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Back to Full Epson Stylus Photo 1280 Review
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	*	Improved lightfastness, up to 25 years for framed prints on Epson Heavyweight Matte Paper.
	*	Border Free photo printing up to 11x14 inches
	*	True 6-color photo printer with near-invisible 4 picoliter droplets
	*	2880 dpi for ultra-smooth, ultra-sharp photos

Manufacturer Overview
Epson America Inc. has been at the forefront of inkjet printer technology for many years. Best known for its MicroPiezo technology, which played a major role in the launch of photo-quality inkjet printing, Epson has introduced many more innovations in its race to be the number one printer manufacturer. Earlier this year (2001), Epson introduced three new Stylus Photo inkjet printers -- the 780, 890, and 1280 -- targeted at three distinct markets, at very competitive prices. The 780 is the first six-color inkjet printer to fall into the less than $200 price range (current (August 2001) list is only $99(!)), with a maximum 2,880 x 720 dpi resolution, and borderless printing on single sheet papers up to 8 x 10 inches. For less than $300, the 890 has the added capability of printing panoramic images up to 44 inches long, or continuous 4 x 6- or 8 x 10-inch prints output on roll paper. The Stylus Photo 1280 is designed for the advanced amateur / prosumer market, with a wider 13-inch paper feed that allows printing of borderless 11 x 14-inch prints, as well as 13 x 44-inch panoramas, expanded software options, and optional Ethernet and Postscript RIPing software.

The highlight of all three models is the exceptional image quality and edge-to-edge printing -- neither of which have been previously offered at the consumer level. We applaud Epson for bringing these high-end technologies to the mass market at such a reasonable price.

High Points

• "On Demand" Advanced Micro Piezo ink jet printing.
• Maximum 2,880 x 720 dpi resolution.
• True borderless printing (4x6-, 5x7-, 8x10-, 8.5x11-inch paper sizes).
• Six-color inks: Black, cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, and light magenta.
• Two ink cartridges, Black and Color, 48-nozzles per color.
• 4-picoliter droplets and variable droplet size for ultra-smooth highlight detail and gradients.
• 256KB print buffer.
• USB and Parallel connectivity for Macintosh and Windows computers.
• Windows and Macintosh Printer drivers.
• Generous software bundle includes Epson Film Factory, ArcSoft PhotoImpression 3.0, and QBeo's PhotoGenetics 2.0.
• Fast "draft" mode for low-quality text printing.
• Excellent text quality in photo mode, albeit with longer print times.
• Optional roll-paper adapter provided for continuous banner and panoramic photo printing (26-foot roll paper available for continuous, 4x6-inch snapshot printing).

Overview
The Stylus Photo 1280 is a high-quality color inkjet printer targeted for the new generation of digital photographers who want to control every aspect of their digital print production -- from capture to output -- with minimum technical knowledge and great results. The 1280 offers photo-quality image reproduction (2,880 x 720-dpi resolution) in an easy-to-use printer package, capable of printing images as large as 13 x 44 inches in "banner mode", or up to super B size (roughly 13 x 19 inches) on individual sheets.

Measuring 24 x 12.2 x 6.9 inches (609 x 311 x 175 mm) and weighing 18.9 pounds (8.4 kg), the 1280 has a fairly large footprint that increases further to accommodate the extended output tray (11x14 size paper) and top-loading paper feed. - Plan on a total of about 30 inches of depth and 16-17 inches of height to accommodate the 1280 in printing mode.

Using Epson's new Border Free photo printing technology, the 1280 can make borderless prints in standard photographic sizes, including 4 x 6-, 5 x 7-, 8 x 10- and 11x14 inch. It accepts single sheets of paper up to 13x19 inches, in varying weights and sizes, plus envelopes, cards, transparencies, film, self-adhesive sheets, and stickers.

Additional accessories supplied in the box include Black and Color ink cartridges, a power cord, User Manual, Quick Start Guide, and a CD-ROM with bundled software, including Epson drivers for Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me, NT 4.0, and Macintosh operating systems; Epson Film Factory for Windows; and both Mac and Windows versions of ArcSoft's PhotoImpression 3.0 and QBeo's PhotoGenetics 2.0 (trial version). The printer cables (USB / Parallel) are not included.

Epson is well known for its continuing innovation in MicroPiezo inkjet technology, which forces the ink through the print heads with pressure rather than heat (thermal inkjet). The 1280 uses *very* small 4-picoliter droplets, plus variable droplet sizes, to produce continuous-tone printing that's virtually indiscernible from conventional photographic prints. Each color is distributed with a 48-nozzle print head (the large number of nozzles helps increase printing speed), for a total of 48 black and 240 color (48 x 5 colors) nozzles.

If you haven't looked closely at a top-end inkjet photo print in the last few years, you're in for a surprise. The dots have gotten so tiny, and so close together that they're literally invisible to the naked eye. Epson has really pushed this technology farther than anybody, with the results you see at right. The area shown in the photomicrographs is only 4-5 millimeters across. It's a shame we don't have a comparable photo to show you, from an older-generation inkjet printer. - This one created by comparing prints from the 1280's sister printer the 785EPX (which uses the same print engine) at 720 and 2880 dpi.

In practice, we didn't feel there was much difference between prints output at 1440 and 2880 dpi. Both looked exceptional, the 2880 ones just took longer. We'd therefore recommend the 1440 dpi printing mode for most routine jobs.

The printer's USB interface provides fast, direct connection to Macintosh or Windows computers. Additional accessories supplied in the box include Black and Color ink cartridges, a power cord, roll paper adapter, User Manual, Quick Start Guide, and a CD-ROM with bundled software, including Epson drivers for Windows 95, 98, 2000, Me, NT 4.0, and Macintosh operating systems; Epson Film Factory for Windows; and both Mac and Windows versions of ArcSoft's PhotoImpression 3.0 and QBeo's PhotoGenetics 2.0 (trial version). A USB printer cable is not included (not unusual for most current printer models).

The 1280's six-color printing requires two ink cartridges: one Black and one Color (cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, and light magenta), which sell for $29.95 and $22.46, respectively, through Epson's online store. Of course, the "street" prices of the cartridges will be less if you shop around, possibly quite a bit less if you get lucky on the internet. Like all Epson's other most recent printer designs, the 1280 uses "smart" cartridges, with chips in them that keep track of how much ink has been used. (The photo above shows the chip on a cartridge from a 780/785) The advantage of this is that you can take cartridges in and out of the printer, and it won't get confused about how much ink is left. This is handy if you're planning an unusually long print run, and want to load up a fresh cartridge to prevent running out in the middle. The downside is that the chip prevents the cartridges from being refilled, since the cartridge "knows" when it's empty. (There are apparently ways around this, involving toggling the printer power at strategic times, but we'll leave it to those interested to track down the information for themselves: Having personally ruined two printers with third-party inks, we're not too keen on the concept of refilling cartridges, and don't want to be responsible for anyone else venturing down that woe-filled path.)

Epson has also provided a very wide range of paper options, from basic clay coated inkjet paper to premium photo glossy, including a very nice Matte Heavyweight paper that has an estimated print life of 25 years when mounted under glass. (Print life may vary depending on lighting, humidity, and Ozone levels -- all of which can significantly reduce longevity.)

As mentioned above, Epson is the first manufacturer to offer edge-to-edge printing for several standard photo paper sizes (4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10, and 8.5 x 11 inches), a significant improvement over previous border-free options, which required that images be printed on oversized perforated papers, and then trimmed to size -- an expensive use of printing material. To avoid the print-and-trim process, the 1280 uses special ink-catching, foam-lined cavities positioned to align with the edges of the various supported paper sizes, ensuring that the ink stays on the paper without bleeding over onto the printer rollers. Border Free printing does have its limitations, however, as it slows the output process a fair bit, and is not available at the printer's highest print resolution of 2,880 x 720 dpi. With both draft and photo-quality black-only printing modes, the 1280 can double as a business printer, though it is slower than non-photo SOHO printers.

The 1280 offers six printing modes when connected to a Macintosh or Windows computer running Epson's driver software. Economy mode is for speedy printing of draft text documents; Normal mode is for Web pages, business documents with text and graphics, and similar everyday printing needs (default mode); Fine mode combines speed with quality to create 360 x 720 dpi images; plus three Photo modes for printing photo-quality images at 720-, 1,440-, or 2,880-dpi resolution. Print speeds vary from 8 pages per minute (ppm) for Normal draft text mode, to 7 minutes 21 seconds in high-quality (1,440-dpi) Photo mode, to 18 minutes for letter-size photos at the maximum Photo quality setting (2,880-dpi).

Design, Functions and Controls
The 1280 features a light tan body with a rounded front and a dark grey dust cover that protects the printer head assembly. The basic body measures 24 x 12.2 x 6.9 inches (609 x 311 x 175 mm) without the paper trays extended, and weighs 18.9 pounds (8.4 kg) -- making it a good bit larger than average, but not too heavy for the size. The top-mounted paper support handles sheets up to 11 x 14 inches. The lower paper output tray folds up against the front of the printer, flipping down when the printer is to be used.

The dust cover lifts up to access the two printer cartridges: one Black and one Color (cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, and light magenta). The cartridges are easy to install, and when in place, are automatically calibrated by pressing the Ink Cartridge Replacement button in the lower right corner of the printer's front panel. The ink cartridges feed into a series of MicroPiezo print heads, with 48 nozzles per color, and the entire assembly travels back and forth across the paper on a small metal rod. Ink is deposited by applying pressure to the ink chambers, forcing the ink out through the nozzles. Epson claims that this process is more precise and consistent than competitors' thermal ink printing process (heating the ink to force it out of the print head), and based on the positive market response (and excellent print quality), they seem to have developed a very successful formula. An automatic cleaning mechanism periodically initiates a three- to five-minute cleaning, which can be repeated several times for deeper cleaning whenever necessary, and an automatic Ink Low / Ink Out detection system enables you to keep up with ink levels for each cartridge, simply by viewing the Printer Driver menu.

The top right side of the printer has an Adjust lever (normally hidden under the top cover), which can be set to the "+" position when you use thick paper or envelopes, to help prevent ink smearing.

At lower right, three buttons control power (far right), the head cleaning/paper jam button (right center) and the roll paper button (near right). Hidden under the cover is a big yellow button that moves the print head into position at the far left-hand side of the printer, so you can change the ink cartridges.

The left side of the printer is clear, with no printer controls.

At the bottom of the printer's back panel are the USB connector for Macintosh 8.5.1 or later / Windows 98 / 2000 computers, and a Serial Port for Windows 95 / 98 / NT 4.0 / 2000 computers using a Parallel connector. The top paper support slides into a plastic slot at the top of the back panel, and is large enough to hold up to 100 sheets of standard printer paper or 10 envelopes.

Operation
The 1280 works like any other desktop printer, with printer drivers and utility software for both Windows and Macintosh platforms. Together, they provide a diverse selection of quality and speed settings, image editing functions, color management, and page layout controls. The following is a list of the four basic printing modes and Epson's recommendations for the use of each mode:

• Economy: This provides the fastest speed for text printing. The Economy mode is best for emails and draft text documents.
• Normal: This is the printer's default setting. It is best used for Web pages, business letters, documents with text and graphics, PowerPoint shows, etc.
• Fine: This is the printer's fastest mode for printing photos on Photo Paper. The resolution is 360 x 720 dpi.
• Photo: Photo mode is best used for detailed photos and graphic images. This mode comes in three resolution settings:
  • 720 dpi (best balance of speed and quality)
  • 1,440 (preferred quality and resolution)
  • 2,880 (best quality and resolution possible)

The printer driver has a full array of image enhancement controls, including Automatic or Advanced printing with Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast settings. It also provides Tone, Detail, Smooth Edges, and Color controls, with options for using Epson's automatic PhotoEnhance mode, No Color Adjustment, or sRGB or ICM color spaces. Within the Sharpness setting, are several special effects, including Soft Focus, Canvas, and Parchment.

The more standard controls include paper size options, paper types, Border Free printing, page layout, and the Utilities section, which controls print head functions like nozzle cleaning, alignment and ink level checks. You can also create and apply a watermark to your images, with suggested templates for "Confidential," "Draft," "Urgent," and "Priority."

For more detailed explanation of the menus and options available in the PC Printing mode, see the "Computer Drivers" section below.

Performance
Like it's siblings the Stylus Photo 785 EPX and Stylus Photo 780, the Stylus Photo 1280 shows market-leading characteristics in virtually every respect... excepting print speed, where it's only about average. While we like immediate gratification as well as the next person, we've generally been pretty tolerant of slow print speeds in photo-quality inkjet printers. Our usual approach is to just queue the prints up and walk away to do something else while the printer grinds them out. As a result, we're almost never in a situation where we're waiting for the prints to spool out so we can grab them and dash off someplace, hence our rather relaxed approach to photo-quality print times.

Problems on our main Windows workstation while we were testing the 1280 prevented us from conducting timing tests on that platform. (We confess, we really *hate* Windows: Hopefully Windows XP will actually work some of the time, what a concept...) As a result, all our timing tests on the 1280 were done on our 500 MHz G4 PowerMac, although print times should be pretty equivalent, as the pacing factor in print speed seems to be the print mechanism itself, not the computer or USB connection. As with other printers we've tested, source image size seemed to affect spooling time, but not print speed. (Spooling time for a 15 megabyte file on the Mac was about 30 seconds, very much in line with what we've found for other inkjet printers. Accordingly, the times we report below are only for the printing process itself, once the printer has grabbed the paper from the input tray.

We've included text-mode print times in this review, and intend to do so in the future. Many people need to buy a single printer to cover multiple uses, so text printing on photo printers is important. Photo printers will be *much* slower than so-called SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) multipurpose printers when printing text, but they can do it, and do it fairly well, if the 1280 is any indication. Text-mode printing is quite rough in the Economy mode, but very fast, suitable for quick drafts. Printing in 720dpi mode though, the text is razor-sharp and beautiful, if not a little sluggish in spooling out. For occasional use though, the 1280 is capable of excellent text output.

Media Cost
The 1280's six-color printing requires two ink cartridges: one Black and one Color (cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan, and light magenta), which sell for $22.46 and $17.96, respectively, through Epson's online store. These prices are reduced from the original list price and are very comparable to, if not a little less costly than, its competitors. Epson has also provided a wide range of paper options, from basic clay coated inkjet paper to premium photo glossy, and a Matte Heavyweight paper (see "Print Longevity & Durability").

Working almost exclusively in 2880 dpi mode, we were able to print about 26 7.6 x 9.5-inch prints on 8.5 x 11-inch paper on our 1280 test unit before running out of color ink. At that point, the black cartridge was still about 80% full. Running the numbers, we come out with a per-print cost of about $1.08 per print for the ink, based on Epson's selling prices for the ink on their site. (Checking the internet, we found the color cartridge was available from multiple sources for $23 or less. This makes the ink cost only 84 cents per page.) Epson's premium glossy photo paper runs about $0.50 a sheet on the internet, while their standard photo paper is about $0.35 per sheet, again on the internet. The overall price per letter-size print is thus somewhere around $1.34 on premium glossy and $1.19 on standard photo paper.

As noted, we did essentially all our printing at 2880 dpi, since we were testing for maximum quality. We've heard that the 780's 1440 dpi mode uses significantly less ink, but did not have an opportunity to evaluate that in our testing.

Overall printing costs on the 1280 are about in line with other inkjet printers we've tested.

Print Longevity & Durability
When used with Epson Inks, the Matte Paper - Heavyweight has an estimated print life of more than 20 years, based on accelerated testing of prints displayed indoors, mounted under glass. (Print life may vary depending on lighting, humidity, and Ozone levels -- all of which can significantly reduce longevity.)

Epson describes its inks as "water resistant," a big plus in the durability category. We don't have any formal test for water-fastness, but were quite surprised by how well the 785's prints held up to splashes of water. We tried dribbling a few drops of water on a print, waiting about 10-15 seconds, and then wiping it off. We were amazed that none of the color came off on the tissue we used to wipe the print with. The paper did absorb a fair bit of water, wrinkling its surface a bit. Pressing it inside a pad of paper (to absorb the moisture), under the weight of a book flattened it out pretty well again, although the surface of the print still showed a water mark. Overall, this is quite a bit more water-resistant than we were aware of inkjet prints being. (We confess though, that we haven't routinely performed this test, so other printers may well be as waterproof these days.)