Should I upgrade to the 3800/4800 ?

[hjoseph7]

I love my R2400 printer. So far it hasn't given me allot of problems. I get

great 8X10s and 11X14s from this printer, despite the very expensive ink. Epson

puts this printer in the Home/Small office category, meaning that it is meant

light use. Epson has two other printers that are in my price range, the 'Pro'

3800 and the Pro 4880.

 

Both of these printers can print up to 16X20, while the R2400 maxes out at

11X14. I think you also have the option of using 220ml and 110ml ink

cartridges. With these printers you can swap Photo Black and Black Matte

automatically.

 

Back in the days, the term "HEAVY DUTY' was used to describe equipment that was

meant for every day use. Heavy Duty meant Built Rugged, but the Pro 3800/4880

don't really look that rugged to me. They loook more like an upgraded version

of the 2400, although I could be wrong.

 

After I purchased my R2400 I was a little dissapointed to find out that the

R1800 which is about $200 cheaper, actually printed more vivid prints. It had

to do with the inks both printers used.

 

Now I'm wondering if upgrading from the 2400 is really worth it. Does anybody

out there have any experience with Epson printers to give me some solid

advice ?

[frank_skomial]

"the R2400 maxes out at 11X14" - try sometimes the 13 x 19 paper.

[frans_waterlander]

Harry,

 

Only you can answer your own question. Do you need to print larger than 13" wide and if so is it often enough to justify the investment?

[godfrey]

The R2400 prints to 13x19 inch on cut sheets, but can print to 13x32 inch on roll paper.

Not that I do a lot of this, but it is nice once in a while to have the option. To be truthful, I

would rather have the ability to print 16x20 inch cut sheet myself, even if I only do so

fairly infrequently. The R3800 does not handle roll paper, and the R4800 does but is

substantially more expensive.

 

However, the biggest reason to move to an R3800 or R4800 is to reduce ink costs if you

are making volumes of large prints, whether 8x10 or 11x14 or 16x20. The R3800 ink

tanks cost 3x as much for at least 5x more capacity as the R2400. This can drop your cost

per print substantially, but only really makes sense if you print enough to actually be

worth it. The downside is that every time you need to buy a round of ink tanks, be

prepared to put out a hefty bit of money for either 3800 or 4800...

 

I was interested in both the R4800 and R2400 when I was buying, but I simply could not

justify the expense for the R4800 at that time. And the R3800 wasn't yet available.

 

I've been extremely happy with the performance of the R2400 ... but given a choice now,

and given the work I've been doing, i'd buy the R3800 if I couldn't afford the R4800.

 

Godfrey

[hjoseph7]

"I've been extremely happy with the performance of the R2400 ... but given a choice now, and given the work I've been doing, i'd buy the R3800 if I couldn't afford the R4800"

 

It's allways good to have some elbow room. I was wondering whether the term 'PRO' means heavy duty and although you do save on inks is the picture quality any better to justify the cost.

[godfrey]

Well, the R4800 definitely seems more ruggedly built than either the R2400 or R3800,

which are the bottom end of what passes for professional use Epson models far as I can

tell. TANSTAAFL when it comes to build and materials costs.

 

Both of the higher end printers were released after the R2400, have more recent fine

tuning on the head design. That and the fact that there are probably more and better

profiles available for the higher end printer models would suggest that they do constitute

a performance upgrade. By how much ... I couldn't guess.

 

Godfrey

[Brad_]

>>> Should I upgrade to the 3800/4800 ?

 

Only if you need to go to 17" widths, or, you print a lot and are tired of buying new 2400

carts every week. 4800 ink is around half the price of 2400 ink on a per ml basis ($0.36 vs

$0.75 per ml).

 

Otherwise, why? Especially since you've already spent the $$$ for the 2400.

[ellis_davison]

Durability: I am still using a 2200, bought when they first came out, and it is a tank. It is my fifth Epson photo printer - in the past they obligingly croaked in about a year and a half, just about in time to force me to get the newer and better printer. I think the 2400 is probably just as well built.

Another consideration (other than larger print size) would be how much you use it. The 4000 has a reputation for getting cranky if you do not use it often enough - print heads getting clogged, etc. Perhaps users of the 3800 and 4800 could comment on whether this is the case with the newer printers.

[eric_brody]

I have the 3800 and it is a terrific printer. The K3 inks are common to the 2400 and 3800/4800 and do wonderful black and white as well as color prints. I wanted to be able to do the occasional large print, so waited for the 3800 to come out.

 

As has been said, the only real reasons to get a 3800 are the ability to use larger paper, and the larger ink cartridges. Given the price of the 3800 and the relatively low resale on used printers, it would take a LONG time to make up the difference on ink alone. It's like buying a new car just to get better mileage; the math does not really work. Get one only if you really need to frequently make prints larger than 13x19. Otherwise, I'd be perfectly happy to feed my 2400 until it dies.

 

Good luck.

 

Eric

[wojtek_kalinowski]

If you need the larger format 3800 is a great choice, but I find the 2400 driver easier to use, with more options.Don't forget all the ink you get for free when buying either of those printers. If you can afford it the new 4880 looks great too. W

[daniel_smith6]

Per two friends who use the 3800 there may be a change in inks or somesuch on it over the 2400. Enhanced Matte paper is not recommended for the printer.

 

Per some discussion elsewhere the newer generation 17 inch wide printers may be using some newer 'enhanced' magenta ink but still called K3 inkset.

 

Anyone have solid info on this?

[brian_ellis19]

I replaced my 2200 with a 3800 to make wider prints (17" as opposed to 13")and to save on ink costs.

 

I wasn't expecting, and haven't found, the technical quality of the prints from the 3800(mostly color, some b&w but I use QTR for b&w, not the Advanced B&W feature of the 3800 which the 2200 didn't have). I've had two problems with the rear single-sheet feed mechanism on the 3800. I started getting a "skew error" message every time I fed a sheet into the printer, sometimes I'd get the message 4 or 5 times before I could finally get the printer to feed the paper. At the suggestion of someone on this forum that problem was fixed by changing one of the defaults in the printer menu. Things were fine for a month or two but then the printer began feeding incorrectly (from the single sheet rear feed only but that's the only feed I use), resulting in all my prints being an inch or so off center. After trying a fix from Epson tech support that didn't work, I ended up having to exchange my printer for a refurbished printer from Epson. Not only is going through the exchange a PITA, it's very irritating to give up my original printer, through which I had run maybe 100 prints, for a refurbished printer that for all I know was used by a previous owner to make thousands of prints.

 

Finally, the ability to switch back and forth between matte and photo black is a mixed blessing. It's more convenient than switching cartridges but it also uses a good bit of ink in the process. So it's impractical to switch back and forth every time you want to make one type of print or the other. Instead you need to hold off on switching until you have enough prints of one kind or another to make the switch worthwhile.

 

If I had it to do over I think I would either have kept my 2200 or bought one of the 4000 series instead of the 3800.

[jeff_z.]

Sorry I'm a bit late to this. Brian, I was especially intrigued with your comments. I too have

the 2200, and am thinking of upgrading. You seemed to think that perhaps it would have

been best to have kept your's, and it didn't seem like you were noticing any improvement in

quality over the 2200 (?) I don't necessarily need a larger format printer, and am very

aprehensive about the ink cost situation. I was thinking about the deals on the 2400, but

again, the ink is even more espensive per cart than my 2200's carts. Any chance you or

anyone else could further comment on these issues? Thanks.

[bruce_stenman1]

If you are doing a lot of printing for personal use the Niagra system from Media Street can cut your ink costs by 80% or more. With a 2200 I save enough in ink to cover the cost of a new printer each year, so I always have a printer under warranty.

 

Where the 4800 comes into its own is with large format large volume fine art printing where its 220ml cartridges bring the Epson ink cost down to $0.36/ml or 30% less than if you buy 110ml cartridges or use a printer with still smaller cartridges.

 

In theory the Canon 5100 which does not need to do an ink purge when switching to fine art papers should be the best deal, but Canon only provides 130ml cartridges and so the ink cost is 50% greater than with the Epson inks purchased in 220ml sizes.