Epson Stylus Photo R3000

Zitat: Pros: + Excellent print quality + Quiet printing + Easy Wi-Fi setup Cons: - - Consumes a ton of ink - Single-sheet paper loading is a bit complicated

Zitat: Text: gut Grafik: sehr gut Foto Farbe: gut Foto Schwarzweiß: sehr gut Ausstattung: gut

Zitat: + Brillante Prints mit Langlebigkeitsgarantie - Beim Einzug von feinen Papieren muss man drücken, schieben und auch ein paar Papierverluste verzeichnen.

Zitat: 11,5% über Durchschnitt.

Zitat: Pro: + Superb color, B&W print quality + Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity + CD/DVD printing + No manual swapping of black ink cartridges Contra: - Loss of ink during black inks switchover - Expensive Let’s cut to the chase: the Epson Stylus Photo R3000 is the best A3+ printer you can buy at the moment, especially for fine art printing. In our experience, both color and black-and-white prints were consistently excellent, in terms of sharpness and color accuracy. The Advanced Black & White (ABW) mode is extremely useful for quick creation of a neutral B&W or a toned image. If need be, precise toning can be done under Advanced Color Settings. We didn’t notice any ‘bronzing’ (a metallic bronze-colored sheen that appears when printing on glossy or semi-glossy papers using an inkjet printer), which is expected as Epson has solved this issue since the introduction of the UltraChrome K3 inks. Despite the lack of a gloss optimizer ink, gloss differential was minimal (in most cases, negligible). There’s now no need for manual swapping of the black inks when you switch from a glossy paper to a matte paper (or vice versa), though some ink will still be lost as the print head charges up with the new ink. The R3000 has no short of connectivity options: besides USB, it can be hooked up to the network via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. The PictBridge USB port at the front allows for a straight camera-to-print operation, but we figure that those who buy the R3000 are more likely to spend time editing their photos and meddling with printer and paper profiles to get the best out of the printer. The bundled Epson Easy Photo Print software is rather basic, so there’s no particular reason to switch away from your favorite photo editing program like Photoshop or Aperture; that being said, it does get the job done. On the other hand, for CD/DVD printing, the Epson Print CD software is pretty much essential. And lest we forget, the R3000 is solidly built (with a potentially back-breaking weight of 15kg), and looks like it can withstand some rough handling. So, do we recommend the R3000? Sure, if this is going to be your first A3+ printer, or if this is going to replace your old R1900/2100. In fact, we can´t recommend it highly enough. For R2880 owners though, the incentive isn’t that much (you should probably be aiming for the Pro 3880 as your next step up). At S$1,488, the R3000 isn´t exactly what we´d call cheap. Well, at least Epson Singapore has made the sensible decision to not price it out of reach (like in excess of two grand) as we originally feared. But here´s further food for thought: in the U.S. , the same printer * is now going for US$650 (about S$827) after a US$200 mail-in rebate (though that doesn´t include the cost and hassle of shipping). Then again, what price is quality? Update (24 Oct 2011): * According to Epson Singapore, the R3000 available locally comes with a two-year warranty. In the U.S., the warranty is one year.