Furthermore, this printer offers superior BorderFree™ printing for photo quality results that print right to the edge.
Epson's Stylus Photo 1280S is a large format, photo-quality printer perfect for a wide variety of professional and home uses. With a high 2,880 x 720 dpi resolution, six-color ink palette, and Epson's Micro Piezo inkjet technology, the 1280S produces exceptionally crisp and detailed prints. This printer also offers BorderFree printing--the image goes right to the edge of the paper.
Supported photo sizes include 4-by-6, 5-by-7, 8-by-10, letter, 11-by-14, and 13-by-19 inches. A wide variety of paper types are also supported, including photo papers, roll papers (with included roll paper holder), inkjet transparencies, self-adhesive sheets, greeting cards, banner paper, labels, and envelopes. Media sizes range from 3-by-5 cards up to large-format 13-by-44-inch posters. Epson claims that when stored under normal conditions, images are water and light resistant for up to 25 years.
Compatible with both Mac and PC platforms, the 1280S's software bundle comes with both Epson's Film Factory and Adobe's Photoshop Elements 2.0 to help users get the best possible prints. Epson also provides a one-year limited warranty.
What's in the Box
Epson Stylus Photo 1280 inkjet printer, one black ink cartridge (T007201), one color ink cartridge (T009201), roll paper holder accessory, printer documentation, Epson Software Film Factory, PRINT Image Matching Plug-In for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0; cable not included
1 Not for Macs
This cross-platform printer works fine with Windows. However, its Mac drivers are near useless. The prints are off center and the images fill 2/3 of a sheet. There are no layout options with the Mac drivers. I have written Epson 5 times - no response. I spent $15 for useless Epson Support. Mac users - look elsewhere!
2 what a dissappointment!
I did not buy this printer to print photos, so that may be why I'm unhappy with it. I bought the printer expecting it to print out renderings, plans, and presentations for school.
My first problem is that it DOES NOT print borderless at 11 x 17. If you read the specs carefully you can determine this, but it isn't readily apparent. It prints borderless at every size except for 11 x 17, which is the standard presentation size in many design programs. Also, it takes almost an entire ink cartridge to get one good print - the ink is always smearing or leaving droplets of cyan or magenta on the page as it prints out.
I think this printer was a waste of money, and if I had to do it all over again I would spend more money on a better quality printer, because I know I would save the money in the end on ink.
In short this printer has been a source of frustration and a huge headache.
3 don't buy
This printer is crap. It makes great prints when it works correctly but it never ever works correctly. I've always had problems with it that I've managed to fix eventually but after my warranty ran out it started printing these pink lines and there's nothing at all I can do to get rid of them. I even called epsons customer support and I have to pay money to even talk to someone. And it says nothing about the problems on their website. Also it goes through ink like crazy and the ink is expensive.
4 Second Time Lucky
Jan 21 2005:
I recently bought a 1280 after having owned an Epson 740 for several years. Because I had had such good results with the 740, and because the 1280 was recommended to me, I had high expectations. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The prints had a strong magenta color cast and "banding" in blue sky areas. I tried to correct the color cast (about -7 magenta), but could not get good results. The banding I could not correct and that condemned the printer for me. Thus I had to go through the painful process of returning the printer to the store.
After having read a LOT of printer reviews, I am wondering if perhaps the increase in the number of inks has greatly increased the difficulty of achieving both color balance and evenness of color. With four variables it was hard, but with six, seven, or eight colors it is probably much more difficult to achieve. I wonder if manufacturers are being forced to sacrifice good color balance and evenness of color for highlight and shadow detail.
I was also struck by the high expectations we users have for these inkjet printers. I think that basically they are ok for home use, but when we start using them professionally, they are are little marginal.
I also looked at the Canon 9900 and the Epson 2200, but they were a little out of my price range.
Update Mar 23 2005:
I bought another 1280, and this one seems to work much better - no strong magenta cast. I also found that I had to dial down the saturation a LOT (i.e. 20 points on a scale of 25) to get natural looking prints. That should also save on ink consumption. Also, I found that a 10 foot USB cable didn't work properly on the Mac (i.e. the printer would spit out the paper part way through printing); a 6 foot cable works much better.
5 buy a different printer
i recently purchased this printer, it was unable to print even one page before an error message popped up on my monitor and the printer stopped. i have tried everything and now i give up, i'm sending it back today.
6 I'll not buy EPSON again
EPSON has taken selling consumables to the max with this printer. No matter how much time you spend and how carefully you set up your print, the 1280 will find a way to trash it. Print borderless and it will crop the heads off your subjects. Spend too much time to set up the print and the nozzles are clogged. Then if you're not out of ink or paper, and you can get it to load without scrapping the paper, get ready to calibrate your project all over again because this printer can't place a print in the same spot twice.
7 Nothing but problems
I've hardly had a decent print from this printer. I only bought it for cheap color prints, not photos, but it's not even good enough for a birthday card. Streaks, fine breaking lines, wildly inaccurate colors: in short, lots of wasted paper and I was completely ripped off. I bought this printer new and I've used every kind of paper. Works better with Epson's abusively expensive inks, but it's cheaper to ship out work to Kinko's or wherever for printing.
8 1280 - One of Epson's best!
As a long time owner of many of Epson's printers there are some great models and some that aren't. The 1280 is destined to be a great workhorse printer as the high resolution print quality is superb and the durability is excellent. However, if you are going to afford to own a 1280 you MUST invest in a CIS ink system of one kind or another as Epson intentionally includes the very tiniest of ink cartridges that are emptied very quickly. It appears to be a deliberate move by Epson as the printer has plenty of room to include huge cartridges. If you print at 2880 resolution you can watch the ink drain right out of the cartridges. Otherwise, a superb, quality printer.
9 Great large format printer - Use with CIS only!
Great quality large format prints. Not recommeded for occasional use or you will experience frustrating head clogs. Best and cheapest when used with CIS -continuous inking systems. You can find a CIS between $150 and $250 on-line. These systems give you print heads that always read full and are hooked into ink bottles at the side of your printer. Never worry about buying expensive ink cartridges or messy refilling. Just refill the bottle's when they go below 1/3 full. It's as easy could be and buying high quality ink is actually dirt cheap in comparason. Print forever!
10 I just got it...
I just set up my new Epson Stylus 1280 printer. It works great with my iMac computer. The only drawback I can see is that I was looking for a printer that used separate cartridges, and this one doesn't. Otherwise, it prints beautiful pictures, although I like the ones I printed on the Matte paper better than the ones I printed on the Glossy paper. It prints great documents, too. I think I'll keep it, for awhile.
11 Save your $$
These inkjets are OK but you can get superior results at a cheaper cost by taking your digital images to someplace like Walmart or CVS or Walgreens. Ink is way over-priced and the photos are not as good as what you can get elsewhere.
12 One of the best Photo Printers Available
I've read all the prior reviews with interest. I bought my 1280 over a year ago based on reviews on several well known and trusted Digital Photography sites. I have been very pleased with the output of this printer. Yes, the printer takes more work to get a really GOOD print then the HPs. But then I have the HP printers also and they do not measure to pure quality of print. Yes, the ink cartridges are small and do not last long if you print alot of 8x10, 13x19 like I do. But, for 250 bucks you can buy a CIS (continual inking system) that pays for itself in 3 months. Yes, the Epson ink will jam the heads IF you do not use the printer at least once every few days. Again, the printer is for PHOTOGRAPHS, not text, not the occasional print job and certainly not the occasional picture. This printer is for the professional or serious amateur photographer. I have seen alot of prints from other printers and even with the flaws, this printer is the best. I wish a few things. Epson would update the drivers more often. The supplied software is marginally usable and they ding you 30 bucks for the real package. At 400 dollars for a printer, Epson could have given us the software given the price tag of the ink cartridges. I have run Epson, Illford and Inkjetart paper through this printer will very good success.
13 Driver issues and OS 10.3.3
I have been using this printer for about 2 years now with a Dual PowerMac G4 with 1GB RAM. Most of the time it delivers good prints, therefore it receives at least 2 stars. I said most of the time because the printer works a bit unpredictably. On upgrading to OS 10.3.3 and upgrading the driver to 1.6bA (release date March 6, 2004), the printer refuses to finish prints once they begin. I have been printing 13x19 pages and it works fine about 50% through the document. It will then stall, stop the print, extract the paper, put the print on hold and when you go to the printer utility to the start print button, it will print from the beginning again and stall midway.
I contacted Epson about the situation and they emailed me back with their copy and paste email response with the generic (condenesed version): go to the macintosh HD and delete your Epson Driver Folder and go to support.epson.com and download the driver, follow the instructions and reinstall. And of course, it did not work. The problems persist which means the printer is not compatible yet with OS 10.3 no matter how much Epson swears it does. I have resent Epson emails and they have not responded.
14 Don't Buy
I had for 2 years and 3 days after the extended warrany expired the print head went bad. It cost just as much to repair as to buy a new one. Don't buy from CompUSA, they are rude and were no help! I have seen many other people with the same problems. epson sucks. This was my first and last epson! The print quality was great but horrible reliablility!!!
15 Pro Quality Printer for serious Users w/Deep Pockets
I teach digital photography and computer graphics for a living. The community college I work for has had a 1280 for 2 years now. Students beat the heck out of this machine and it keeps chugging along with few complaints. We really put this machine through its paces by running water color paper and all sorts of media through it.
And yes, we use MACs for graphics, which is the way it should be! Epson has a great driver for OS X Jaguar. Download it from their website. Don't blame Epson if you're crummy Windoze XP goes belly up. It's NOT the printer....
That said, it's not a perfect printer. It really does suck ink like Kool-Ade. I'll be looking into the Lysonic inkset for this problem. Epson should have put individuals ink tanks on this thing the way Canon did on the i960.
It really is designed for high volume. The more we print, the better it seems to work. So do not buy this printer if you only occasionally print 4x6 snapshots. If left to sit, the nozzles clog and you need to ship it back to Epson fro repair. It should have a user replaceable head like the Canon i960.
As for software, you should have Adobe Photoshop 6.0 or later. If you think you'll get a decent print from Jasc, Corel, or some other silly program, you'll be frustrated.
Some of the best Photo Quality inkjet papers are made by Ilford. Give them a try with this printer and you'll be impressed. It can even output negatives onto transparency material that you can contact print in a darkroom. Although I use this printer at the college where I teach, for my money the Canon i960 is a better value. Print quality is just as good, and the individual ink tanks will save you much cash.
So my recommendation for the Epson 1280 is with reservations. Make sure you really need a large format printer at home, and be prepared to shell out the bucks and toss out ink carts that are 75% full. Otherwise, look into Canon's printers.
16 Excellent Quality but Helps to Know What You're Doing
I have used the 1280 for about a year-and-a-half, mainly to print fine art photographs in large format. I use a quad black ink set from Lyson, rather than Epson inks. The machine absolutely delivers. It is consistent, reliable, and has remarkable paper handling ability.
The head does have a propensity for clogging, since it is permanently attached to the printer and does not get replaced with each cartridge. However, I have found that cleaning the storage cap (right side, parked position) from time to time (with lint-free cloth!) helps. I also print a small full-gamut image once a week, if I am not cranking out the big stuff.
Always check a company's web site for updated drivers when installing! My drivers (XP Pro/Presario) have been well-mannered. Also, if you aren't satisfied with the image, keep testing the profiles that come with the 1280. Be patient. It took me a while to get the right combination, even though Lyson provided profiles for its own ink set. But once I got it, I was off to the races.
I am about to start printing fine art color, and for that I will buy a second 1280. Call me satisfied.
17 Terrible Experiences with Tech. Support and This Product
1 1/2 year ago, I cleared half my desk waiting for this printer to arrive. But when it did, the first set of pictures came out red and fuzzy. I called their Tech Support right away and was told I should be using professional software to print. After I installed Photoshop 5.0, bought original premium paper and had someone caliberated the printer for that type of paper, the print quality didn't improve much at all. So I called again. This time, they whined I should have had Photoshop 6.0 and up. The dispute went all the way to their Customer Relations, who did help to arrange a replacement. But the replacement was no better: the pictures were light and pale. I called yet again. The Tech Support told me that my original warranty expired and they wouldn't extend it to the replacement. I digged up my old receipts to find out the original warranty did NOT expire! Still calling them now.
18 How does it work with OSX?
I am a graphic/interface designer and am considering to get a 1280. I have a PC (Win XP) and am getting a Mac soon. There are couple reasons why I am not sure about 1280 yet, and I would like to hear how you feel about these points after using this product:
- No Firewire: I see this product has been in the market for a while and doesn't have firewire. Is USB too slow?
- Mac OSX: I went to Epson site and it says "Note: OS X does not support certain features." But I also saw Apple website lists 1280 as one of the "Built for OSX" printers. How is your experience?
I am pretty loyal to Epson and want larger format than 8.5x11, so my alternative would be Epson 2200, which I am not too fond of. But since my main design machine will be G5 I would appreciate your opinions. Thank you!
19 it will kill your PC
it will disable your OS!
the product drivers that come with the printer managed to completely disable my system (Windows xp home). my computer would just shut itself off without warning, restart, and turn off, on, off, on, repeatedly. all by itself! after lugging the machine to CompUSA a couple of times and getting pissed off at them for no reason (in hindsight...) i FINALLY confirmed it was the printer after i tried (like a fool to install it for the 3rd time). The Epson tech support fessed up to the problem, and suggested i get the latest drivers from their website. 'sorry the software we sold you completely f**cked you over!'
please, do not buy anything from Epson unless you enjoying executing a complete SYSTEM RECOVERY on your computer, which is what I am now doing... by-the-way, that means loosing all the files, programs, peripherals, etc. that you have ever installed on your computer. i hope you have it all backed up! enjoy!
20 Good & Bad
No reliability issues yet. I've had this printer about a year. I wanted prints that last a awhile longer, prints that look great, and
I didn't want a whole lot of trouble or expense to accomplish this.PLUS
+++ Produces the best looking prints when its working properly & all the set up is in order.
Bad
--- Gulps ink.
--- It is not unusual for me to go 30 days without needing to print photos. As a result I have to clean prints heads, align, etc. (uses ink and paper for the tweaking, ie more waste) before using. I guess the ink clogs in the nozzles. On one occasion I used half the ink ($$) in the color cartridges before the printer was ready to produce decent quality prints. I can't recommend this printer for anyone unless they do a lot photo printing on a regular basis.
21 great photos and a lot of complaints
I bought one of these because it was the only printer available off-the-shelf that prints 11x17. I need to print engineering drawings in B&W on 11x17. For the first 7 months, the printer was great. I even printed some digital photos on the sample paper that they gave, and the photos are absolutely gorgeous. The printer does spit through ink like there's no tomorrow, and the ink is expensive.At about 7 months though, I began having problems. It seems like the printer is going through B&W ink at double speed. I get lines in my printouts, so I go to Epson's handy Nozzle Check and Head Cleaning parts of the driver software. I run the tests, do the Head Cleaning, and the results come out the same - at least 7 sections of the test pattern do not show up. I continue doing the same testing/head cleaning. The results get slightly better or slightly worse, but the machine never recovers. Finally, I go to the store and buy another ink cartridge and everything is fine afor about 2 weeks. Then I repeat the entire process. The ink level shows my cartridge as still being half full, but I still have to chunk it in the garbage and replace with a new one. So, now I have a ink-guzzling printer that is now guzzling ink at twice the normal speed.
Please note that I'm not printing heavy, black regions - simple lines and text nothing else.
HP really sucks, so I suppose that my next shot will be with Lexmark.
Well, enough procrastinating on my part - I'm off to the store to buy another ink cartridge.
22 Home Designer's Dream Machine
My wife runs a graphic design shop from our home, and has needed a new proofing printer for some time. I also wanted a printer that could handle large format photos that have been digitally enhanced. Our last Textronix printer cost us more than $10k, so we initially overlooked this printer since it's price was so low. However, when we reviewed all of the features, we decided that the price of this printer was a drop in the bucket if it could work for even simple proofs. We have been stunned and amazed at how incredible and color accurate the prints have turned out.
We use both Mac OS 9.x, and Win Me with this printer. To use design (postscript) apps like Quark, Illustrator, PageMaker, etc. we purchased the Epson Stylus Rip (since printer is raster-only). Prints are speedy and gorgeous at 720dpi, and the (much) slower 1440 are only marginally better looking. We purchased a wide spectrum of media (that ended up costing more than the printer). Duponts SuperB commercial paper is the most expensive, but is choice for selling to clients as proofs. We found it's important to choose paper settings provided by Epson to get the best quality prints.
Setup was relatively easy, and software works just fine. We love this printer.
23 Great Printer Terrible Software
It's slow, uses TONS of ink, and makes absolutely stunning prints--if you can figure out how to deal with the annoying driver settings.I wasted a lot of paper and ink trying various settings before I came up with something that works. And you have to do the same testing and tweaking with each different paper you want to use.
I've gotten great results with Ilford Galerie Classic Gloss.
The big problem with this printer is that the print heads are part of the machine--i.e. they don't get replaced when you replace an ink cartridge, as with HP printers. Don't expect your print heads to last more than about two years with moderate use. And replacing them costs almost as much as a new printer.
But for the price, it's worth it.
24 epson printers weren't built to last
i purchased an epson 1280 printer a little under two years, it served me on an adequate basis, but ran into intermittent problems. and just recently, the printer completely died on me. i took it to an authorized service bureau and they told me the repairs would cost aroun $400. the inkheads needed to be replaced and the flat data cord needed to be swapped for a new one. thus i called epson and they told me all they could do is sell me another printer for $350. not the type of customer service you would expect from a "mutlimillion dollar" company. so they moral of the story goes i purchased a $500 dollar printer that lasted me only two years. if i knew this to begin with, i wouldn't have wasted my money on an epson product along with the countless amounts of wasted ink cartridges. a plea to epson, please build better products or at least try to accomodate the little people who help keep your company running. as for myself, i will never buy another epson product again. in my opinion, buy an hp.
25 Borderline Perfection!
If photographs are your true love, this is your printer of choice! I don't know where that "electronics fan" was coming from when he gave it one star (the star being that the printer turned on?), but he obviously never printed out that one in a million shot that we all aspire to! If you have that shot, this is the printer that will come through for you!
26 Super great printer
I have owned the 1280 a little over a year now and find it to be an excellent photo printing machine. I have entered two pictures at the fair, printed by my 1280, and have won ribbons on both.
I have had no break-downs with the printer. The quality is very good.
Dan
27 Super Great Printer
The printer is easy to calibrate (color match) with other devices. It has easy-to-use utility controls. The software also has color adjustments to further enhance picture printing quality.I have used this printer the past year for printing photos for show and some of the pictures printed by the 1280 won ribbons. It does print beautifull photos.
The printer quality has been outstanding, have had no break-downs thus far.
28 It drinks ink for pictures that are worth every drop
I have an Epson 1280 and it consistently produces prints that are as good or better than any laser fiery printer I've ever used. As an advertising copywriter, I depend on this printer to make new copies of my work and it comes through every time.
Now, this is not the perfect printer, because it does drink ink something fierce, but the print outs are worth it, just ask any professional.
In fact, it was a photographer who first turned me on to this machine. At the time I was looking at a Lexmark or HP.
As any graphic designer will tell you HP's are word processing printers and with only rare exceptions any good at graphics and Lexmark is just to be avoided. You get what you pay for, and with Lexmark that isn't much.
Epson wrote the book on graphics and photo reproduction printing and with the 1280 they have added another proud chapter.
29 Stay away from the Epson 1280
We bought a brand new Epson 1280. After printing fewer than 100 pages it is now useless. Doesn't matter how many times we "clean" the heads--the cartridges just empty themselves before the printout is ever decent again.
30 One of the best
The Epson 1280 is one of the best inkjet printers on the market today. My only complaint is it is not IEEE1394 Firewire ready. Colors are very true and color management is easy.
