Epson Stylus Photo R285 Printer Review
Epson was the company that manufactured the world’s first electronic printer, the historic EP-101 in the year 1968 and from then on, they had determined to produce quality printers following the EP-101. Here we review Epson’s Stylus Photo R285 which is a low end printer having the soul purpose of photo printing, which came as a replacement for the model Epson R265. This six colour photo printer is also capable of printing black texts, but is not as fast as you think it must be delivering as an Epson data printer.
Uncomplicated design:
The Epson Stylus Photo R285 Printer is designed in a very simple way without any complications. It has a rectangular shape and weighs just 5.4kgs. It is having a black and silverfish grey colour scheme and has taken a wise decision by not going for the ipod cream colour that most of the printers have adopted. The top of the printer is of the silver grey metallic finish and the bottom black part is made of plastic. The printer has just three controls in the left extreme of the facia and as they are in black colour and as their text is not overprinted in white, they are very difficult to read. The three controls include an ON/OFF button, an ink cartridge indicator that flashes when a replacement is required, and a paper alarm to indicate when paper runs out. It fits comfortably into a home or a small office environment.
The input paper tray is having a conventional design, having the fold up paper support at the rear and is also having a pull out output tray in the front. A separate CD/DVD holder is available in the output tray which can be seen as you remove the tray from its original position and place it in a secondary position. When this is done, the tray projects itself horizontally from the front of the printer.
Basic connectivity:
Coming to the connectivity, being a budget photo printer, Epson Stylus Photo R285 Colour Inkjet Printer has only two of them, one, the power supply socket for the internal power supply and another, an USB port which is of version 2.0 and that is the only data connection that is provided.
The software bundle and installation:
Epson has provided a software bundle with Stylus Photo R285 which include creativity suite, web to page, easy photo print, print CD, scan assistant, attach to email and copy utility. All these are the basic photo editing and management applications of Epson that we already know. These software get installed in a smooth manner without any issues. Fixing the ink cartridges into the printer head will not be an easy job in most of the printers but, in case of R285, it is a very easy task.
Print speed:
As we have seen in some of our previous reviews, the printers always do not give the print speed of what is specified in the specification table. Here, Epson has specified that R285 has a speed of 37ppm for black and 38ppm for colour prints, which means that Epson claims that this printer is as fast as the Xerox Phaser 6360V/N which is an office laser colour printer that costs above £1,000. Unfortunately, as you must have guessed, the Stylus Photo R285 does not give you that kind of a speed. It gives you a mere 4.4ppm for black texts and a worse 3.4ppm for graphics. You can achieve the speed that is claimed by the manufacturer only if you choose to keep the printer in the draft mode and print very few lines per page. 15 x 10cm photo prints are printed in 12 seconds and prints of same size in draft mode are produced in 16 seconds.
Print quality:
The print quality is ok and not bad. Epson uses the Claria Photographic six-colour Ink which is a high definition, dye-based ink that offers smooth gradations and an extra wide colour gamut . The results are premium quality photos which look better and last longer than the lab photographs. When it comes to the texts, you can see a little jagging when you have a close look. The photographs has good level of detail and looks more natural. The difference between the prints in draft mode and best quality ones will be very evident and the draft quality prints are very serviceable.
Noisy printer:
You will find another strange thing about this printer. In its specs, Epson has claimed that the noise level of Stylus Photo R285 is 36dBA which is a very good value but again in contrary to what is said in the specs, the printer gives a noise of 45dBA while working, which is not bad too, but then when you feed the paper, it goes to a peak noise level of 64dBA, almost twice of what had been mentioned. The specifications of Epson Stylus Photo R285 are misleading.
Long lasting and energy efficient:
Epson claims that the prints last for up to 98 years under glass which is a very good time period when compared to the typical silver halide photographs. This product meets the strict Energy Star guidelines set by the European Commission.
Cost efficiency:
Epson Stylus R285 Photo Printer is a cost efficient printer as it has six individual ink tanks. With this type of a system, you will need to replace only the colours you run out. Talking about the cost efficiency, the cost of printing black pages is quite cost efficient for a printer of inkjet category and the cost of printing colour prints seems to be slightly costlier than that of the normal rates.
Warranty:
Epson Stylus Photo R285 Digital Photo Printer comes with one year limited warranty which can be optionally extended to three years subjected to availability.
Verdict:
Epson Stylus Photo R285 is a very reasonable inkjet photo printer. Being a budget printer, it does what it is intended to do. Though it does not have any special features that does not make it stand out from the crowd, it does everything that is expected out of it. The manufacturers specifications are misleading when it comes to the printing speed. R285 is quite noisy too. Some of the rivals that lie in the same category like the HP and Canon Printers provide photo prints that are of higher print quality with the same speed of that of Epson Stylus. Looking for a budget printer? Go for Epson Stylus Photo R285.
Check Reviews of Epson Stylus DX4450, Epson Stylus R2880 Photo Printer.
Epson Stylus Photo R285 Printer - Technical Specification Table
| Manufacturer | Epson |
| Model Name | Epson Stylus Photo R285 |
| Printer type | Photo printer |
| Printing Technology | 6-colour inkjet photo printer |
| Dimensions (W x D x H) | 450×282x187 mm |
| Weight | 5.4 kg |
| Supported Media Type | A4, Letter, Legal, 20×25 cm, 13×18 cm, 10×15 cm, 9×13 cm, 13×20 cm, 102×181 mm, A6, A5, B5, Half Letter, Envelopes: No.10, DL, C6, User Defined CD/DVD: 8 cm, 12 cm |
| Print margin | 0 mm top, left, right, bottom via custom settings in printer drive |
| Standard Media Capacity | 120 x 90g/sm |
| Max Printing Speed | Black: 37 Colour:38 |
| Operating System Supported | Windows 98SE*5 / ME*5 / 2000 / XP / XP-x64 / Vista, Mac OS 10.2.8 or later |
| Image enhancement features | Epson Claria Photographic Ink |
| Ink handling | Epson Micro Piezo print head |
| Number of USB ports | One |
| Power Consumption Operational | Approx. 12 W (printing mode) Approx. 1.2 W (sleep mode) |
| Noise level | 36 dB |
| Software bundle | Epson Creativity Suite, Epson Web-To-Page, Epson Easy Photo Print, Epson Print CD, Epson Scan Assistant, Epson Attach to Email, Epson Copy Utility R285 |
| Warranty | One year |
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