On Fri, 19 Sep 2003, John Richard Smith wrote: that I wrote: >> Epson is very Linux friendly. They support Linux probably better than >>any other printer. I've got a Stylus C82 that I'm very happy with. In >>product reviews a few people complained about the noise the paperfeed makes, >>and it is definite but not bothersome in my opinion. What I noticed is >>that it works. It's very definite and precise in feeding and positioning >>the sheets, and mine has never jammed (in five or six months). I think >>you'll find that the C82 (or probably any Epson; this is my second one) >>will work very well with 9.1. That's what I'm running. Mandrake will know >>what it is and configure it for you, although you can specify quality >>settings at various levels of detail and expertise (in printerdrake in mcc) >>if you wish. Mine cost about $100. Its quality is pretty impressive. >>I scanned (on an Epson scanner!) and printed one of my niece's wedding >>photos, and it was practically indistinguishable from the real thing. > > Thank you Dale for your detailed experiences, these are the kind of > personal experiences we all like to hear about. > I'm not in the market today for a new printer , but may well think about > it in the not too distant future, if I did want one today, I'm coming > round to the Idea of trying out an Epson myself, well, I've had a good > experience with their Epson perfection 2450 scanner, and with > testermonials like yours one is encouraged. You don't mention print speeds? Don't know what the norm is. It's much faster than my Photo700, though. Print speed isn't that important to me (as long as it isn't interminable). I use the printer at a high resolution setting, so when I print out drafts of an article I'm working on (ie. in OOo), and eventually the final version, it looks really nice. I'm just aesthetic that way. I like for stuff I print out to look like print shop quality.
Okay, that wasn't very helpful, so I just did a quick test, printing the same page in OpenOffice using different settings. The settings I chose from were Economy, Normal, High Quality, Very High Quality, and Photo, with a Grayscale version of each, for a total of ten settings. (These are for- inexpert-eyes combinations of the larger array of settings you can choose from if you click on the Advanced tab.) The grayscales are slightly lighter, although it's not noticeable at the higher quality settings. It is noticeable for Economy Grayscale, which has a couple of lines that are lighter than the rest. Economy, Normal, and Normal Grayscale all look pretty much the same, maybe identical to the average eye. I think Normal Grayscale actually looks slightly better than Normal, a little harder- edged. The time each takes to print one of a sample page, from the time I press the Okay button till the copy slides out, is 18 seconds for Economy Grayscale, 23 seconds for Economy, 28 seconds for Normal Grayscale, 62 seconds for Normal, about a minute and a half for High Quality Grayscale, and about 4 minutes for High Quality. Normal and High Quality probably aren't distinguishable by the casual viewer, but held side by side Normal is slightly thicker and muddier looking. Under a magnifying glass the edges would be fuzzier. High Quality has a slighter thinner, harder, sharp-edged printshop look. High Quality Grayscale is just a little lighter. Normal Grayscale is actually hard to tell from High Quality, so I might switch to that as my default. I didn't test Very High Quality or Photo or their grayscales. By the way, the times above are for the first page, which includes the time it takes for the program to communicate with the printer. I just ran page 1 and 2 at Normal Grayscale and the first page was out at 28 seconds and the second at 51, so all subsequent pages should take about 23 seconds apiece. HTH, Dale Huckeby
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