If you look at Epson's strengths and weaknesses, you'll see that printers like the CX5400 are really niche printers that have limited utility to the general population. The only real strength it has is the use of pigmented inks in all colors for longevity but most consumers are not looking for that.
Why does Epson keep pushing the longevity/waterproof aspect? because that is the strength of the piezo head. The weakness is that it is bulky and the nozzle density is low and cannot be made higher without increasing both size and cost. The piezo head is a high cost head, orders of magnitude more than a thermal head.
To get higher text quality on an Epson printer, you are facing two hurdles. First their use of dye for their blacks in their photoprinters like the R200 will have more bleeding right off the bat so you have to expect that. The next hurdle is that color pigment inks do not print on plain paper well. NOTE This is not the same type of ink in your PGI-5 etc despite the word pigment. The viscosity characteristics etc are totally different. Ink for the PGI-5 etc are optimized to minimize bleeding on plain paper.
With the above considered, you come to the conclusion that Epson cannot be a strong player in the office printer market and they are not. Their product for that market is distinctly niche despite their ads.
So if you do have an Epson photoprinter and want sharper text, use the Photo settings for better quality text output. This will slow the printer down dramatically. Want even high quality, turn off the high speed setting to allow the ink to dry between head passes. Your ink usage will go up though and you'll be waiting till Christmas as well. Same for the CX5400.
The key advantage of the Epson is that it's head is quite durable and can take lots of abuse. You don't need to worry about ink nozzle heaters being destroyed if the ink feed is poor, no purging of cartridges is required. The head is low temperature, ink is never heated. This is ideal for color pigment ink printing....but slow. Even the R200 can handle pigment inks well ...and considering its low cost, ...you can get an interesting versatile printer if you have both dye and pigment cartridges for swapping out depending on your printing requirements.
I always get a chuckle when a computer magazine reviews photoprinters like an R800 or R260 and then says that it's text output quality is not good. Did we expect otherwise?
Why does Epson keep pushing the longevity/waterproof aspect? because that is the strength of the piezo head. The weakness is that it is bulky and the nozzle density is low and cannot be made higher without increasing both size and cost. The piezo head is a high cost head, orders of magnitude more than a thermal head.
To get higher text quality on an Epson printer, you are facing two hurdles. First their use of dye for their blacks in their photoprinters like the R200 will have more bleeding right off the bat so you have to expect that. The next hurdle is that color pigment inks do not print on plain paper well. NOTE This is not the same type of ink in your PGI-5 etc despite the word pigment. The viscosity characteristics etc are totally different. Ink for the PGI-5 etc are optimized to minimize bleeding on plain paper.
With the above considered, you come to the conclusion that Epson cannot be a strong player in the office printer market and they are not. Their product for that market is distinctly niche despite their ads.
So if you do have an Epson photoprinter and want sharper text, use the Photo settings for better quality text output. This will slow the printer down dramatically. Want even high quality, turn off the high speed setting to allow the ink to dry between head passes. Your ink usage will go up though and you'll be waiting till Christmas as well. Same for the CX5400.
The key advantage of the Epson is that it's head is quite durable and can take lots of abuse. You don't need to worry about ink nozzle heaters being destroyed if the ink feed is poor, no purging of cartridges is required. The head is low temperature, ink is never heated. This is ideal for color pigment ink printing....but slow. Even the R200 can handle pigment inks well ...and considering its low cost, ...you can get an interesting versatile printer if you have both dye and pigment cartridges for swapping out depending on your printing requirements.
I always get a chuckle when a computer magazine reviews photoprinters like an R800 or R260 and then says that it's text output quality is not good. Did we expect otherwise?
