Epson Stylus Photo R280 InkJet Printer

What a great printer, not only does it print studio quality photos but it also prints directly on cds and dvds. And with the 6 seperate ink cartridges, you only replace the color you are out of, no wasted ink just because one color is empty. And as far as document printing, well this printer is very fast. It comes with a great photo software set and full ink sets. With most printers you get what they call starter inks that are only half full or less, these inks are full just like the replacement inks. And they offer the 77 inks that seem to last 30-40% longer than the standard 78 inks. And as far as support, Epson has a great support staff. I called them with some questions about the many features of this printer and those guys know their stuff. And this printer is full of extra options and many ways to fine tune whatever you are printing. Oh and did I mention the direct disc prints look just as good if not better than the retail prints and you can print anything you want on them, pictures text ect. That way my disc are always personal and not like anyone elses. Also you can buy ink directly from the Epson web site at a great price and if you order 3 or more ink cartridges you get free shipping and in most states no tax. I am so glad I bought this Epson printer and not any of the other brands I was looking at. I am sold on Epson, I will never buy another brand again. They also offer an all in one printer in this line and I am buying one of them too very soon for my main computer. And the drivers are already out for the Vista operating system. I have Vista on my notebook and XP on my PC and it work flawlessly on both. Just load the boxed software for XP or download the Full drivers from the website for Vista. Thanks to Epson I now have the best printer I have ever owned and I have owned many printers. And as per Epson specs. the photos last 98 years framed or 200 years in a photo album. One fine machine no doubt, I would recomend Epson to anyone that asked. Get one for yourself, I am sure you will love it.

Setup was easy. Looks good and the quality of print is excellent. The only drawback has been getting the tray that holds printabvle CDs into the unit for printing. I use this item for text as well as photos, so I am sure I will be purchasing more black ink, quickly. I use it to print documents for legal research papers, CDs for my music business and photographs. I would have liked the black cartridge to have been larger, but overall, this is a keeper.

I have been using an R260 until recently and am happy to report that the R280 makes the same great prints. When not in use, I left the R260 off for weeks at a time and upon powering up (And eating some ink in an automatic cleaning cycle), it made perfect prints without skipping a beat. Hopefully the R280 will perform just as well in that regard. I find that fine lines are visible unless using the highest quality mode. (using Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper). So now I use a lower mode for previewing, when necessary, and then the highest mode for the final print.

I find the prints to be bright and vivid and love the control I have in printing at home, and with the Claria ink, these prints should be around long after I fade away, but with the high price of the ink, they do cost more than one would pay for digital prints made in a retail store. Personally, I prefer to pay a bit more for something that will last, but if you are considering this printer for making garage sale flyers, there are much cheaper ways to go.

p.s. There are currently free-after-rebate package promotions on this printer, and I picked up a second one, here on eBay from someone that didn't need theirs, at a price less than that for a set of inks. Now I have a spare printer, and the ink packs are full ones, unlike those from some other printer companies.

If you want to print your own labels for the copies of your cd's that you carry in the car, DVD's of the family vacation, or photographs this is the printer for you.

I have owned and Epson R200, R220, R260, and now the R280 and they have all performed as expected for several years.

Each printer comes with it's own software which is more than adequate for produce simple text to complex picture backgrounds on your DVD

I would suggest adding a Continuous Ink Supply (CIS) to your purchase as you will find that you want to do so many printings with the printer that running out of ink is an inconvenience that the CIS helps eliminate. Not only that but it also cost so much less in the long run.

I had a R200 which I purchased strictly for CD/DVD printing. It did a good job on my old Windows 98 machine but would not work on Vista. The R280 does fine with Vista and the disk printing is very very good. This is my second Epson for disk printing and they both seem to require a bit of patience to get them going. The 280 does work fine with Vista so I"m pleased. On a side note, I've printed a few photos on it and it does a great job. It is every bit as good if not better on photos than my HP. By the way, I picked my 280 up on Ebay for $51 plus shipping and it included ink. A great deal. If you buy one off of Ebay, make sure the ink is included, as that can run the price up a bit.

I love this printer it prints pages really fast and also prints on CDs or DVDs. The colors are vivid. Software is easy to install. I also like Epson Printers because you can buy CISS or Continous Ink Systems for less than the price of a new set of ink cartridges that come with the equivalent of about 10 cartridges of ink and if you do run out bulk ink is cheap i prefer the UV ink. Great way to save money a ton of money if you print alot too.

excellent for personal use. I bought it for its CD printing capability.
Will be testing it for its photo printing capability compared to my cannon SD printer

For the super low price this thing prints beautifully. I would have expected a lower quality at this price but was pleasantly surprised at the vivid colors. On the con side, the ink is soooo expensive.

2008/06/13 - I decided to buy this printer for the ability to print on CDs & DVDs. I also like that there are 6 ink cartridges and you only replace the ink that is out, unlike the HP printer that I have, where you replace a tri-color cartridge if any one of the three inks are empty or low! The separate color system makes so much more sense to me. I have my HP and my Epson on two Netgear print servers, as soon as I got the print servers up and running, the first printing project that I tried was printing on a printable CD. The quality of the print on the Epson R280 for that CD was "top of the line"! I used the "Epson Print CD" software that came bundled with the printer and used one of their templates, and the quality was superb! When I printed out a text page, it looked a bit blurry, so I cleaned the print heads and printed again -- and everything was fine! The Epson R280 was such a breeze to set up, such high quality at such an affordable cost and the replacement inks (I already have a spare replacement set of genuine Epson R280 inks) are reasonable as well. It's much too good a deal to pass up. If you've been looking for a printer like this, my advice to you is: "Don't put it off any longer! This is one awesome printer! Grab it while you can!"

Printer was easy to install - Windows XP - I removed the old printer software and driver first. Then I installed the R280 software first then connected the printer to the Computer. ( no problem's) Printer is one week old - Prints very fast and very good on color. I will have to wait awhile to see how it performs in six months . I also was able to find Epson original OEM Ink Pack # 78 (all six) on e-bay for $46.00 (included shipment). Don't use after market ink cart's ( re- manf.) in Epson printers - They will destroy your printer. BGP

I Bought this Printer "Epson R280" as a second printer so I could inexpensively print directly onto Cd's and Dvd's. Disks come out looking quite nice, and print in just a couple of miniutes. Apears well built and seems like it will last as well. I would have liked to see some sort of clips under top cover to store the CD Print Tray when not in use, but I sapose I'm just nit picking. I had an issue that has a simple fix, but was a bit difficult to figure out, so I'll explain my issue and the fix here. After installing the Epson R280 Printer, driver and software, I then noticed that documents I had previeously created in Word Perfect had changed (spacing was different and pages ran onto other pages and it messed up page Headers/numbers etc.) After some research I found out that Word Perfect Gets its spacing/margin settings from the printer driver. The Epson Printer drivers settings are different than my other printers driver settings. Since when installing the Epson printer it set itself as the Default printer, Word perfect then took the settings from the new epson printer driver, and thus caused my documents to change acordingly (all messed up). Thankfully the Fix was to Simply Set My Default Printer Setting back to my Original Printer, that was set as default when the document was created. Simply Goto - Start > Control Panel >> Printers and Faxes >> Then Right click the printer you want to set as default(the printer that was default when your documents were created) and left click <set as default> in drop down menu. Thats it, your documents will again appear as they did before installing the Epson Printer. And when you wish to use the Epson printer, just make sure that when you go to print something, and your print job window comes up, that you choose the Epson printer in the drop down window. So far I'm Liking This Printer. A Great Low Cost way To Print Nice Professional Looking CD's and DVD's.
RC

The Epson R280 was very easy to set up--loading included software only took 10 minutes. The printer itself is easy to use amd the quality of my prints is excellent. The R280 is the low-cost replacement for Epson's R380 printer which included a 3 inch LCD permitting Stand-alone use (no computer required for prints). The R280 does not have that feature so it is not as convenient to use. But the quality of the prints is just as good. Like the R380, the R280 prints labels directly on Printable DVD's and CD's. The quality of this feature is excellent but learning to properly center the labels on the disk is a tedious process-be prepared to waste a few before you get the hang of it. In summary, I am happpy with the quality that I have on this printer. For the Ebay price and overall performance, its a very good buy.

This is a discintinued model. When it functions, it's a good printer with very good color redition. It has software issues that are annoying but not hair tearing. Epson's support is alright so long as you stay on top of them. This printer is my second brand new R280 that had trouble right out of the box out of a total of 12 printers I've owned.

I really like the printer, and definitely liked the price, since it included ink. Which these days, seems to cost as much as the printer itself!

Our purchase was fast and easy The installation was quick and easy. The ease of use was very easy to use and instructions straight to the point. The speed of the machine was fast and the printing was very clear. Ease of use. Great machine for the price.

I love the pictures I print. I had to buy new ink rather soon after purchase and was shocked at price! Hopefully, I won't need any for a while now. But it is a nice printer and I am happy with it. (Sorry I took so long to review, I just wanted to check it out for a while)

Machine works GREAT. Easy to install. I found it easier to download the info from Epson then to use the C.D. for my Mac. I would recommend this printer.

Great printer. I have several Epson photo printers and they are all outstanding. The R280 is faster than my R220s and R200s. The only Con to these printers is the price of the ink.

Pro:
Excellent print quality.
Prints directly to cd/dvd's

Con: Replacement ink cartridges are costly.

A great printer for a very low price
photo quality is very high and its a very easy unit to
use. The only real problem with these printers are that
the ink is very high when it needs replacment and that
will come along very soon as its such fun to use.
If you only want to print a few photos every now and then
then this is the printer for you but if you print a lot
check out the ink prices first.

This is a cheaper version of Epson380, the difference is R380 can print directly on DVD & CD, R280 can't.

It has excellent quality print out, love it

I have NO dislikes about this printer other when you turn it on it's slow to ready green light.
NOW the loves,The R280 fits nicely almost anywhere,it has one of the smallest ink drops of most printers (small drops sharp prints). The printer prints on CDs/DVDs with either paper labels you put on or ones that are printable (white tops). A supplied tray makes printing on the easy. After you print one label with the supplied software you'll never look at laser printed labels again. My friends and I jointly own about six R280s we use ink system from CISS (I don't know anyone who works there).
the system is without a flaw on this brand of printer.

5 Stars. I received the Epson rebate that practically paid for the printer (yep, free printer) when I purchased a new digital Camera. The printer is a charm to use. The Claria hi-def ink really works well. I like that I need to change only one color ink cartridge as compared to some other's that use an single multi-color cartridge.

I suggest using a good quality (i.e. premimum) paper for great quality prints. I have tinkered with the needs of what types of prints I need and I have had acceptable prints with lower quality paper and quicker printing techniques. However, that is not a problem with the printer. It's my choice of making prints.

I love the printer for it's ease of use. The software makes for an even easier time of making photographs. Overall, the software and the printer make a nice compliment to each other.

The price was right (free) and the quality is great - I would recommend this printer to others and would even buy another one for myself (if needed). Overall, 5 stars. Great product.