Epson P800 Printer Review: An impressive evolution of Epson’s 17” desktop printer

 

 

Facing the difficult task of replacing the Epson Stylus Pro 3880, the team at Epson have delivered a significant upgrade with the new Epson SureColor P800. This new 17" desktop printer, the world's most compact printer of this size, manages to improve upon the 3880 in a multitude of ways.

Currently selling for $1195 USD ($845 USD after rebate, which ends on December 31st), the P800 is a very well-priced printer for its class. You get a lot of features for your money, too. The P800 has a precise eight channel 1" MicroPiezo AMC print head that can print at resolutions up to 2880 x 1440. With multiple media paths, the P800 can accept media up to 1.5mm thick and also print on roll paper using an optional roll media adapter ($200 USD), so panorama photographers should be very excited.

 

 

The P800 uses an entirely new ink set and features Epson's first new matte black ink in fourteen years. With re-engineered pigment and density per droplet, the new set of ink helps the P800 to produce great prints on a wide variety of papers. The new matte black ink in particular helped to make fine art prints from the P800 look fantastic.

While the print quality is excellent, with vibrant colors and rich blacks on both photo and matte papers, the P800 does have a couple of minor downsides. The printer is not particularly fast and the two black inks share a channel on the print head, so the printer still has to switch the black inks when changing the type of media that you are printing on. Other than that, the SureColor P800 is very impressive.

 

Thanks to its roll media adapter, the Epson P800 was able to make this 30" long panorama print on Exhibition Canvas Satin. 

I think that the most important aspects of a printer are its print quality and its features, and in these regards the Epson P800 does very well. Its excellent performance earned it our "Printer of Distinction" award this year. To read much more about the P800's performance and to see what other aspects of its performance impressed me, read my full review of the Epson SureColor P800 here.