I first heard about the Epson Artisan 800 from Kevin Rose’s blog in an article about the Top 10 Gadgets for Geeks. I needed a new printer ever since my 8 year old HP Deskjet 970Cse died. My first inclination was to go for a colour laser printer, but after searching around a lot, I went back to the Artisan 800 for all the features it has. I don’t usually get excited about printers, but this thing is actually pretty awesome, and it’s Mac compatible.
Specs from Epson:
- 5 in 1 with Wi-Fi: Print / Copy / Scan / Fax / Ultra HD Photo
- Up to 38 ppm, photos in as fast as 10 sec1
- Built-in fax and Automatic Document Feeder
- Wi-Fi and Ethernet networking
- 7.8-inch touch panel, 3.5-inch LCD
- Professional quality CD/DVD printing
- Two-sided printing saves paper
- Create coloring books and personal note paper
- Two-year limited warranty with registration1
- Ultra Hi-Definition photos last 4x longer than photo lab prints
- Two paper trays always ready to print photos and documents
That’s a lot of features for a printer currently selling for $230. My favourite has to be the fact that it’s wi-fi enabled. I have the printer across the room, not connected to the computer at all. If you’re a Mac user who likes to have a minimalist desk setup, then you can keep this printer off of your desk without having the worry about an extra long USB cable. There is one major drawback here though, and it might be a deal breaker for some: you cannot use the scanner over wi-fi. Personally, I don’t scan things too often, so I’m still keeping it off my desk and across the room. In the rare case that I need to scan something, I’ll plug my laptop into it and scan. I don’t scan too many things though, so this wasn’t a deal breaker for me. If you don’t mind using USB instead, then you’ll be more than happy with the scanning, but it sort of defeats the purpose of one of the coolest features for those who want an All-In-One printer for a lot of scanning.
Another really great thing about this printer is the photos it can bring. Using 4×6 photo paper, you can have photo lab quality photos within seconds. There is a slot for memory cards, and an LCD screen on the front, so you don’t really even need to use your computer if you want to print a photo. Throw your card from your camera into it, select the photo and print. The tray has two areas for 2 sets of paper, one for photo paper and the other for regular letter sized paper, which makes it really easy to print whatever you want without fumbling with paper. CNET did a video review of this printer in which they complained about constant printer jams on this printer. I’ve had it for a week and I have to say that I haven’t had a single problem with any paper jams thus far. Perhaps they put it through more strenuous tests than I did, but for personal use sort of testing, I had no problem with it.
The bottom line is that this printer prints great quality documents and photos, has a lot of great high-end features at a very reasonable price. I am extremely happy with my purchase, and would recommend this printer to others in a heartbeat. If you’re looking for a good personal/small home office printer, don’t overlook the Epson Artisan 800.
1 response so far ↓
1 Deb Rosenfeld // Apr 8, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I can scan wirelessly from my pc to the Artisan, but to get around the wireless scanning from the Artisan to the pc, I leave a spare SD card in the Artisan’s card reader, go to the scanner and use the ‘Scan To Card’ feature. I can then wirelessly pull the scans off the SD card from the pc. Periodically I remove the card and read it directly with my pc to clear the scans. Wirelessly in the Artisan it is read-only. Since I have a dedicated scanner also, this lets me scan from both devices at once which is quite time saving. I scan items which need color tweeking on the dedicated one and more basic scans on the Artisan.
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