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Epson extends $500 rebate on 4880, now tell me why I should get one?

johnastovall

Deceased, but remembered fondly here...
I thought I had missed the window on the 4880 rebate but it's now back on.

So, Please everyone tell me why I should get one. This will be my last printer for some time but I'm wanting to start doing fine art prints and start back trying to build up a business that I had to drop for the last 2 years.

I had almost decided to go with the 3880 but now this puts the 4880 back in play.

I need reasons to rationalize this....
 
J

jjlphoto

Guest
I buy my ink at Shades of Paper.
Ink for my 3800 (in 80ml carts) costs me $.62/ml.
Ink for the 4880 (in the 220 ml size) costs $.36/ml.
 

Dale Allyn

New member
Sorry, John, this isn't a reason to rationalize your purchase, but thought it should be confirmed. Do you plan on printing on mostly one paper type? i.e. primarily matte paper or primarily glossy/semi-gloss? If you expect to print some fine art prints on something like Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, and then want to do some glossy black and white prints, the 4880 is not so kind to the user. The ink-swap is costly and time consuming.

Some people run two of them to avoid the swap, and that's what I'd need to do. I print mostly matte papers, but also print semi-gloss mixed in at random.

Here's a pretty good description of the swap process.
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member
John,

ImagePrint allows nonswap matte and gloss printing but it is almost more than the 4880 with rebate.

Ink costs are less but you are going to have to print a lot or your expiration dates will pass....220 is a lot of ink.

Main advantage of 4880 over even the 3800 is ability to handle thicker papers without supervision....on the 3800 and I assume on the 3880 the larger papers need to be hand fed to insure they will load one at a time or they will be fast ejected...leaving skid marks on the paper making it unsuitable for printing. Hand loading allows use of even very stiff papers with platen gap at widest setting...no marks or ink splatters.

As the 4880 uses a vacuum platen it is able to avoid some of this but is much noisier...

Both are great printers...in fact I am thinking of moving from my 3800 because of the rebate. However I have IP so no swap problems. If you decide on a 3800 at an unbelievable price, pm me....may sway me to move up even though I cannot justify it with my volume of printing.:ROTFL:

Bob
 

johnastovall

Deceased, but remembered fondly here...
Sorry, John, this isn't a reason to rationalize your purchase, but thought it should be confirmed. Do you plan on printing on mostly one paper type? i.e. primarily matte paper or primarily glossy/semi-gloss? If you expect to print some fine art prints on something like Hahnemuhle Photo Rag, and then want to do some glossy black and white prints, the 4880 is not so kind to the user. The ink-swap is costly and time consuming.

Some people run two of them to avoid the swap, and that's what I'd need to do. I print mostly matte papers, but also print semi-gloss mixed in at random.

Here's a pretty good description of the swap process.
Interesting, I usually print all of a project on one kind of paper. The majority would be matte.
 
J

jjlphoto

Guest
Ink economy is one of the reasons listed on the posted link to above if you read his 3800 vs 4880 article. I have been doing bookoo printing on one type of lustre paper for my commercial clients. With the volume I am doing, the price difference in ink pays for the 4880 quite quickly. I do not do any matte printing anymore. Stuff is too susceptible to scuffing, and I don't have anyplace to spray.

Bringing up the Photo Black/Matte Black switching is a good point. I have read that a round trip wastes $70 in ink? Other care to confirm? The 4880 is definately a printer you do not want to have to swap blacks with. If I really gotta print matte, I still have my 3800, where the swap is a buck or two of lost ink. I'll still use my 3800 for BW printing on Baryta paper using the Epson ABW/Eric Chan method with his profiles. Of course, he can make me new profiles for my 4880 if I'd like, but his 3800 ones are free.
 

Dale Allyn

New member
Hi John and John,

Printing all of one project on one paper type is how I normally do things as well, but occasionally do test prints on cheaper RC paper, or find that certain very vivid images look better on a satin-type paper. 95% of my "fine art" stuff in on matte, but portraits are typically on satin. The ink swaps would be ridiculous in my case.

The link in my post above gives a good illustration of the whole round-trip process if interested.

I have read that the round trip for ink swap on the 38xx is around $5 worth of ink, but have no experience with it. This ink-swap issue is the biggest reason I don't own Epson printers, though the output is, of course, excellent.
 
My two big strikes against anything that says "Epson" on it is the cost of switching papers and the cost of clogs/clog prevention (frequent head cleanings). I found that for me, switching papers generally means between glossy and luster, and if you print with some frequency (not necessarily volume, just frequency) clogs are not that much of an issue.

So that leaves the last two negatives of the 4880 being cost and the size of the print. The rebate takes care of the cost to a certain degree and if you don't need to print larger than the 4880 can handle, not an issue either.

All that said, I still find the long term costs of the Epson to be too high, and the less you print, the higher the per-print cost due to frequent head cleanings.
 
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