Epson SP1280 Inkjet Printer

Epson SP1280 Inkjet Printer
Manufacturer: Epson
Product Type: CE

Editorial Review:
Product Description
Whether you're a professional photographer or a talented amateur, you want your best photo prints to last. That's precisely the thinking behind the Epson Stylus Photo 1280, the fast and friendly ink jet printer that brings you true, lightfast and water-resistant Photo Quality printing.With the Epson Stylus Photo 1280, your best shots will beam in brilliant, 6-color Photo Reproduction Quality on fade-resistant media rivaling anything you've seen on standard photo lab prints. You'll be in control as you conveniently print out everything from portfolios and soft proofs to panoramic and exhibition prints.
Amazon.com Product Description
The Epson Stylus Photo 1280 inkjet printer offers stunning 2,880 x 720 dpi resolution and a quick-drying six-color ink palette to produce large photo prints in crisp detail and true tonal quality. These impressive features provide you with borderless photo prints in sizes up to 13 by 44 inches.

The Stylus Photo 1280 fills nearly all of your photo reproduction needs as it produces breathtaking, quality 4-by-6-inch color prints in less than a minute and 8-by-10-inch color prints in under two minutes. Black text prints at 9 ppm. The 1280 prints photos either with borders or in full bleed.

With a 100-sheet input tray and a 50-page output tray, the printer has an automatic low-ink detection sensor to alert you as your cartridges run low. Image lightfastness (related to paper quality) is rated to 25 years before fading when stored under normal indoor display conditions.

The Stylus Photo 1280 is compatible with both Windows and Macintosh operating systems and comes with a one-year warranty and the assurance provided by the Epson Overnight Exchange Program.

Average customer rating:

You can print on anything!
Good and Bad
ONE OF THE BEST EPSON PRINTERS EVER MADE
The 5th star would be Linux drivers from Epson
Very Disappointing

Epson SP1280 Inkjet Printer

Manufacturer: Epson
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

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Netgear FWG114P 802.11g Wireless Firewall with USB Print Server
Netgear USB Mini Print Server (PS121)
Belkin F3U133-06 Pro Series Hi-Speed USB Cable (Six-Feet)
Belkin F2A046-06 IEEE 1284 PC A-B Parallel Printer Cable; DB25M/Cent36M (6-Feet)
Belkin F2A046-10 IEEE 1284 A-B Parallel Printer Cable (10-FT)

Product Features:

Fast, up to 9 ppm print speed, 4-by-6-inch photo in less than a minute
2,880 x 720 dpi maximum resolution
Prints large format, up to 13 by 44 inches
Lightfast and water-resistant ink formula
USB and parallel interfaces; PC and Mac compatible

ASIN: B000059SJ8

Product Description

Whether you're a professional photographer or a talented amateur, you want your best photo prints to last. That's precisely the thinking behind the Epson Stylus Photo 1280, the fast and friendly ink jet printer that brings you true, lightfast and water-resistant Photo Quality printing.With the Epson Stylus Photo 1280, your best shots will beam in brilliant, 6-color Photo Reproduction Quality on fade-resistant media rivaling anything you've seen on standard photo lab prints. You'll be in control as you conveniently print out everything from portfolios and soft proofs to panoramic and exhibition prints.

Amazon.com Product Description

The Epson Stylus Photo 1280 inkjet printer offers stunning 2,880 x 720 dpi resolution and a quick-drying six-color ink palette to produce large photo prints in crisp detail and true tonal quality. These impressive features provide you with borderless photo prints in sizes up to 13 by 44 inches.

The Stylus Photo 1280 is compatible with both Windows and Macintosh operating systems and comes with a one-year warranty and the assurance provided by the Epson Overnight Exchange Program.

Customer Reviews:

You can print on anything!.......2006-08-14

I purchased this printer while I was still in college (in 2001) and it saved me a ton of money on large-format printing costs. Since then, I have used it as a freelancer for various design projects and it has always produced wonderful prints. I'm able to use papers of all sizes and also print on other various medias (such as watercolor paper and even stiff fabrics). Every once-in-a-while, the heads tend to clog, but I've usually been able to fix that. That's common for all ink jets, especially when printing in large quantities. It's been about 5 years and I'm considering buying another SP1280 rather than upgrading to the newer model.

Good and Bad.......2006-02-22

The good:

I have had the 1280 for about 7 months now. I love the color and the fact that I can get ink cartridges for cheap to fit it and they work fine. As long as you print ONE sheet at a time it works very very nicely. I repeat: ONE.

The bad:

This thing has a horrible sheet feeder from hell. I wish Epson would change the technology on this because the 780 had the same problem. It wants to eat a whole stack of paper at once. It doesnt matter how I put them in, whether i fan the sheets, nothing.... so you end up babysitting it when you are doing 10 prints or 20 prints, whatever.

I'm doing a multi-print project right now and i think it can hear me because it just ate another stack of paper... argghhhhhh!

ONE OF THE BEST EPSON PRINTERS EVER MADE.......2004-11-04

I have owned my Epson Stylus 1280 for over a year and a half now and have never once experienced any type of problem with this unit what so ever! I only use aftermarket Abacus Ink and have yet to have a glogged printhead issue. I use this printer to print images taken from my Olympus C 8080 widezoom at 8 megs.
The printouts are perfect! Epson has just released a new driver for XP which can be downloaded at the Epson site to bring this 1280's resolutions all the way up to 5620 x 720!

The 5th star would be Linux drivers from Epson.......2004-11-02

My 1280 died over the weekend. So I did some shopping and bought an HP Photosmart 7760. I figured I'd save some money and wait to get a larger-format printer later.

It was a bad move. The HP is going back, and I've ordered a second 1280. I used my first one hard. For two years. I used it for everything -- normal documents, and lots and lots of digital artwork on matte paper.

Amazon currently has about the best price on ink cartridges and matte paper around.

I did my own tests on the inks -- both water resistance and ultraviolet light resistance. My Bic pen that marked the sample faded in two weeks of sunlight, but not my printed image! (I put a control in my filing cabinet to compare to.) I will not buy compatible cartridges, because I've already investigated the quality of the Epson ink and paper myself. I sell what I print for $185 a page. Sometimes a little less. With framing, more.

If you are a Linux user (and if you don't know what that means or you aren't sure, you can disregard this), you are in for a tough trip. The gimp-print drivers don't come close to matching the Epson Windows drivers for color quality. Not one little bit. Bug Epson about this. There are some adjustments possible with gimp-print, but it would be entirely trial-and-error. [MARCH 2, 2006 -- The gimp-print drivers have gotten much better. You'll be happy now.]

I don't suggest going to the HP side to fix the Linux problem. HP says they "support" over 200 printers with Linux drivers, but the one I happened to try was abysmal. It couldn't even center the image on the page, Gimp didn't work at all, and neither did OpenOffice. At least with my Epson 1280, I have a little printing support (albeit with crummy colors).

If you've used other Epson printers, the 1280 might have slightly different color rendering. I had a Stylus Photo 820 which produced beautiful blues for sky and water. On the Stylus Photo 1280 (under Windows -- we're no longer on the Linux subject), these blues were more grey. I wish the 1280 came with the 820's coloring.

One other thing I like about the 1280: you can print very close to the bottom of the page. Not all the way, but closer than many other printers. This is very helpful.

I wish Epson made an affordable six-color printer like the 1280 with a wider format, perhaps 17" or 22". In my view, they don't.

One warning; Epson claims that the 1280 can print up to 13" x 44". I haven't found a supplier for paper that size. Epson doesn't seem to sell any. At least not in matte finish.

I never print glossy stuff (longevity considerations), so don't consider me to be any kind of authority on glossy stuff.

Very Disappointing.......2004-01-23

I just bought the 1280 and I am extremly disappointed. I had a Canon i9100 for a couple of weeks, but returned it because it didn't print 11x14 borderless prints. The Epson did, so I bought it. Upon comparing the Canon i9100 to the Epson 1280, there really is no comparison. The Canon has vivid, and true color, the Epson prints couldn't come close to the Canon prints no matter what I did. The Canon is lightning fast. Even at it's highest resolution settings. The Epson is painstakingly slow at any setting other than draft mode. I was really hoping the Epson would work out for me, but no such luck. I'm returning the Epson and re-purchasing the Canon i9100. I'll just have to print out at 11x17 and trim off three inches when I need 11x14 prints. The $100 price difference for the Canon is well worth it.

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