Canon verus Epson ink jet printer

I am new to this forum and would appreciate opinions concerning which inkjet printer to buy. I have narrowed down my choices to either the Canon S9000 or Epson 1280. Border free photos are an important feature and have read this can be achieved with the Epson, but not the Canon. What other features would make one printer better than the other.

Have you looked at the Canon S820? Beautiful, borderless pics for a way cheeeeeap price.

yeah...my S820 arrived 2 days ago. Got it from Gateway.com for $123 /free shipping. Can't beat it, unless you really need the large format. I had been looking at the 1280 vs 9000, chose the 9000 after reading a lot on these forums, then learned the 900 was identical except it wouldn't make the humungous prints, so I was set on the 900. Then I saw a review that said the S820, @$250 made better prints than the 900. So when I saw the 820 for a buck and a quarter, I grabbed it! GW2k got it to me in 2 days. My initial impression is that this is an excellent, fast printer. It has 6 separate ink tanks so if you run out of cyan you only replace that, and a user replacable print head. No bells and whistles--just a really good printer. This is strictly for photos. Fo text I use my reliable 11-yr-old hp laserjet.

I have had my 1280 for 2 months and it rocks. I was considering the 9000 but saw reports of banding so I opted for the Epson (also got a deal because I got the Epson 1660 scanner at the same time). I regularly do 8 by 10's and they look fantastic. Haven't done any borderless yet.

When I was looking for printers I was interested in large format. However, now that I have it, 8 by 10 seems to be about it. I have done some 11 by 14 on archival paper and they look pretty good.

I have about 10 more prints and I have to change the colour ink. I have heard that the printer will require that the black be replaced at the same time but that doesn't seem to make sense.

Just my $.02

D

PS - I gave some of the prinouts as xmas gifts and nobody knew they were inkjet productions until I told them last week

Phils,

You're in a great situation---the classic "no lose". Either printer is capable of making great prints.

You might want to check on the status of drivers and their updates for both printers. I have an Epson printer that does a great job, but Epson's support for Macintosh OS X has been spotty. (Epson still hasn't provided an adequate photo quality driver for my 875DCS, and I'm guessing that they never will.) Because of this, I'm still printing my high quality stuff under Macintosh OS 9.

Make sure that there are good drivers for the computer and operating system of your choice.


-Barry

Upon further review I believe my needs will not exceed letter size prints. The s820 consumer response is high for this printer, which I would use for photos only. Did you look at Epson's 960 printer before deciding on the canon printer.
Please let me know what anyone's experiences are with any of these printers.

if you want the best output and can live with 4x6 only get the hiti 630pl from hitouch imaging. it blows anything else away. you will never use 35mm again!
let me know if you want more detail.

I have the Canon S9000 and the output is stunning. No banding and an unbelievable print speed. The S900 has all that but in an 8.5" width. That said, I now regret buying when I did because I have seen the output from the Epson 2200. Not only does it match the S9000, but it is archival. The Canon printers all suffer from fairly rapid degredation of color. This can be mitigated by immediately framing under glass, but if I were buying now I would spend the extra couple of hundred dollars to get the archival printer. This is really saying something for me, since I swore I would never buy another Epson printer after my Photo 700 turned into a doorstop one month out of warranty.