Print speed Epson 2200 vs 2400

I have had an Epson 2200 for about six months and I am not happy

with how long it takes to print 4x6 prints. It takes around five

minutes on the best setting, while it will print a 11x14 in about 15

minuntes. I've looked at the specs of both printers on Epson's

website, and in their great wisdom, they chose to compare apples to

oranges. Can anyone who has the 2200 and the new 2400 give me some

idea of what their print times are for any given size on each

printer?

 

I'm toying with the idea of returning it to the store where I

purchased it (I bought one of those replacement warranties) and

complain about the print speed, and pay the difference to get the

2400. I realize there are other advantages to upgrade, such as the

gloss optomizer and extra shade of black.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

DG

Definitely something wrong with your print times, the 2200 is much faster than you're seeing. The most common reason for slow times with the 2200 is connecting it with a parallel cable, and if you have that it's probably your problem.

Thanks for the response Don. I am using a USB cable, and have been through the troubleshooting section that covers slow print times in the Epson owner's manual. I forgot to mention that on Epson Enhanced Matte paper, the times are about cut in half. The 4x6 print time of 5 minutes was on Premium Semigloss Paper.

Do you have an older computer with usb 1 or 1.1? If so, your usb connection is more than an order of magnitude slower than usb 2, and is likely to be the problem. If you have a firewire connection, try that. I should say, though, that 15 minutes for 11x14 sounds about right for this printer on the highest settings. Good luck.

I'm pretty sure USB1 is as good as it gets. I've noticed no difference after upgrading to USB2, the printer is the bottleneck after USB1. I'm guessing you've tried checking the 'high speed' option (which allows the printer to print in both directions). The other problem could be if you're printing at 2880 rez, which slows the printing with questionable results.

It's not a USB 1.1 vs. 2.0 issue. USB 1.1 is 1.5 megabytes/sec, and the biggest I've ever seen an 8x10 on the Epson get is 175 megs at 2880. That's just under 2 minutes at USB 1.1 speed. The print mechanism is the "normal" bottleneck, but it could be something not configured well on your computer that is slowing things down. Print spool settings, or just not having enough memory.

 

As far as the 4x6, I seem to recall timing a stack recently, and finding that the machine was doing 45/hour at 2880 on glossy.

I thank everyone for your comments so far.

 

Joseph, in regard to spooling, I don't believe that is the issue. Correct me if I'm wrong-- spooling is finished once the printer starts printing, no? It starts printing pretty quickly after clicking "Print". I'm running Win XP Home Edition with 1 gig of RAM . My Epson Picture Mate (which does a nice job for "snapshots") prints a 4x6 in around 1.5 mins from the same computer, and it's USB 1.1.

 

Any more comments / ideas?

 

Thanks.

 

DG

Actually, by default, printing starts while the job is still spooling. You can change the port settings to spool first before the job starts - that might actually speed up the print job. If, for some reason, your computer is using up most of its processor capacities, this could be the cause of your issue.

 

allan