The EPSON Stylus Color 3000 is a true A2 color inkjet printer offering a print width of 410 mm on A2 sheets, making it ideal for virtually all the in-house printing needs of design consultancies and architectural, engineering and product design offices. The printer has a tractor unit for continuous paper feeding while the standard paper roll holder allows this versatile printer to output banners 410 mm wide by up to 5 meters long making it equally suited to the large format requirements of the professional graphics studio. The printer also features Individual high capacity ink cartridges. The Stylus Color 3000 features EPSON'S new PerfectPicture Imaging System, with Super MicroDot providing superb 1440 dpi PhotoReal output for both Mac and PC users. Bundled with the printer is the FREE Epson PLOT! - enabling the printing of HPGL and HPGL/2 plots.
With the Epson Stylus Color 3000 inkjet printer, the burgeoning artist and the professional photographer will possess a user-friendly photo lab for photo-quality printing of light-stable, water-resistant prints. Why wait for prints from your neighborhood developer (if you are lucky enough to have one) when the Epson Stylus Color 3000 printer can fill most of your needs, for everything from proofs to portfolios?
Taking advantage of Epson's Micro Piezo inkjet technology with QuickDry inks and AcuPhoto halftoning, the serious user will appreciate the full-bleed, up-to-13-by-19-inch design layout prints at 1,400 x 720 dpi. Everyone, including novices, will appreciate the fine shadow detailing and natural flesh tones delivered by a four-color CMYK palette, resulting in lasting, fine-quality prints.
The Epson 3000 delivers professional-looking graphics for yourportfolios, posters, and presentations through attention to details,such as quick-drying inks to protect your prints from smudging orbleeding, in Pantone-calibrated approved colors. It supports AdobePostScript level 2 and options for internal Ethernet for EtherTalk,Novell, and TCP/IP networking, making it ideal for growing officeenvironments.
Standard connections include IEEE 1284 parallel, USB, and serial ports, and drivers for both Windows and Macintosh systems. The Epson Stylus Color 3000 comes with the full assurance of a two-year limited warranty and a toll-free support hotline to answer your questions.
1 Don't let anyone give you one for free
This is quite possibly the worst printer ever made in all printer history. The color is horrible, it jams the paper every other print, slow as mollasses, impossible to service, and just generally looks bad. The roller-arms are spaced so that they never take its own specially priced paper straight into the feeder. Ink Cleanings usually last for two prints on most minimal print settings, then degrade into splotchy lined garbage. Makes the most horrible noises when printing and death rattles when jammed or confused. Don't let anyone give you one even for free. and for heavan's sake, don't actually spend money on one. I have two, one for parts, and the other for parts backup, as both are equally on their way to a trash heap in South America where orphan childern can beat the living daylights from its horrible plastic casing. If negative stars were available for review, this product would deserve them.
2 2 words: Garbage
2 words: Feeder Failure.
May take 10 or more tries to get the very expensive paper to feed correctly. Then, it might just decide that it doesn't want to print any more and eject halfway. MANY wasted sheets!
2 words: Broken Brain
The software for this thing is awful.
The MAC RIP software is, without a doubt, the worst software ever unleashed on the public. Can't even begin to explain, it just doesn't work and crashes constantly.
2 words: No Support.
Where are the fixes???
2 words: Don't Buy!!!
3 Hillbilly Photographer
I have owned and used my Epson 3000 printer for nearly two years now with great results. At the time of purchase, it was the only printer available in its size range, which was its selling point for me. After recently converting it over to archival pigmented inks (Generations ProPhoto Inks from mediastreet.com) and creating a custom profile for the new inks, I can honestly say that I get better color from this printer than from my Epson 2000P. I do use the 3000 with an old PC with Windows 98 since there isn't a suitable driver for Windows XP. For those having trouble getting paper to feed in correctly, try feeding it in from the back. This works especially well with glossy photo paper, which does tend to misfeed from the front. This printer is regularly used to make 16x24 inch display prints originating from a Canon EOS-1Ds, and the results are amazing with vibrant, realistic colors and sharp detail. The only real problem I've ever had is occasional very slight banding, but this really isn't noticeable 95% of the time. Hopefully the new Epson 4000 will do an even better job, but the drawback there will be having to buy seven or even eight colors of ink instead of the four used by the 3000.
4 Printer won't work with Windows XP!
As a graphics designer this has been a good printer for me. It makes beautiful prints. The only drawback is that Epson has not decided to join the rest of us in the 21st Century. If you would like an expensive nice desktop printer, this is the one for you. However, if you do graphic design and require a StylusRIP Adobe Level 2 Postscript Driver...here's a newsflash...This printer is NOT XP compatible. In fact it's not Windows ME, or Windows 2000 compatible. There are no postscript drivers for anything higher than Windows 95/98. After several days of trying to speak to a human at Epson's Tech Support, I finally spoke to someone, and gleaned that they are in no hurry to advance with the times. At some point in the future they plan to develop an XP compatible StylusRIP driver. After a great expense and effort, I upgraded my office system and software to Windows XP. Because I had to have a RIP, I was forced to revert everything back to Windows 98. My bad! I should have checked, but I assumed that a company as large as Epson would be as progressive as the rest of us. All in all, I still like this printer. I am hoping that they will get on the ball soon.
5 pros vs cons
Pros:
- Inkjet cartriges are big and last a long time.
- Color is very nice just make sure you use good paper.
- Paper takes large sizes and different thickness.
Cons:
- Not supported for Mac OS X!
- No background prining allowed (u can't do anything while printing!)
- Parallel port only means slow and need usb adapter with new mac.
- Has problem grabing paper which means u need to sit and watch it do each print. This is one of the worst problems.
- Error messages that u need to click ignore button. This gets old fast after 100 print out!
6 This is a Terrible Printer
Don't waste your time or money on this piece of junk. After you fight it for ten minutes getting your paper to feed (known feeder issues), you'll get your print. Woopee! It will look terrible, with a "grainy" quality that Epson alone somehow managed to invent. This printer has known compatability issues that are expensive to work around, it takes up twice the desk space that other, better models do and it breaks down once a year for a [spendy] repair.
There are other models, for less money, that create better prints, with less trouble- even other Epson models, also Canon. Epson is a good brand, but not this particular model.
7 Cancel my current order
I had a Epson Stylus 3000 several years ago. It developed streaks. I took it to Chicago, the only repair place in the area. I brought it home. There were still streaks. I took it back, brought it home and again there were streaks. Your recommended repair man was a good talker and a lousy technician.
I gave the printer to Hamilton Tech in Davenport. I tried to order a new one but could not find the check-out button. Please cancel my order. I will not take a chance on another old printer. Erwin Weber, Rock Island, IL 61201.
8 This is a workgroup printer, not a personal printer.
I haven't had any problems with this printer in the 2+ years I've been using it, but there are some things you need to know before you buy this printer. First, this is not a printer for personal use, it is intended for a workgroup of graphic designers. It's capable of printing pages that are over 17" wide, and it has high-end capabilities that only a professional would need (or even care about). And since most professional graphic designers use Macs, that might explain why the PC users are having all the problems.
Because this is a pro-level printer, it's very important to read the instructions carefully. I had a hard time getting it to recognize paper sizes until I sat down and studied the manual, and since then it's worked perfectly.
Lastly, this printer is huge. Turning it on takes 10 minutes, so we never turn it off. I gave it four stars instead of five, because we the printer is technically overkill for us, and trying to get the RIP software and color matching to work was too much trouble for us. Plus, it's pretty much outdated nowadays, especally with the Epson 2200 that's now available.
9 WHAT ISN'T WRONG WITH THIS PRINTER?
We've had a Epson 3000 for 3 years now and I can say that it is the worse printer I have ever had to deal with.
For starters the machine refuses to feed paper right the first time or the second sometimes it will go the third time (after you have let it cool down), the quality is ok, (when you can get it to work) it likes to print only postscript code on the [costly] paper the first couple of times out of course adding to the cost of comsumables. The printer also likes to miss feed paper a great deal we waste on an average 4 sheets per box ... you have to constantly babysit this thing!
When we sent it in to be looked at the service personnel not only broke the door to the ink drawer and refused to fix it, but also kept it long enough to slam it out of warranty. We were stuck with it and there was nothing we can do about it.
Just to be fair we tried the 9000 professional and got some of the same old same old, but this time the printer printed backwards, ganged layouts would'nt print right, color calibration was anything but consistant and trying to operate the rip software on the required PC was like trying to decipher Ancent Egyptian Sanskrit.
Not for the faint of heart or anyone that is in a hurry, this printer really will cost you in time more than anything else. The time you waste trying to get it to operate properly.
10 The Emperor's Clothes
What has been glorified as a premium graphics printer -- isn't. This printer is old technology in a new box. And, I wound up having to BUY their latest RIP software ($158) to get it to run w/ Windows 2000. But worst of all was Epson's customer service. I had over 22 contacts w/ them in three months and, in the end, they were unwilling to take the machine back.
During those three months, the printer's lack of performance was blamed on a variety of things. Me - "it's a complicated machine, you are probably are doing something wrong." The paper - "Epson only guarentees print quality on Epson paper." My software - "Your software may not be able to produce files that are good enough."
I will NEVER buy another Epson printer, mostly because of what I have been through with their customer service.
11 I love this printer!
Although not cheap, this is a wonderful printer. I love all the different sizes and weights of paper it will feed through, including banner paper. The colors are much more lifelike than other printers when using the RIP printer, which is the included postscript-like software. Having ink cartridges for each color means that you don't have to throw away a cartridge when one color is gone.
Also, although again not cheap, the ink cartidges last a very long time. I have had the printer since May (6 months now) and the black cartridge that came with the printer is just running out. Since I am a small press publisher and print my books on this printer, this is amazing to me. The color cartridges are still chugging along.
For someone who needs to do serious printing, I highly recommend this printer.
12 Accurate Color, Great Paper Tray
I have used this printer for the last three years. As a visual designer and a fine artist I have used this to print all sorts of design projects, illustrations, and web pages.
The colors this produces are a better match to what I see onscreen than any other color printer I have used (HP deskjets, HP color laser, Apple color laser). Even at "normal" quality on cheap paper, the prints are good enough to frame. I used this printer with photo quality paper to print the portfolio I show at job interviews. The dithering is subtle, with none of the dark-dot-amongst-light-dots problems that cause a speckled look on cheap printers.
The colors are vibrant, but ACCURATE (unlike the HP printers that always print colors oversaturated). As other reviewers have noted, the ink cartridges (separate for each color!) last a long time, typically several months with heavy usage.
The printing is fast, even at high quality, much faster than color laser printers, and comparable to most desktop printers.
The flat paper tray (as opposed to inclined) rarely jams. The tray can hold about 50 sheets of paper, so it is good for use in an office environment being shared by many people.
This can handle even light card stock, although I have had some varieties of 80# card stock JAM and refuse to go through. Unfortunately, the stock is forced to go through the rollers, and there is no way to open the back to allow it to go straight through and avoid jamming on heavy stock. This is the only bad thing about this printer.
13 Epson Stylus Color Inkjet 3000
I am severely dissappointed with the Epson 3000 inkjet printer. To begin one needs a masters degree in electronics to understand how to operate it.The instructions that came with it are sorely lacking of information and It has refused to operate with Autocad 2000. To add injury to insult Epson's technical support has refused to return my e-mails.
14 Excellent print quality and cheap to run
The 3000 does a couple of things that more recent (affordable) printers don't do. First, it prints up to 16" by 20" (actually, 17" x 22") - and Epson's paper is available and reasonably priced. The other is that it has large, independent ink reservoirs. Each colour is independently changeable, so you never get to dump useful ink. And the ink reservoirs are enormous - we've been printing photos and full-colour pages since Christmas '99 and the thing *still* has ink left seven months later; this in sharp contrast to our experiences with the 'consumer' printers, which need rather frequent ink refills. Don't be misled by the claims of 'long-life' inks on more recent printers; while the claims are true enough,you can buy ink and materials for the 3000 which give you archival quality prints (your choice: 15-20 years; or longer) along with the benefits of large image size and very low running costs. And yes, the prints are gorgeous (although 6-colour prints *are* a little better, you have to squint to tell)
15 Tops for specialty transfer printing.
I have used this printer for about a year now and for the specialty transfer business I haven't found another printer in its price range to match the sharpness, color control or speed. This printer is one of the few larger format printers (up to 17" x 22") that will accept the sublimation inks used for top quality transfer printing. Because the printer uses individual ink cartridges for each color you don't end up throwing away perfectly good ink in a partially filled cartridge when one color has run out. Do be careful, though, the ink indicator seems to jump from half to empty without adequate warning.
16 Best on Market
This printer delivers postscript quality color printing andlarge format too. The ink is pricey but the printer is not . . .The quality and functionality is so much better than Tektronix or the like and it only wieghs 20#s. On gloss paper the quality is better than a laser. It is not good to print 100s of b/w pages at a time in good quality though; too slow.
17 It'll eat you out of house and home
At $79.99 a cartraidge, and 4 seperate color cartridges, large tabloid sized Epson brand paper at an avergae of $2 A SHEET (and poor - nasty- quality unless you use Epson paper) this printer will either make you look like a HUGE business or land you in the poorhouse.
It does print nicely when we can get it to work right.
wished we'd bought a HP large format or tektronix instead. Proabaly would have come out cheaper int the long run.
