Epson Stylus Photo 780

The 780 features a light tan body with a rounded front and a translucent blue dust cover that protects the printer head assembly. The basic body measures 17.7 x 9.7 x 7.2 inches (450 x 246 x 183mm) without the paper trays extended, and weighs 8.3 pounds (3.76 kg) -- making it small to average in size and surprisingly lightweight. The top-mounted paper support handles sheets up to 8.5 x 14 inches. The lower paper output tray (also blue in color) 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, which can be set to the "+" position when you use thick paper or envelopes, to help prevent ink smearing.

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.

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