I am considering purchasing the new Epson Stylus Photo 870 printer. Has anyone bought one and can give owner feedback as to it's reproduction qualify for A4 photographs? Also which are the best papers to use? Photo Paper S041140 and/or Glossy Film S041071? Thanks in advance.

-- Chris Wruck (cwruck@primus.com.au), March 14, 2000

Answers

I bought the 870 a month ago and the quality is outstanding. I have a Nikon Coolpix 800 and although it is capable of producing an image suitable for an 10x8 print, I have mainly printed at 7x5 or 8x6 . The quality is so good that you can't really tell that it's print. I've used Epson paper S041126 so far and also have some other non Epson glossy paper that I've yet to try. I've also printed a using the Epson paper on a roll at 6x4 and the output is indistinguishable from a conventially produced photo from a 35mm SLR

-- Graham Buss (graham.buss@dtn.ntl.com), April 20, 2000.

all I know is that you can't use non-epson paper in an epson printer. I've tried MANY different papers. The ink globs up, or the color saturation is way off, or the ink never dries (stays tacky for WEEKS). Of course, using epson photo paper results in a perfect result every time.

My next printer will NOT be an Epson. My HP printer at work takes ANY photo paper and spits out a beautiful photograph. My epson printer at home will accept nothing but expensive Epson paper ($1/sheet!?!?!). So now I'm getting killed on both ink AND paper and it's not worth it.

-- Michael Huang (mikehuang@yahoo.com), April 12, 2003.