How good is the Epson 3800??

Hi, I am considering purchasing an Epson 3800 A2 printer.
Seeing this costs a lot of cash, I want to be sure it is well worth the money.

Could owners of 3800's please submit their honest opinions of the 3800.
Re: quality of print, ease of use, economy of use, any problems with ink clog in heads etc.

I am interested in using it for panoramas as well - 17" x 38" - anyone had experience with this aspect. Problems with paper tracking straight etc.

What paper do you prefer - is the epson paper any good.

Many thanks
Bob.

It's amazingly worth the money. In my first week of having it it paid for itself.

I'm still trying to eat through the cartridges..my lowest one is about 3/4 down but the rest are around halfway, still.

I've printed 88 prints out of it so far between 4x6 to 17x22"
A large percentage of those being 8.5x11" and 17 x22"
This past week I have made...about 800 $ on prints coming from this printer.

I print on epson ultra premium lustre and glossy papers
never had a problem with the heads or anything like that, i think it auto cleans the heads.

What Karl said - +1. Also, it's one of the most popular, consequently most (internet) supported printers. Check out Chan's well-known info. Tons of support, knowledge, profiles, etc. out there.

Best investment in a printer I've ever made.

Thats a damn fine resource he has built there. I considered buying the 3800 family a while back but decided to just continue doing costco prints for now. When I was looking the common wisdom seemed to be to skipp the 3xxx series to go for the 4xxx series for bigger, more efficient tanks. Is that no longer the case?

Good enough that i almost spend money to buy 17x22" sheets all the time, not worthy to have this printer to print up to 8x10"-11x14" only, but if talking about the quality, i am 1000% happy with the IQ results on all non-gloss papers.

Thanks guys for your help especially CannedHeat for your links to Chan's article - excellent stuff.
Bob.

Probably should mention that it won't do 17X38 without some special (and expensive) software. IIRC 17X34 is the biggest size it will print.

Other than that, I echo what the rest of the 3800 owners say. I print primarily 11X14 and 13X19, but the cost per ml of ink against my volume of printing made it a best value proposition.

I haven't tried but I was under the impression that it would do 17 x 44

Edit: Eric Chan states 37.4"

Car2n wrote in post #8419301
I haven't tried but I was under the impression that it would do 17 x 44

Edit: Eric Chan states 37.4"

That must mean my "IIRC" is broken. 37.4 is close enough to 38 that I retract my opening statement - but I still very much like the 3800.

I don't print nearly enough but, when I do, I am amazed at the prints from the 3800.