Photo Printer Reviews 2010

by John, allprinterreviews.com Expert Reviewer
(USA)

In coming up with Photo Printer Reviews 2010, the aim is to assist consumers searching the Internet for a printer that has the best quality when it comes to printing photos. There are numerous brands to choose from wherein every brand has a wide array of models to consider, even for photo printers alone. The whole process takes up a lot of time and the consumer eventually gets confused by all the assortment of features to reflect on.

Basically, this Photo Printer Reviews 2010 will dedicate its criteria selection for photo printers among the top consumer choices for ink-jet wide-format photo printers (13 x 19 inches) at wired connectivity offered by three different brands.

1.HP Photosmart Pro B8850

HP Photosmart Pro B8850 is publicized as the best printer for advanced amateur photographers but first let's start with the basics. This printer can produce color borderless photos up to 10 x 15 in as fast as 10 seconds. Users can come up with drafts at a speed of 28 ppm for black; 26 ppm for color. The user can also add post scripts as option. You can count on its superb print quality at an optimized resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi in color, aided by 1056 ink nozzles for every color. It has wide media support as paper and envelope are allowed in different sizes; A3+ can be at a max of 330 x 483 mm while DL envelopes are maxed at 130 x 180.

This printer can be a likely choice for those who intend to use it for small to medium scale business since there is variety in media types including Digital Fine Art (DFA), labels, index cards as well as greeting cards. As added info, photos printed using HP's DFA are expected to last up to 200 years if kept in dark storage and 100 years if on display or exposed to air. HP Photosmart Pro B8850 is covered by a one-year warranty.

Photo Printer Reviews 2010 validates consumers' selection of this photo printer as a top choice for the following reasons:

The pigment-based ink system for one is impressive with eight ink cartridges that can support high quality color definition wherein provisions have been made for light magenta, for gray, black matte and photo black. The inclusion of these colors will of course allow for smoother transitions in color.

This HP photo printer would be hard to beat because of its self-calibration system in full automation completed as a one-time process that will take about 40 minutes. Considering that it's a pigment-based ink (which means its range of options are wide), and has eight ink cartridges to boot, this self-calibration feature can serve as the consumer's assurance that the photo qualities they will get will all come out as professionally looking as expected.

Now here's the good part discovered by this Photo Printer Reviews 2010, this high-capacity printer has a color monitoring device which HP calls a built-in densitometer. It assumes the responsibility of matching the color of the output against the original to check if the printer came up with the exact color match. If the color expectations are not met, the photo printer simple goes into the process of recalibrating itself. HP includes a pack paper in the box, meant for this self-calibration in order to achieve color perfection. All you need to do is to load the pack then let the Photosmart Pro B8850 take care of the whole process.

Now there are two things you have to bear with this printer:

It's a wide format printer so you really have to find a good spot for it. Allow at least 14 inches of clearance in the rear for the paper, there?s no tray output waiting. Make sure the front space will allow 11 inches more once you start loading on the form tray. All in all, you have to find a place that has at least 26.5 x 42 inches of working space for this printer. It's a good thing the large sized media go through slots coming from the front to the back.

Text and graphic printing quality are not as crisp if this was an all-in-one but they?re good enough, albeit dulled and not crisp.

Now let's carry on and find out how Epson and Canon, also with wired connectivity fared in our Photo Printer Reviews 2010 for wide format printers.

2.Epson Stylus Photo R1900

Epson's Advanced Micro Piezo 8-color pigment ink jet technology uses 180 nozzles for each of the 8 cartridges; hence, print speed for 5 x 7 borderless photos will take about 44 seconds, the 8x 10 takes 72 seconds while the 11 x 14 takes 1:32 at resolutions of 5760 x 1440 dpi at optimized level. It also has the same wide variety of media support in fact more than that of HP since it includes water resistant and matte canvas, scrapbook paper and CD/DVD labels for direct CD/DVD printing.

Epson's special Watercolor Radiant white paper competes for the 200-year ability of photo resistance to light.

Clearly, this Epson Stylus is dedicated for photo printing since this Photo Printer Review 2010 can't vouch for its ability to print letter-sized documents on demand nor provide for post script functionality.

As far as color management is concerned, Stylus Photo R1900 relies on Epson's standard Vivid Color, Adobe RGB or ColoSync but sans the self-calibration and self-policing attributes of HP . Like the Photosmart Pro B8850, it also has 8 color cartridges with provisions for black matte and photo black while the magenta hue is modified as Orange instead of Light Magenta which has better effect for skin tone adjustments. This makes portraits more natural looking especially in large-sized photos. The eighth cartridge contains Gloss Optimizer to ensure optimum protection against discoloration and fading up to 80 years but Epson does not guarantee longevity.

Epson puts one advantage over HP by outfitting its Stylus Photo R1900 photo printer with an autosheet feeder at 120 paper capacity for plain paper and 30 sheets for photo paper and a manual paper roll for the fine art paper sheets. In fact, paper support for feeding options are extended upwards but can be quite tricky as paper feeds that are too thin tend to curl. The output tray is extended in front and will take up about 24.30 inches in total space width as Epson recommends that it should be placed at least 4 inches away from the wall.

Basically, most of the strong points that this Photo Printer Reviews 2010 found in Epson Stylus Photo R1900 is more on the improvement of ink with the UltraChrome Hi-Gloss2 and paper with Radiance Technology. Photo printing quality is superb as smoothness of color transition is evident with no trace of graininess. You may also want to consider the inclusion of canvass material and direct printing of label on CDs and DVDs as its plus factors for business purposes and reproduction of art gallery displays.

3.Canon Pixma Pro9000 Photo Printer

Photo Printer Reviews 2010 now turned its focus on Canon wide format counterpart which is the Pixma Pro9000 Photo Printer also at wired connectivity. Canon chooses dye-based ink hence, limiting its media support which we met with disappointment. Remember, we're reviewing photo printers here; ink as well as paper support is quite crucial when it comes to photo quality. Let's check them out one by one.

Print speed is at 30 seconds for 4x6 and 50 seconds for 8x10 borderless photos while large sizes of 11 x 14 takes an approximate 1:23 minutes. Faster than Epson's but still slower than HP's considering Canon boasts of 768 nozzles for every one of the 8 cartridges of different color palettes. Print resolution though makes up for it at 4800 x 2400 dpi but still lower than Epson?s. Media support is limited to regular white, sticker paper, T-shirt transfer and fine art paper in different size variations up to 13 x 19 of course and US #10 envelope.

Its ChromaLife Ink Technology guarantees only up to 100 years of fade resistance but the color photos look very alive with the addition of the red and green ink to achieve higher performance. Nevertheless, you can count on this Canon to give you crisp letter-size prints wherein the 13 x 19 is produced within 2 minutes and 47 seconds compared against the standard at of 5 minutes and 13 seconds.

If you need help for color management, Canon a photo printer is supported by Photoshop software Easy-PhotoPrint Pro. For printing advantage, Canon's driver will give the user option of cleaning the nozzles one subset at a time. This cleaning cycle can help prevent the photo printer from using up too much ink.

Photo Printer Reviews 2010 find it hard to put Canon ahead of HP or Epson for the features mentioned ; Canon even has the highest price among the three at $534.98. Another thing is its large footprint since Canon Pixma Pro9000 occupies space 26 x 7.6 by 14 inches with the tray closed, still requiring you to give about 15.7 inches for more clearance. There's no roll-feed or slot-feed to pass the wide paper through; instead users will have to feed them through the front loading tray.

Summary of this Photo Printer Reviews 2010

To recap our review of HP's Photosmart Pro B8850, Epson's Stylus Photo R1900 and Canon's PIXMA PRO9000 Photo Printer, anyone looking for a wide format and wired photo printer can easily take HP's Photosmart Pro B8850 as their pick. It's hard to beat self-managed quality photos produced at incredible speed by a printer that is offered at a lower price of $379.95. The disadvantages we saw in HP Pro B8850 was not so bad after all when compared to the two other printers.

Photo Printer Reviews 2010 compared Hp Photosmart Pro B8850 against Epson Stylus Photo R1900 and Canon PIXMA PRO9000 Photo Printer side by side. The advantages as well as affordability will still pull the HP Photosmart Pro B8850 printer through, as Photo Printer Reviews 2010s choice.


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