Dan Littman

Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX

If you don't need any of Epson's extra options, the Stylus Photo 785EPX's $200 price is an absolute bargain for a six-ink photo printer, especially for a model with a flash-media slot, a control panel, and a tray that can feed paper from a roll (so you can print banners), as well as regular cut sheets. Plus, it churns out graphics pages very quickly: We clocked it at 1.2 ppm. The 785EPX prints detailed gray scales. It also prints lovely glossy photos with superb color and textures. Working from the printer's control panel, you can group images into various layouts with a choice of several borders, and even convert images to black and white or sepia. Epson provides a CompactFlash adapter with the printer, but if your camera uses SmartMedia or Memory Stick, you can exchange the adapter by sending it back to Epson.
Epson's printer requires you to use a PC Card slot instead of slots to read camera cards directly, so you'll need a PC Card adapter to download photos. If you own cameras with more than one flash memory format, you'll have to fork over from $50 to $80 for a SmartMedia or Memory Stick adapter (CompactFlash adapters cost only about $10). Ink costs are high at 6.1 cents for a page of black and 14.3 cents for a page of color. The 785EPX's control panel confused us. The buttons for moving around the menus don't match the hierarchy of menu items displayed on the LCD; some commands that should be in the menus have their own buttons (such as selecting the images to print or setting the brightness); and other buttons (for turning the printer on, changing the ink, and resuming a print job) are strewn around the printer's face. Finally, it prints text at a leisurely 2.4 ppm, and even then its text quality doesn't impress us, with choppy edges on large headline fonts and a slightly fuzzy look on body copy.
For an additional $99, Epson sells an LCD display that attaches to the 785EPX and shows you the images on your flash-media card. Without the card, you can still select the images you want to print by looking at them while the card is still in the camera. Obviously, it's much more convenient to use the display mounted on the printer.
We consider the Stylus Photo 785EPX a great deal for printing photos but not a strong candidate as a general-purpose printer.

Buying Information

Epson Stylus Photo 785EPX Rated 8-ppm monochrome/5-ppm color, 2880-by-720-dpi maximum resolution, 100 sheets input, 30 output. $ 199 Rated 8-ppm monochrome/5-ppm color, 2880-by-720-dpi maximum resolution, 100 sheets input, 30 output. http://www.epson.com 800/463-7766