The Epson Stylus R300M has been one of the most popular and hardest to find desktop printers in the country this year (next to the Epson 4000). We have finally been able to obtain a limited number of these "allocated" printers. We believe this is the best inkjet printer on the market today for making digital prints up to letter size from your digital camera. The R300M has a large 2.5" LCD color monitor, multiple memory card readers and built-in controls that enable one to make prints with or without a personal computer connected to the printer! Here is a list of some of the R300M's other features:
6-color Photo DYE Inks and up to 5760 x 1440 optimizeddpi
Prints directly on ink jet printable CDs/DVDs
Fast print speeds (faster than most, but not as fast as the Canon i960)
BorderFree printing in all your favorite sizes
Cost-saving individual ink cartridges
Use the printer as a card reader and save your camera batteries
We also have a few of the R300 printers WITHOUT the LCD monitor for only $179.00. Here's a comparison (PDF) that Epson has put together comparing the R300/R300M with the Canon i960 printer: http://www.inkjetart.com/R300/EA_R300_vs_i960.pdf
Our Dual Edge Ripper has been a phenomenal success. One of our customers told us recently of ANOTHER company that has been offering a comparable product for a number of years, and this product is made of stainless steel. The "Art Deckle" comes in FIVE styles:
6" ruler with a "fine" edge - preferred for greeting cards & wedding invitations
12" ruler with a "medium" edge - Regarded as closest in size to the deckle edge that occurs naturally in the paper manufacturing process
18" ruler with a "bold" edge - ideal for use on heavier weight paper and larger projects. Exceptional on 300 lb. watercolor paper
48" ruler with a "medium" edge - this a commercial grade ruler for large projects.
48" ruler with a "bold" edge - this a commercial grade ruler for large projects.
Is the "Art Deckle" ripper better than the Lucite "Dual Edge Ripper" we've been selling before? It depends on your needs. The Dual Edge Ripper has the advantage of being clear, so you can see your project THROUGH the ruler (although, the stainless steel Art Deckle models 6" - 18" have measurement markings on them, which can also be helpful). The Dual Edge Ripper also comes with two edges (a "medium" and a "bold") instead of just one. The advantage of the Art Deckle is that it is made of stainless steel, which may be more durable in the long run (although we've yet to see a Lucite Dual Edge Ripper wear out). The small, 6-inch Art Deckle ruler with the "fine" edge is unique and fairly inexpensive. The two Art Deckle commercial grade sizes (48") are also unique and great for large projects.
Keep in mind that the length of any ruler (Art Deckle or Dual Edge Ripper) does NOT limit the size of the project you can do -- just rip until you run near to the end of the ruler, and then slide the ruler down the paper and continue to rip or tear (you just have to move down the paper in a straight line -- something that requires alignment and slows down your work flow). To see more info on the Art Deckle, and pricing, go to:
Duo Brite Matte is an inexpensive favorite for dual-sided printing. From now through June 1, 2004 you can get 10% off on any InkjetART Duo Brite Matte paper product (this does NOT apply to the "Premium Grade"). Buy any of our cut sheet BULK packages or buy four (4) of our 13" or 17" ROLLS and get another 10% off (20% total discount). To order, go to:
We have made some subtle changes to the InkjetART home or "index" Web page to help it load faster. Large graphics that linked to your favorite media or printer may no longer be on the home page but are still in at least one of these THREE areas:
Brand logos in the LEFT COLUMN
Links by category and subject in the MIDDLE BODY TEXT
Blue TOP BAR subject links
Your comments and suggestions are always appreciated.
ANSWERS TO FAQ'S
Here are some answers and TIPS to some frequently asked questions from our subscribers:
A: I can purchase an Epson desktop printer from a local discount office supply chain store right here in my area at the same price or less than what you guys sell it for, so why should I buy from you?
Q: Local stores have the advantage of sales personnel that can get you to buy add-ons that you may not need, or even if you do need them, these are the items where they really make their profit margins, therefore they can afford to sell the printers as a discounted "leader" item, or at the same price we sell it for. Many Internet stores, knowing they don't have this "in-your-face" advantage, use a similar ploy with "package" deals, adding high-margin items (often inferior house brands) to the package to hide the real deflated value of your purchase. At InkjetART, we rarely offer package deals unless we truly think it is to our customer's advantage. Our add-ons are usually offered separately, and at reasonable price.
Here's a typical experience I had while shopping in Rochester, NY about a week ago:
My wife and I went to buy an Epson C84 for one of my wife's relatives in a outlying rural area. We also set it up for them, because they had been so kind to us on our trips to this area. They were amazed at the quality and speed of this $99 printer (and Epson offers a $20 mail-in rebate), and even more impressed when we told them that the inks are water-resistant and the images are fade-resistant to 70 years, even on plain paper.
At a "big-box" office supply store in Rochester, the store manager was the one who sold me the printer:
Store Manager: "You'll need to buy some extra ink cartridges with this printer. The cartridges that come with printers are special cartridges that are only 40% full --just enough to get you going. They'll only last a few days. All the printer manufacturers do it this way."
[Now isn't that an interesting lie! Maybe HP and Lexmark do that, but if that were true, why would Epson (who has the option of giving you the regular size black cart or a high-capacity black cart) include the high-capacity black cartridge with the printer! If they were going to short-change you, they might as well go all the way and start out with the lower-capacity regular size black (same size as the three color carts).]
Royce: "That's OK, I'm buying this for a friend, and I'll let him worry about that."
Store Manager: "You'll need a printer cable. The printer doesn't come with one. I'd recommend a 6-foot USB for $19.95.
[InkjetArt sell that cable for for $5.75 --their 10-foot cable was $26.95, ours is $6.50]
Royce: "That's OK, I'm buying this for a friend, and I'll let him worry about that."
Store Manager: "Do you need any paper? We have a special going on right now on our house brand."
Royce: "That's OK, I already picked up a package of Epson Matte Paper Heavy-weight, which works best with this printer on photographic images."
We're now at the cash register....
Cashier Person: "You'll want to purchase an extended warranty for this printer. Epson only offers a limited warranty on their printers. Our extended warranty adds only $11.99 to the price, but the better deal is the two-year extended warranty for only $19.99."
[I guess Epson's warranty with their repair-it or exchange-it program is somehow "limited" and needs to be extended ;o) ]
Royce: "That's OK, I'm buying this for a friend, and I'll let him worry about that."
[Do I sound like a broken record? I was impressed though, with their helpfulness and that they knew that the items were in stock when I called. The person who answered the phone also gave me good directions to the store.]
Q: Have you done any comparisons of the Epson 4000 to the new HP DesignJet 130? Many of the new features in the 4000 duplicate those already found in HP's DesignJet 120 line, although the 120's inks are not as fade-resistant. A 24"-wide carriage versus a 17"-wide carriage is big difference.
A: The HP DesignJet 130 is a great printer for someone who wants to do one of two things:
Make display prints that do not need to last more than a few months
Make pre-press proofs
For these two items, the HP 130 is an excellent choice. However, if your need is also for photographic quality or fine art quality that will last for generations, and that you can confidently sell, then you need to go with the Epson Stylus Pro 4000 or the 7600. The HP prints cannot meet the longevity standards needed for photography and fine art.
Q: (Follow-up question) I admit to being a bit puzzled, because your conclusion directly contradicts HP's claims for the DesignJet 130 (NOTE: this is not the DesignJet 120) and what others have written about the DesignJet 5000 series. For example, the facility at Bowling Green State University came to quite different conclusions about the 5000 series. Such polar opposite conclusions are difficult to reconcile. Do you really mean to discredit the entire line of HP printers?
A: Not at all, but I do not always agree with the propaganda that is distributed by BGSU via the "FLAAR" organization. Although they are considered "experts" by many, I question FLAAR's objectivity in some cases because they rarely ever rate Epson large format printers ahead of any other printer in their comparisons. This always seems peculiar to me since we see so many glowing reports from photographers and giclee printing houses. Some museums will not use any large format printers except Epson for their art reproductions. Example: http://store.yahoo.com/mfapublications/about.html
At InkjetART, we believe that HP printers in many business and signage applications are equal to and even surpass the performance of similar Epson printers. However, photography and fine art are our market niches, and these are the applications where Epson excels. We have also added the Canon line of printers for their photographic quality (plus their increase in printing speed over similar Epson printers).
EDITOR'S NOTE: I ask the reader's indulgence for continuing on this subject, but after five years of having to answer hundreds of email questions about why my advice differs with FLAAR on some Epson products, I've decided to go public with my answers using a typical question that was sent to me (the above two questions are real).
FLAAR is registered with the IRS as a non-profit research and educational institution and receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money from corporate sponsors (as well as equipment to test). FLAAR claims they are "Independent, Innovative, and Comprehensive". They state: "...we have no need to play favorites ...we are not paid by the printer manufacturers to write glowing reviews ...FLAAR's asset is the fact that we do not sell products ourselves."
To these statements I reply that not all information from commercial vendors is self-serving, and not all "research" from educational institutions should be taken as unbiased and scientific. Politicians and institutions say that they are not influenced by large donations, sponsor money and grants. We all know better. If this were true, why would these large donations and sponsorships continue to be given? Recently, the national news media reported findings from a well-known university where a study group showed a significant cardiovascular benefit while on a low-carb diet. After additional investigation I found that the university study was funded by Atkins Nutritionals, Inc.
Let take a hypothetical situation where a university faculty decides to start a study comparison of various large format printer technologies. They inform all the involved companies about their study and request equipment, supplies and grant money. One company supports the university's study to a point, but decides not not "play the game" of grant sponsorship to the same extent as the other companies. Do you think that company will receive a fair evaluation by this university faculty?
BACK to FLAAR: FLAAR claims that "168,000 people a year come to FLAAR to inquire which make and model of large format printer, scanner, or professional digital camera to purchase."
FLAAR has 12 "Premium Level Reports" that can be purchased for an average of $142 each (downloaded as PDF reports, so FLAAR incurs no printing costs). Even if each of the 168,000 inquirers that come to FLAAR purchased only one report each, FLAAR's non-profit revenue would be nearly $24 million! Add to this estimated income FLAAR's consulting fees to Fortune 500 companies.
FLAAR offers three to six free reports, but these short reports seem to be just teasers to get you to buy their Premium Level Reports --which ARE very comprehensive and worth the money when they are accurate and unbiased. The opinion of several of our readers, who have purchased these reports, is that FLAAR seems to cleverly bundle the reports people want into separate "series", and one has to buy several series in order to get each report one wants.
In the Premium Level Report series about "printing signs" (10 reports in the series for $142) I don't expect FLAAR's "Evaluation of the Epson 9600" to be very favorable because the 9600 is a slow printer when compared to ColorSpan and HP (time is money in the sign business -- quality is only secondary). However, when you get into the series on "Giclee - Photography - Decor" (20 reports in the series for $180) you'd think Epson might receive a better evaluation in this category. Instead, the abstract on the "Epson Stylus Pro 7600 With Ultrachrome Ink Evaluation and Review" report gives you an idea of what to expect from this uncomplimentary report: "This is one of the few totally independent reviews that exists. If you wish to learn the TRUTH about this printer, based on actual use printing everything from photographs and giclee, do yourself a favor and get a hold of this new report..." It's almost as if FLAAR has a vendetta out for Epson large format printers. I wonder how many people are "scared" into buying this report (how many are thinking, "I better to spend $180 on this bundle of reports, rather than possibly waste almost $3000 on a 'bad' printer decision!")? And they can't buy just the one report within the series about the Epson printer that interests them; they are forced into buying the whole series package, because this is only the way FLAAR sells their Premium Level Reports. Clever marketing.
BACK TO THE OTHER QUESTION about the HP DesignJet 5000 series: Dye ink is a good way to go in the two areas I previously outlined (short-term display prints/signage and pre-press proofs. Pigment ink is the better way to go for prints that need to last. Gloss differential is a factor that dye inks do not have to deal with, but this factor only appears on some media (mainly glossy). HP's DesignJet 5000 series is available in both a dye and UV ink (pigment) configuration. This is a great printer. It's much faster than the Epson 9600 (which uses the UltraChrome pigmented ink), but it's output quality is not as good as the Epson upon close inspection --and photographers / fine art clients typically do look very close. The HP DesignJet 5000 series 42" printer is also considerably more expensive than Epson's 44" model 9600. However, Epson has nothing to compare with HP's 60" version.
Here's a typical Epson "smear" from a FLAAR Web page about the HP DesignJet 5000 series: "The UV pigmented inks appear to have a brighter wider color gamut than the inks of the Epson 7500 or Epson 9500, and almost certainly the HP inks will accept a wider range of media. This is because the Epson printheads are piezo, which limits the media; the Epson inks are a proprietary encapsulated kind (that no one else makes or uses). This means that no, or few, aftermarket media works with the Epson printers at all. This is the kind of disappointment that the glossy Epson ads don't warn you about. Actually the slick ads don't warn you that most pigmented inks can't print on glossy photo paper anyway. That's probably why Epson was laminating matte prints for years at trade shows to make them look as though they were printed on glossy media."
http://www.fineartgicleeprinters.org/archival_pigmented_inks_HP_5000/archival_pigmented_inks_HP.html (Last update to this Web page was: Nov. 10, 2003.)
In rebuttal: 1) Why is FLAAR comparing HP's NEW pigment ink with Epson's OLD "Archival" pigment inkset, instead of Epson's current "UltraChrome" pigment inkset, which has a much wider color gamut? 2) Epson's piezo printhead technology used to make it harder to find cheap, aftermarket media that would print well with it's "cold" ink delivery system, when compared to HP's thermal printhead technology, but with media advancements and greater selection, this is rarely an issue now. 3) To say that "most pigmented inks can't print on glossy photo paper..." implies that they absolutely won't print at all, rather than there is a gloss differential surface problem when viewed at certain angles. 4) And why the cheap shot about "laminating matte prints" at trade shows? Most sign shops will use the lowest cost matte paper they can find and then laminate it to make it look expensive --this is a standard sign shop procedure that adds value to the print, and allows them to make more money. At "photographic" trade shows, I've never seen a laminated print in an Epson booth --photographers want to see the "raw" media.
This misleading and outdated statement is so typical of FLAAR reports. Although early pigment inksets from all manufacturers had low color gamuts, the Epson new UltraChrome inkset has forever changed the perception of pigment inks. Show me an HP dye ink that will come close to the longevity of the UltraChrome pigment inks, AND show me the color gamut map comparisons of the HP and Epson UltraChrome inks. Epson's UltraChrome color gamut is very high, and equals many of the dye inksets out there. Quoting the Luminous-Landscape: "These are pigment [UltraChrome] inks that are very close indeed to the wider colour gamut of dye-based inks." http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/printers/Epson2200.shtml http://www.photo-i.co.uk/Reviews/printers/UltraChrome.htm http://www.pictureline.com/digital/dprinters/depson/pdf/UltrachromeInk.pdf
FLAAR and HP claim the 130 model has "fade-resistant" ink: "Preliminary results from tests conducted by Wilhelm Imaging Research, Inc. indicate that prints made with HP No. 85 ink cartridges and HP Premium Plus Photo and Proofing Gloss paper may be displayed indoors under glass for approximately 70 years before noticeable fading and staining will occur. See http://www.wilhelm-research.com for details."
While this statement is true, it is ONLY true for TWO papers: HP Premium Plus Photo and Proofing Gloss paper (because most dye ink longevity is very media-dependent). What about photo matte papers, lusters, fine art papers and canvas? The Epson UltraChrome ink will give this kind of longevity (and sometimes more) with a much wider variety of media, including canvas and fine art papers. On many other papers and canvas, these same HP inks will only last for about 10-15 years.
My advice: Don't use just ONE source as "the gospel" for your information.
FEEDBACK about FLAAR: We ask this question on the Yahoo EpsonWideFormat Group: "What's your opinion as to whether FLAAR is as fair and unbiased as they claim?" and "what was your opinion of the value of their reports?" Although asking these questions is a little like "preaching to the choir", you may be still be interesting in some of the comments reproduced here:
JB: "I learn more on different websites than their reports, don't waste your money with those people, they charge you a few hundred dollars (Even a couple thousand to get his almighty presence on your shop) to tell you what you can find taking some time on the internet. They are an HP biased people, ...they recommend only the printers that they got for free!. The free reports, ...You can learn more on this groups than with them."
rafe b.: "[while attending a conference]...Dr. Helmuth was insistent that of his large stable of large-format printers, the Epsons were the least favorite among his students, and the most difficult to maintain. A bit odd and ironic, considering that many other presenters were displaying prints made primarily on... large format Epsons. Let's just say that Dr. Helmuth's gig at BGSU is very much a for-profit operation."
Cris: "...Their reality is that if your corporation sends them free equipment you are off the s--- list, at least until you stop sending the toys. There isn't a university that I've ever heard of that would blow money on all of this stuff in the name of 'protecting the consumer'. Some of their information is interesting BUT I could also pass on the junks rants by disgruntled users who are clueless. I know that anyone trying to tell me an HP5000 is a better giclee printer than an Epson 9600 is crazy and should be avoided at all costs."
Dan: "...My opinion is that its a scam to fund their program. After reading alot of their online data, I wouldnt pay them a cent for their reports..."
All longevity estimates should be treated as such, Inkjet Art Solutions is not liable for pre-mature fading of prints or damage to printers through use of our products. Be sure to properly research your purchase and follow the directions given. If you need help, please contact us.
For more information regarding our policies, including our return policy, please visit our Policies Page
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