to thwart the "refill" brigade or stop 3rd party ink manufacturers, may be it is! However, I believe there to be message hidden deep within the new "Information dialog", the context of which may become clearer over the coming months.

 

Cartridge Information

Once you get your head round the fact that the "microchip" is not really some dastardly trick simply to prevent refilling and 3rd party ink supplies you will become more appreciative of its more useful features. Every time I open the "Properties" tab to check the ink levels up comes another surprise, look at the following screen-grab as an example. The information that 13 prints remain is probably quite meaningless without you knowing that I had already put through 36 A5 (7.5 by 5 inch)  full colour images.

 

Feedback on Pages remaining

 

Media

Of particular concern to some is the choice of "Media". In particular what options the new driver allows the user to select from. Obviously the loss of any media option could have dire consequences for those that use alternative paper choices, along with "Custom" ICC profiles. I even notice on some forum's comments such as "Back Lit film is no longer an option" and "Quads inks will be a selectable option", well the FACTS are, at present NEITHER is true, as can be seen below.

 

Checkout the Media Table

 

The new drivers are aimed firmly at the masses who much prefer (as do I) to play safe and use Epson's own ink and paper combinations. Given past experience it is probably better that choice is kept to a minimum, that said it is also important that the user has some flexibility in choosing the ink/media type, etc. When the above media choices are taken in combination with the information that can be contained within the new "microchip" on the ink cartridge who knows what lovely surprises Epson have in store for us in the future.

I hope this review addresses some of your concerns/expectations. Of course there will always be those expect more for less, but the reality is, these new printers have the potential to produce exceptionally fine colour prints, and all at the same cost as their immediate predecessors.

The variable dot size technology really comes into its own when printing images that have soft tones and gradations. The question now is can Epson or anyone else get it better? Personally looking at the prints on the new Premium glossy paper  I have before me; I don't think it matters a lot how much smaller the dots are made. Short of using a 8XLupe you will not see dots. At proper viewing distances the images are to all intents and purposes "Photographs". One area that appears to have benefited greatly from the new dot size and dither patterns is sharpness, the prints are sharp, really sharp.

In terms of colour accuracy and final print density I have already mentioned that the default "High Speed" mode provides the most neutral prints, and that they are a very close match to the original in terms of density. For why this should be the case that I don't know, but it sure is annoying that the highest quality print mode produces the less accurate results in terms of colour.

Another thing that became apparent almost from the very first print I made was the fact that whereas previously it was very easy to get blue skies becoming over saturated (i.e. similar to over zealous use of polarising filter); the new printer prints them just like the original. In fact I think that many who liked the real deep blues of the older ink set will need to increase saturation slightly. From what I have been told the colour gamut of the new paper/ink combination exceeds that of the Stylus 1200, so we haven't been short changed.

The abundance of  poorly documented modes is still something of a concern, but thankfully I think all are functioning correctly. Likewise the issue of Photoshop and printer driver settings has the potential to be as complex as before if you don't use Photoshop 5.5, hopefully the table I provided on Page 2 gives some guidance.

Finally, the old chestnut of the Pizza Tracks seems to have been significantly reduced when using the new Premium Glossy Paper. Notice I write seems!, I'm  always wary of the being too definitive when discussing pizza tracks. Some have reported that the pizza tracks are totally gone, time will tell if this is correct. From what I can see the printer does NOT leave any obvious trace of the pizza wheel marks when using the new Premium Glossy, that's not to say they aren't there!

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