February 25 - March 4 2001

The cool and silent type by Alessandro Cancian I remember fondly the first time I bought my first computer (many years ago) and the biggest inconvenience was the lack of a printer. The choice was financial considering the almost prohibitive prices printers had at the time. So I had to save everything I needed to print on a disk, climb onto my bike and pedal to where my "wealthier" friend lived. Every time he opened the door and saw me, hed say "You again!". Things have changed since, but the fact remains that a computer without a printer is incomplete. Today the financial aspect is no longer a problem in purchasing a printer; on the contrary, the wide range of available products can satisfy the needs of any pocket. In the consumer and SOHO (Small Office Home Office) markets, the lions share goes to inkjet printers, thanks to a respectable quality at affordable prices. If youve yet to find what youre looking for, my advice is to take a look at the latest Epson products, and in particular to the new Stylus Colour 880i. Slightly bigger than my three-year-old Stylus Colour 740, the 880i occupies a wider part of my desk. This detail is of little importance unless the free space available to you is very limited. Resembling the other Epson models in shape, the new inkjet printer is equipped with an ice-and-blue case with a graphite cover through which one can always control the printing process. Despite its plain colours, it looks perfect especially if you own an iMac or, as in the case of my better half, a blueberry iBook. It even looks great next to my "ugly" beige box PC. Appearances aside, the 880i manages to be appreciated also for other reasons. First of all its silent operation is very pleasant for people like myself who are accustomed to the high noise levels of the old 740. The printer comes with a parallel port and a USB port, and it is perfectly compatible both with PCs, mounting Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT, and with Mac (OS 8.5.1 or later). Installation does not require particular procedures; its enough to insert the CD and follow the instructions that appear on screen. The full process takes some minutes, even considering the necessary reboot. The Stylus Colour 880i uses the Epson Micro Piezo technology with 4-picoliter variable-sized ink drops and has a maximum resolution of 2880 x 720 dpi. The results are definitely good, both printing text and accurately reproducing flesh tones and gradients in photo images. Print speeds are good, although far from those declared by the manufacturer. The 7 ppm (pages per minute) of monochrome text I managed to obtain, even if they are not the 12 boasted by Epson, are quite good. In case of colour text and graphic printing, the speed is slower, depending on the surface covered by graphics. The various options of the printer drivers allow a perfect control of the 880i. Its possible to use the settings offered in default mode for each type of paper, or, if you prefer, to decide each and every configuration. For example you can choose the resolutions, reduce your output (from legal to letter, for example, or to a user-selected percentage), print a 4-, 9-, or 16-sheet poster, perform Double-Sided printing, and more. The Epson 880i supports different types like plain paper, premium paper, glossy film and paper, adhesive, card stock, transparencies, banners, labels, envelopes and iron-on-transfers. The high resolution came in handy when I decided to turn my new inkjet printer into a small photo laboratory for printing some images obtained with my digital camera. Although printing times were definitely long (about 15 minutes per photo), the results were so impressive that my wife decided to frame the pictures. The printer even comes bundled with ArcSoft PhotoImpression and PhotoMontage software, Epson Softwares Film Factory, and Trellix Web (only for the windows version). The $229 CND inkjet printer is probably one of the best products on the market today at a very enticing price. For further information please visit www.epson.com

 

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