Epson 1800 v 2400

mercphoto

I'm confused by Epson. Two 13" wide printers at much different prices. Is there a reason for the madness? What am I missing?

CMaster

Just by taking a quick look at epson's site....

Looks like the resolution is a bit higher on the 2400 and it takes a different kind of ultrachrome inks. I imagine the extra res makes the difference.

colourbox

mercphoto wrote:

I'm confused by Epson. Two 13" wide printers at much different prices. Is there a reason for the madness? What am I missing?

The 2400 has three black dilutions to allow much smoother printing of black-and-white prints. The inks are a different formulation; the K3 inks are supposed to be more resistant to gloss differential and abrasion than the Ultrachrome inks. The gamut is also supposed to be wider. The printer may also be built better, in the way a 13"-wide 2200 is built much better than a 13"-wide 1280. The cartridges are pressurized. I am reading all of this off of the articles turning up on the Web this morning.

Resolution differences are not meaningful these days. All these printers are very high resolution. I doubt it has any bearing on the price.

When the 1800 came out, Epson said it was not a replacement for the 2200. Now we know why. The 1800 apparently replaces the 1270/1280, and the 2400 replaces the 2200. In other words, Epson having multiple 13" printers is nothing new. I own two 13" printers myself, a 1280 ($399), and a 2200 ($649).

We shouldn't be too surprised when superficially similar products exist at different price points. The car and camera companies have been doing it for years.

mercphoto

colourbox wrote:

The printer may also be built better, in the way a 13"-wide 2200 is built much better than a 13"-wide 1280.

Seeing as how I wore out an R200, I'm wondering if the price delta would actually pay for itself.

We shouldn't be too surprised when superficially similar products exist at different price points. The car and camera companies have been doing it for years.

That makes sense.