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New epson 7890 and 9890 -- why?

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Any ideas why Epson would offer a new printer that reverts to K3 base inks with the Vivid magenta over the current Ultrachrome HDR inks?
 
Re: New epson 7980 and 9980 -- why?

Jack,
Epson stated up front when the 9990 was released that it was not a replacement for the 9880, but that among other improvements it was offering Orange and Green ink. The 9890 has done something Epson should have done 10 years ago, namely eliminate the ink waste when switching from PK to MK. Personally I don't see this as reason enough to go with the Epson over the Canon ipf8300 if one is looking for a replacement 44" printer (which I am). This is an illustration of "too little, too late" as Canon is beginning to make some serious headway into Epson's margins.

I have no experience with the Canons but I can't find a single example of a serious issue that would give me pause to purchase a Canon. On the other hand, I have a lot of experience with the Epson 44" printers and am reading about numerous issues with the 9990 as well as the extraordinary ink waste through cleaning cycles on the Epsons in general.

Epson's aftermarket service provider Decision One came out to the house on at least 10 occasions to repair my printer from January to April. By the time they were finished, I had banding at 720 uni directional and 1440 bi-directional and the Service Required light came on as soon as the printer was turned on... making it impossible to load a sheet of paper. I had paid for repairs after the third visit and there was 90 day warranty on this service. Epson refused to honor their 90 day warranty several weeks before it was to expire so I had no option but to pull and reinstall the main circuit board in an effort to resolve the problem. Turns out that a wire was not properly connected and the Service Required light no longer came on. I have been able to use the printer since... but only at 1440 uni, and only because I took the initiative after both Decision One and Epson declined to honor their warranty. I personally would never allow Decision One in my home again, so that eliminated Epson from the running (I'm in the bay area as well so you'd end up with the same Decision One technicians if you had an issue with an Epson printer. Something to consider...)

As far as IQ, I'm reading that Canon and Epson are virtually indistinguishable provided you're not examining prints with a 10X loupe. Epson has better dot placement due to the more round dots. W/respect to ink waste and lower ink cost per print (important if you're doing a lot of printing) I think the Canon is the clear winner.

Just one person's opinion... but unless Epson drops their price to compete on a dollar for dollar basis and extends their warranty... I won't be giving Epson my money.

Lawrence
 
Re: New epson 7980 and 9980 -- why?

Apologies for not addressing your question, Jack. I meant to say that I think this is Epson's effort to stop the hemorrhaging from sales lost to Canon over the ink waste issue when switching black inks. Again, too little - too late.
Lawrence
 

routlaw

Member
Re: New epson 7980 and 9980 -- why?

Sorry to hear about your printer woes with the new 9900. Having rung my hands dry and sweating a few bullets in between over which printer to choose to replace my aging old 9600 I finally decided on the iPF 8300 rather than the Epson 9900 and by and large have no regrets. There are differences for sure, not the least of which is print quality, IMHO. Contrary to your above comments I found the Canon prints to be noticeably better. Its not night and day dramatic but it seemed quickly obvious to me and others comparing the exact same printer test image from both printers… as in you did not have to study it to see the difference.

I don't want to hijack the thread which Jack started here, but agree with you that Epson has certainly lost a substantial amount of sales to the 63-8300 series by Canon. More than one rep for both printers said in all the years they had been selling LF they had not seen anything like the sales of the new Canons and went on to say the sales split was something like 50/50 C vs E. Previously Canon and HP together owned 15% of the market share max made this was a very potent statement. And make no mistake the 8300 is considerably better than the previous 9880 printers so its debatable how much Epson will gain from this.

Now all that said, there are some things I don't like with the new Canon compared to Epson printers but nothing one cannot wrap their head around in a short time frame. I would be more than willing to elaborate if your interested.

Hope this helps.

Rob
 
Re: New epson 7980 and 9980 -- why?

To clarify, Rob: I don't own a 9990. What I stated above was simply "am reading about numerous issues with the 9990 as well as the extraordinary ink waste through cleaning cycles on the Epsons in general."

I have no personal experience with the 9990 so I don't want to give that impression.

Lawrence
 

routlaw

Member
Re: New epson 7980 and 9980 -- why?

To clarify, Rob: I don't own a 9990. What I stated above was simply "am reading about numerous issues with the 9990 as well as the extraordinary ink waste through cleaning cycles on the Epsons in general."

I have no personal experience with the 9990 so I don't want to give that impression.

Lawrence
Whoops! :eek: My bad. Skimming a post too quickly. My 8300 came in at the end of July, have not a single clog and here is a screen capture of the ink used, what little there has been. Only the GY (gray ink) has dropped below showing full.
 
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Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Re: New epson 7980 and 9980 -- why?

Sorry guys, my main question is why the newly announced printers use 4-year OLD K3 inks with Vivid Magenta, and do NOT use the newest Ultrachrome HDR inks that are found in the two-year old 79/9900. So as I read it, the new printers are a step backwards.

Here's the press release where I got this. First two sentences are about the 4900, but read the last sentence:
 
S

swebster

Guest
After reading the information regarding the x890s, my reaction was the same as you, Jack. . . why? It seems as if Epson is potentially creating great consumer confusion--one wants a 24" inch printer. Does one purchase the 10 ink 7900 (green + orange "HDR" (too much of an overused word IMO)) or the 8 ink 7890. I have difficulty seeing the price point difference between the two machines as the motivating factor between a x890 and an x900 version of the machines. The only explanation I can think of at the moment is that perhaps Epson has not seen the sales of the x900 as it thought and it thinks the lack of sales is due to a perceived or actual high cost of printing over the life of the printer because of the additional inks included in the x900 and the x880 (now x890) series provide a gamut the suits the needs of most people without the need of two additional ink cartridges.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
The only explanation I can think of at the moment is that perhaps Epson has not seen the sales of the x900 as it thought and it thinks the lack of sales is due to a perceived or actual high cost of printing over the life of the printer because of the additional inks included in the x900 and the x880 (now x890) series provide a gamut the suits the needs of most people without the need of two additional ink cartridges.
That's sort of the conclusion I came to as well. I know many commercial printers invested in x880's, up to and including the 60" 11880, and did not upgrade to x900's. But for a photographer at least, the output from the x900's is certainly a visible if not obvious improvement...

Color me puzzled...

:confused: :confused: :confused:
 

Wayne Fox

Workshop Member
I think Epson still sees a market for a lower end printer. Despite what many think that Canon has made serious inroads, while this may be true in the high end photography market, in fact the professional photo market for Epson is a pretty small segment, and Epson is still by far the dominant player. Many production houses don't need the expanded gamut, but they do want the features of the 79/9900 series (speed, fast cutter, terrific paper loading). For production houses that print a lot of media the ANC circuitry works fine, and the "clogging" issues that plague some of the printers is much more common with lower utilized machines. Black ink switching for 99% of Epson large format printers is a non-issue as they are employed in high production facilities with multiple printers and thus are dedicated to one or the other.

It seems Epson is trying to simplify their production by using the same chassis. The K3/vivid magenta inkset is still very viable. The printer will be less expensive to make (just removing 2 channels of the head will save more than one might imagine with piezo heads).

As far as Canon, a very frustrating situation. While those in the know that frequent these forums may be aware of them, Canon still seems unmotivated to try and make serious inroads. As a retail dealer for both Epson and Canon we sell quite a few Epson large format printers a year (and printers is not a major part of what we try to sell), yet I haven't had a single customer even ask about Canon printers. I'd be more than happy to sell Canon printers, but won't spend the money to put one on the floor. I know other dealers in town also don't show the large format canon's. Can't even get a trade trial machine in here.

As far as output quality the new ipf printers seems to be very good. The increased gamut of each printer (canon ipf and Epson 49/79/9900) offers benefits in different colors so it might be a factor in deciding which one to buy.
 
J

Jesus Coll

Guest
Hi guys, Im new to this forum. I knew about the new Epson 9890 recently. As for me it was GOOD NEWS I wrote the following article in my website:

http://www.graficartprints.com/Epson-Stylus-9890-vs-9900.html

I was just googling to find out if my article was indexed that I found you.

Im located in Barcelona, Spain and Epson printers are priced more than 1,000.00 euros compared to US. Here, professional printers are treated by Epson as simple consumers. No consulting, poor customer service... I have always thought in Epson USA and beta testers, consultants, reviewers, etc., but I see many or some of you are treated the same as here.
 
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D&A

Well-known member
Jesus, your article nicely sums up the situation regarding the release of the 7890/9890 series of printers. My lengthy discussions with long time associates within Epson's Pro printing division, has basically echoed the same line of thinking and sales of the 7900/9900 line in general has fallen flat, especially when the global economy took a downturn. Apparently those with 7800/7880/9800/9880 machines are holding onto them without upgrading with the vast majority of users either using matte/fine art OR photo papers (not both) and therefore not requiring the switching of black inks or have two dedicated printers, one for each type of paper/inks.

Epson with the roll back to 8 ink printers (7890/9890) is hoping to convince those with two printers, to update to one single printer (that incorporates the economic black ink switching) but can hold onto 8 ink printing as opposed to the investment of the additional inks the 7900/9900 require.... although they will have to purchase the new updated cartridges. Some with a large supply of inks for their 7880/9880, already have told me they would have upgraded to the new 7890/9890 if it allowed their older 7880/9880 cartridges to be used. Epson felt this was one additional source of revenue (having to repurchase cartridges) and therefore would make up for the lower cost of these new printers and loss of selling the additional green/orange inks. Not sure if this logic was a wise, if they wanted to convince high volume printers to switch.

One other ink related comment to note. Although the name of the 7900/9900 ink set is HDR, apparently the ink inside these cartridges are the same as those identically color inks in the 7890/9890...and may in fact be the same as those in the 7880/9880 (and of course 7800/9800 except for the vivid magenta). In other words, the thought is that the name HDR (for better or worse) only refers to when the whole 10+1 color ink set is used with the 7900/9900 printers, not a change (or a significant one) in the individual color formulations in separate ink cartridges.

Dave (D&A)
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Interesting thread. I've owned various models of the Epson, Canon and HP printers - all in 24" roll paper sized. I print sporadically, generally on byrata gloss. I do a lot of grayscale and hate bronzing and gloss differentials. "Sporadically" means that the epson did not work well for me because of head clogs. I found the Canon interface difficult in the extreme. I'm using the HP z3100 now because its clogproof (the firmware maps out clogged jets and the heads are consumables if there is ever an issue), and because of its buillt in calibration and profiling features. It does grayscale very, very well. The gloss enhancer "glosses over" most surface issues. I sell prints sporadically as there is demand for them. When I need the printer to work I really need it to work.

I worry however that I'm missing something in terms of gamut available in the new Epson inks, and the HP driver has gotten wonky since a recent Mac update of the driver (I think this may be the source of some issues I'm having but I'm not sure). I'm afraid that I'm going to have to waste a day figuring out what the issue is.

Any referrences to links comparing the HP z3100 to the new epsons, or otherwise bearing on HP z3100 print quality issues would be very, very welcome.
 

jlm

Workshop Member
Woody:

anytime you want to come out and try printing some images on my 9900 let me know (not matte though, i don't want to change inksets)

jm
 

docmoore

Subscriber and Workshop Member

gogopix

Subscriber
Woody:

anytime you want to come out and try printing some images on my 9900 let me know (not matte though, i don't want to change inksets)

jm
I'm confused; aren't the insets same as 7900? and on mine I have matte black and photo black always available.
Do you mean the setup? (I guess there may be an ink waste in switching. I haven't tried.
That said, I do notice an increase in cleaning with the 7900
Victor
 
K

Kent_Taylor

Guest
Hi Folks, I'm new to this site and forum and haven't created my profile yet so I'll just quickly state I'm located in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, just east of Toronto. I now have time to devote to photography and am now upgrading my equipment.

I saw this thread is still being added to and am hoping to get some feedback. I'm looking at purchasing a 24' wide printer, the sales person I was speaking with has recommended the Epson 7890 to me. In part because of the current sale plus a rebate from Epson. Also, ink cartridges can be purchased in 3 different sizes. I've heard of problems with Epson printers with clogging. At the present time I won't be printing daily and there will be periods of time when I'll be away for 4 to 6 weeks. The areas of photography I'm into now are portraiture (I like a square format for my head and shoulder shots); close-up/macro of flowers and landscape which I like to print in a large size.

After reading the threads here I'm re-thinking the possible purchase and look at spending more on a canon iPF6100. Any suggestions?
 
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