Opinion on Artisan 710 replacement

[jfcarbel]

Had a 710 that went dead. What I need in new printer is CD printing, ability to use refillable carts, and comparable photo quality to Artisan 710.

Do not care much about the plain paper to text print quality as its mostly going to be invoices for that or school papers for daughter.

I was looking at the Expression XP-950 or the Artisan 1430.

I got an Artisan 1430 from Bestbuy to just see what its like since I heard it was huge. I set it on the shelf and this thing is ridiculously huge. Not sure I want that size. I have not set it up with the carts as want to determine if this is what I will go with.

I hear the 1430 is very good realiability, but is the XP-950 series that much bad. Are they not comparable in photo quality since same piezo heads and 6 color claria inks? I also think I read here about issues with ARC chips and the firmware on the Expression series of printers like the XP-950.

So looking for guidance here from owners of these 2 units and what best meets my needs.

 

[jfcarbel]

None?

I bought a 1430 from local store and am using that now, but so far no impressed compared to my Artisan 710. Colors are great if not same or better on glossy photo paper prints. But this thing is slow! I was expecting for a better built unit like this to at least be equal in speed to my old Artisan 710, but this thing takes twice as long to do same photo prints. Satisfied but not really very impressed for money spent on this printer. The Artisan 700-800 series was an awesome value. I wish Epson would bring something like this back in their lineup for those of us who don't need this huge wide format printer but want CD printing, good reliable printer, and great photo quality and speed. My old Artisan gave all that and would have bought another had it been easily available now.

I wonder if in future desktop printers from Epson we might see this PrecisionCore tech.

 

[cls]

Hi jfcarbel,
Epson is soon gonna release the Epson Expression Photo XP-55 (in November for Europe afaik) which is basicall a Letter/A4 Size Printer as successor to the Artisan 50 / P50 / T50
it utilizes the same Printhead as the Artisan 710 with same amount of nozzles (6x180)
The Artisan 1430 has the older printhead just as the T50 / P50/ Artisan 50 with 6x90 nozzles

PrecisionCore tech is not yet anounced in ANY of epson Photo printing series, you can only find it in "larger" SureLab machines and the Office 4 Color Workforce Series released this year:
WF-3620 WF-3640 WF-7110 WF-7610 WF-7620 all these units have an astonishing amount of nozzle that fire ink:
800 (Black) + 3x256 (shared by C M Y)
Bacically these units have TWO precisionCore Chips combined as one unit on the printhead, on chip is printing only black (crazy speed) the other is divided into three groups

Epson also released a freshres for the "smaller" Workforce printers
WF-2650DWF 400 (BK) + 3 x 128 (CMY)
WF-2660DWF 400 (BK) + 3 x 128 (CMY)
These both units have "single" Core Precision Chip sharing all colours on a single head.

 

[jfcarbel]

Thanks cls.

I assume since the 710 had double the nozzles of the 1430 that is the reason that 1430 is much slower. Is that a correct assumption?

So I looked over my prints again with very closer eye and it does seem the photo glossy prints on 1430 are much sharper and cleaner. But you seem to indicate that the 1430 has an older tech printhead compared to my old Artisan 710.

I tried a google on XP-55 and could find nothing. But I did research on this XP line and from amazon it seems it has had troubled reliability. Again one must analyze amazon review ratings as most of the 5 star ratings for these XP are Vine reviewers that get printer for free. But majority if not all negative reviews are non-vine. Seems like this line suffers from reliability and others on this forum who are experts indicate problems serving customers with this line as well. So I hope that at least some of the tech you talk about in this new printer will reach an Artisan line of printers.

Does Epson come out with new line of printers or refresh the model lines at same time every year?

 

[cls]

Here is the Japanese Version of the Upcomming XP-55
http://www.epson.jp/products/colorio/ep707a/
they call it EP 707A
Druckerchannel already listed some specs
http://www.druckerchannel.de/device_info.php?ID=4183&t=epson_expression_photo_xp_55