Epson Stylus Photo PX800FW Photo All In One Printer with Fax and WiFi

I purchased this printer to replace my HP3310 which was of a similar spec, but just wasn't producing good enough photo prints after 3 years of (good) service. I have only ever owned HP printers, so changing to Epson was quite a big deal for me. At around £250, it isn't cheap either considering you can get a wireless enabled printer for less than £100 these days.

Firstly, this printer is aesthetically very pleasing to look at and compact in its nature, with no odd parts sticking out here or there. It has a big touch panel display, which is very intuitive to use. Note however that when viewing your photos and scans on the display, it will only use up the middle portion. Still big though. It has 2 paper trays, one for A4 size paper and the other for 5x7 or lower size photo paper, which saves you having to fiddle about changing paper depending on your activity. Operation is very quiet, prints come out quickly, even photos.

Now as I mentioned earlier, the quality of photo printing is awesome. The same picture printed in a professional lab doesn't look as good as the output on this. This is definitely a printer for photo enthusiasts. Ordinary printing looks no better or worse than any other printer to be honest. The scans come in at respectable times. Photocopying works as expected. I don't use fax so I can't comment. There are a few other bits and pieces which may appeal to certain people like being able to print ruled/graph/note paper straight from the printer (filofax anyone?) and something called colouring book mode (for kids). The direct to CD/DVD printing is welcome and the tray is built in and automated. A memory card reader is built in, as is a pictbridge USB port. On the back you have your ethernet, USB, power and fax inputs. On the top is an auto document feeder. Changing the ink is as simple as lifting the scanner lid.

The printer is supposed to be energy efficient which is a bonus in this day and age. I do have some concerns about this printer though. I've read on the net that epson print heads tend to break down just out of warranty, only time will tell. The ink cartridges appear to be quite small, so it may not be the cheapest price/print ratio. The paper output tray is a little flimsy, as is the flap that covers the paper trays. Bluetooth is not standard, you will need a bluetooth dongle to enable this feature. Disappointing on a printer this expensive. As is the lack of duplexing, on top of the fact that the duplexing unit (at around £30) is seemingly impossible to get hold of at the time of writing this review.

A note about setup on a OSX Leopard. The included setup is straightforward. It has a step by step configuration for using wirelessly. Again pretty easy to setup because it pulls your routers settings off the router via an ethernet cable (you must connect the ethernet cable to the router before setting up the wireless), all you need is your WEP password or similar. I believe the printer has 'N' specification wireless which is plus for most recent mac hardware purchasers. The drivers and colour profiles are installed via the setup CD and of course you get a small suite of applications to use but most people will be using iPhoto or Aperture to print their pictures. Using the printer in Aperture is alot easier than the HP because when you select for example borderless 4x6 the printer knows to use paper in the photo tray automatically (unlike the HP). The epson software is alot less bloated than the HP software for macs (anyone who has had to download software updates from HP knows what I mean). Overall, I feel the mac support from epson is alot better than HP, which is one thing that did worry me with the switch.

Overall I would recommend this printer for the quality of photo prints and the way in which features are implemented. It is a quick, quiet, attractive and easy to use. If its within your budget, go for it.

I purchased this model from amazon before Xmas mainly for printing photos, and the WiFI, everything else that was built into this model was a bonus - scan/fax/copier. As Epson had a great reputation for their photo printers and this model was on sale for £195 I couldn't resist.

This was my first proper photo printer, so I have nothing else to compare to, but the results were, I thought, just fabulous!! I was happy......

Problems started after about 2 weeks starting (and ending) with a blocked print head! Here is how it all went from the begining to the end:

-Print head blocked (I am now onto my 2nd set of inks as the ones supplied are only half full, so I did the matinence and did a 'Head Clean', then a 'Nozzle Check'...print head still blocked, I repeat the process, print head still blocked, reapeat again....RAN OUT OF INK! Bought more ink in frustration, tried the Head Clean again....still blocked.
- I phone Epson support "there is nothing else we can do for you over the phone, you will have to take the printer to one of our express service centres, where they will try to fix or you get a replacement"
- Happy days I recieved a replacement (two weeks later), all covered under epson warranty.
- The new inks I had in the old printer wouldn't work in the new printer! (maybe something to do with the chip?)
-I phone Epson support again, they can't help. I buy more inks!
- New inks work no problem, I thought my worries were over.....
.... a month later....
-PRINT HEAD BLOCKED!! Arrrrggghhhhhh...but its a new printer!
- I do a Head Clean, and a Nozzle Check, hoping it will clear the problem, and it does, but two hours later the same thing happened again, I repeat the process....RAN OUT OF INK!
-Phoned Epson support...again, I wanted to return printer and get refund, I was told that was not up to them and I have to return wherever I had purchased from.
- Phoned amazon... not a problem to return/refund printer as there is a 1yr warranty for faulty electronics that they sell.

Over all, I have nearly spent as much on Epson inks, than what I initially paid for the printer.... in under 3 months! Maybe I was just unlucky, but when the printer works well with no problems it is fantastic with lovely quality photos...but if it is faulty, it's gonna cost alot wasted time and money!

Lessons learnt:

1 Epson support arn't really that supportive, I would have been better off going through Amazon first.
2 A 'Head Clean' will use nearly about a thrid of the ink cartridges
3 Individual inks didn't work out as economical as I had thought

As much as I would love another Epson Printer, and by reading some of the other reviews, I couldn't be bothered with the hassle and money spent!

I bought this to replace a rather old Epson Stylus Photo 810 that had become damaged in a house move. My main requirements for a printer were that it could print reasonable photographs, print onto CD/DVD Media and had the ability to connect to a network. Fortunately, the PX800FW fitted the bill perfectly.

I ordered it and it arrived the next day (thanks Amazon) and the box was huge! Setup was joyously easy. Normally I just setup without reading the instructions, but they seemed so easy from Epson's literature i followed them and I was printing within 10-15 minutes of opening the box.

Configuration with the network was a breeze, although to fit with my wireless network, I did manually enter the IP Address and DNS server etc., so I can't comment on how easy it is to attach to a standard home network.

I was able to connect it to my Vista desktop via USB (just to make things easier and take a load off the wireless network) and connect to it wirelessly from my XP Laptop.

Print quality on Epson media is positively astounding, so much so I rushed out to buy more Epson media, and I am not disappointed. Print quality on standard paper is okay, not amazing, but if you want amazing photo prints, you should be using photo paper anyway!

Speed is pretty good - it seems to be finished printing by the time I've walked from the other room on the laptop. However, switching on can be a little noisy and time consuming. The integrated CD/DVD tray is useful, although a little tricky to access and it feels like it could be a little flimsy, but again, I can't say that i've had any real problems.

Scanning is good - up to Epson's usual high quality - with the option to scan to various formats, including PDF. The ADF is a useful feature for scanning multi-page documents, although it can only really scan A4 sheets - it would have been much more useful if I could have used it for my old 7x5 and 6x4 photo collection rather than having to manually scan it.

Overall, a fantastic product that I would highly recommend. I wouldn't pay £300 for it, but the price I paid made it worth every penny.