Wide Carriage inkjet printers

Many general-use, consumer-level inkjet printers may also be highly able picture printers. As well as for numerous camera owners, the printer they currently own may suffice for churning from periodic 4x6-inch or 8.5x11-inch picture. They don't really need anything unique.

Exactly what if you'd like your printed photographs to appear better still? Or you desire the possibility to printing in sizes bigger than page, with a wider selection of documents? Or you choose a separate printer for your photos, which means you won’t tie up the printer you currently get?

That’s the goal market the Epson SureColor P400 open structure Inkjet Printer. As they types of printers go—that is, models with a massive, large carriage and designed especially for printing photos—the SureColor P400 is "inexpensive" and fairly compact for a 13-inch wide-carriage device. ("Inexpensive" is relative. The list pricing is $599.99, but at this writing in mid-December 2015, Epson had been offering it direct for $449.99, factoring in two mail-in rebates, of $50 and $100 respectively.) However, it shares a number of the functions of professional-level picture printers, including archival-quality pigment inks while the capacity to print onto fine-art image documents, many of which have actually difficult areas to lay down ink on.

Epson offers two various other models when you look at the SureColor range, both of all of them higher-end as compared to P400: the $799.99-list Epson SureColor P600 and $1, 295-list SureColor P800. The SureColor P400 has actually an integral advantage over its higher-priced cousins, for the reason that it doesn’t waste any black ink whenever switching between glossy and matte reports. (The others perform one thing of a pricey purge to get improper ink out of their jets.) Also, the SureColor P400 features a suggested retail price that is $100 below the model it replaces, the long-lived Epson Stylus Photo R2000, which we evaluated in the summer of 2011. And like R2000, it could print onto roll report, and inkjet-printable CDs and DVDs.

On the downside, the SureColor P400 has just the most minimal of control panels. (Unlike numerous customer photo printers and AIOs, it's perhaps not built for “walk-up” operation, which is to say, printing right through the control board off of digital-camera cards or USB flash drives.) And also the inks are a little more costly than because of the SureColor P600, and quite a bit more expensive than with all the SureColor P800.

Taken completely, the SureColor P400 could be a worthy step-up from a general-purpose printer, particularly if you’ve already been itching to see your photos on a number of the 13x19-inch fine-art documents. It’s not as big a money dedication as its two pricier SureColor siblings. However it’s in addition perhaps not meant for the print amounts that those two printers tend to be, either. So gauge just how heavily you’ll utilize the printer—and exacltly what the tolerances for price for ink tend to be, as we’ll go into later—before hastily choosing to get 400, 600, or 800.

Design & functions

The SureColor P400 is compact for just what it is—but, like "inexpensive, " that is all general.

Whilst it may be unusually trim for a 13-inch wide-carriage photo printer, the SureColor P400 remains much too big to live on most desktops. Whenever closed, it measures 8.6 ins high, 24.5 inches broad, and 12.8 inches deep. However, once you open it up for publishing, folding from paper feedback tray as well as the production catch, the level will nearly twice, to 16.5 inches. Therefore will the level, to 31.4 inches.

At 27.1 weight, at the least it is fairly easy to go around. One detail we missed, though: The SureColor P400 does not have indented side slot machines to obtain a better grip regarding the printer once you lift it, such as the SureColor P800 does. (But, then, it weighs in at significantly significantly less than the SureColor P800’s 43 pounds.) The SureColor P400 supports Wi-Fi, as well as USB and Ethernet connections, to help you place it just about anywhere your cordless or wired system can reach.

Regardless of the cheap and less fat weighed against the SureColor P600 and P800, the SureColor P400 provides a similar quality of construction. The external synthetic shell feels sturdy. Additionally the covers and hinges seem durable adequate to resist a glancing blow or a moderate hit. You wouldn’t want the unit to-fall from a table or shelf, however with reasonable attention, the chassis should last on track bumps and put on above the coming many years.

Much like the Stylus picture R2000, the SureColor P400’s control panel is essentially only a row of buttons and lights...

You receive little feedback when coming up with onboard alterations through the panel. As a result, you might find yourself consulting the handbook more regularly than you may wish to, to be able to decipher the LED lights which are associated with the buttons. Including, to setup the printer with a WPS-compatible router, you own along the Wi-Fi switch for three seconds. If connection is prosperous, the remaining side of the network light will change blue. That’s not particularly intuitive, though it’s explained adequately in the printer's individual guide. Greater problem will likely to be whenever you don’t get an effective connection. The community light won’t change blue, and you’ll have no idea (at the very least from the panel) why the connection were unsuccessful.

The six buttons do a pretty great work of covering the basic features. The buttons tend to be Power, Wi-Fi, Network reputation, Paper/Cancel, Ink, and Roll Paper. Because printer lacks an LCD, the printer might react by blinking a light or giving information to your computer. A lot of exactly what might have been done utilizing the Liquid Crystal Display, such as for example examining the ink levels, is taken care of through the printer driver or related resources.