Conference 7.286::macintosh

   Does anyone have experience with the new Color Stylus 600 and 800 models?
   These are fairly bulky and ugly-looking (compared to a StyleWriter) - but
   I saw a sample of 1440 by 720 dpi output from the 800 that was VERY nice.

   Rough specs are:

       Stylus Color 800 -- sells for about $450, uses one three-color ink
           cartridge and one black ink cartridge, compatible w/Mac and PC,
           can accept optional Ethernet card.

       Stylus Color 600 -- sells for about $300, uses one three-color ink
           cartridge (the same one) and one black ink cartridge (which is
           only good for about half the number of pages, but costs nearly
           as much as the 800's cartridge), compatible w/Mac and PC.

   I suspect the high-quality mode is very slow, at least unless you have an
   800 with an Ethernet card.  The "demo print" functions were set up to use
   360 by 360 dpi, not even 720 by 720 ...

   I get the impression from reading this Notesfile that HP might be a whole
   lot better than Epson at supporting Mac users.  Is that true?

MacWeek loved them.  On that basis, I just bought a Color Stylus 600.
I haven't opened the box yet.

    I'm loving my Stylus 800's output. Everyone I show is similarly
    impressed. In highest res. mode, I can print a full page photo in a
    couple minutes. Lower res (720dpi) and most things print in under a
    minute. The real cost ends up being in the consumables. The highest
    quality glossy paper is something like $2-3 a sheet. 
    
    The driver has some very fragile behaviours though. I've learned a
    specific sequence I have to follow in order not to get a hang on
    restart when switching back and forth between my HP 5MP and the Epson.
    I'm going to get the Ethernet card for both printers because this
    aspect alone wastes a lot of my time. Various people have reported
    problems with the Epson background printing mode and I hear the answer
    has been "Don't do that" rather than "we're working on a fix."
    
       erik

    Re: .16

    Is the $2-3 a sheet paper required for 1440 by 720 dpi printing?  If
    not, how much quality do you lose by printing on normal inkjet/laser
    paper?

    No, I think you can get the highest res on inkjet paper, which is
    considerably less expensive. However the 2-3$ paper gives you
    very-near-photo quality output. Plain paper has noticably poorer res. than
    either of the above. 
    
       erik

    My Epson 800 refused to print all layers of a multi-layer 
    Illustrator 6 document last night, and only by squashing all 
    the layers into one did it finally accede to my print command. 
    Also, it sometimes prints a bunch of funny yellow marks where 
    the print head makes its carriage return. If only printers worked 
    as reliably as the CPU or disks!
    
       erik

    It turns out that the not printing all layers was proably due to me
    deciding on a whim to try out the ColorSync button. 
    
       erik

    Well so I got extremely tired of having my 9500/200 tied up printing
    (because of all the reports of the background printing mode not
    working), so I moved the 800 printer to a 40Mhz 68040 system. Well 
    printing large bitmaps from this other system has been most
    educational as to the speed of printing depending on the host. It seems
    to take about 4-5 times longer to print a bitmap page on this system as
    on the PPC Mac. Many times the print head stops in the middle of the
    bitmap printed area and pauses for ten seconds, whereas on the 9500
    host setup the printhead would make a complete pass of one horizontal
    line before pausing for any appreciable time.  As a result, when
    printing on regular inkjet paper, there are now three or four wavy areas on
    the paper when you look at the back of the printout, which I surmise is 
    due to the extra pauses--because on my printouts made with the 9500, there 
    is only one large wavy area (What I mean by waviness is that the paper is 
    deformed in a wave shape). So far the one printout using thicker, glossy 
    paper from the 68K system no waviness has been observed.
    
       erik

    Hours before a critical deadline and my Epson 800 just stopped printing in
    the middle of an expensive, $2 per sheet glossy sheet. An hour of
    hair-pulling agony ensued, including re-installing from scratch
    numerous times. Finally I plugged the printer into the modem port
    instead of the printer port and it resumed working again. I see that
    lots of other people are having problems with Epson on Mac-- see this
    page for more info:
    
    	http://tcp.ca/gsb/net/printing.html
    
    erik

    MacWeek says that Epson is coming out with a new six-color printer this
    week.  The Stylus Photo adds light cyan and light magneta to the normal
    CYMK palette and requires no special paper.  (However, it only does 720
    dpi.)  Price: $500.

    I checked Epson's Web site to see if the 800 supports QuickDraw GX.  It
    doesn't.  I don't think the HP870 has a QuickDraw GX driver either, but
    I saw one user claiming that you could use the GX driver for another HP
    inkjet with it.

    I also noted that the 800 can print in 720 dpi mode on regular paper --
    contrary to the statements on the special Epson printer paper.  Perhaps
    the paper packaging was designed before the 600/800 came out.

Here's some comparison info, from Epson's Web site.  It looks like the Stylus
Color Photo has the highest ink costs of all ... what appears to be the 600's
small black ink cartridge, paired with a color ink cartridge that costs maybe
a third more per page than the ones on the 600/800.

Also, like the 600, its maximum RS-422 data rate is half that of the 800's, &
there is no provision for adding a LocalTalk or Ethernet card.

They claimed it has a small footprint ... so maybe it has a 600-style case?


                   Stylus Color 600    Stylus Color 800    Stylus Color Photo
                   ----------------    ----------------    ------------------
 Target Users      Home /              Business /          Graphic Artists,
                   Small Business      Graphic Artists     Professional
                                                           Photographers and
                                                           Photo Enthusiasts

 Estimated price   $299                $449                $499

 Black Cart MSRP   $24.95              $29.95              $24.95

 Color Cart MSRP   $29.95              $29.95              $24.95

 Color ink cap.    300 pages           300 pages           190 pages
                   (15%@360dpi)        (15%@360dpi)        (15%@360dpi)

 Black ink cap.    540 pages           900 pages           540 pages
                   (5%@360dpi)         (5%@360dpi)         (5%@360dpi)

 No. of colors     4                   4                   6

 Available          180 x 180,          180 x 180,          180 x 180,
   resolutions      360 x 360,          360 x 360,          360 x 360,
                    720 x 720,          720 x 720,          720 x 720
                   1440 x 720          1440 x 720

                   NOTE: 1440 x 720 mode requires special coated paper.

 ...

 Standard Compat   ... MAC [sic]       ... MAC [sic]       ... MAC [sic]
                   System 7.1 or       System 7.1 or       System 7.1 or
                   later               later               later

 Optional Compat   NA                  PostScript Level    PostScript Level
                                       2 with Pantone      2 with Pantone
                                       Calibrated          Calibrated
                                       approved colors     approved colors

 Printable area    8.26" x 10.34"      8.26" x 10.34"      8.26" x 10.34"
                   letter              letter              letter

 Paper capacity    100 sheets/10       100 sheets/10       100 sheets/10
                   envelopes           envelopes           envelopes

 Warranty          2 year              2 year              2 year

 Software bundle   Look Your Best      NA                  EPSON Digital
                   Color Pak                               Darkroom

 ...

 Std Serial Intf   RS-422 - Up to      RS-422 - Up to      RS-423 - up to
                   900 Kb/sec          1.8 Mb/sec          900 Kb/sec

 Opt. interfaces   NA                  Ethernet,           NA
                                       LocalTalk, serial,
                                       buffered parallel,
                                       coax, twinax

 Input buffer      32 KB               32 KB               64 KB

    The spec sheet on the Web also said that the Photo model will have a
    $99 PostScript option, like the 800.  There is no such option for the
    600.