Epson Stylus Photo R1800

Photo answers review

Photo answers rating

This model delivers a somewhat middle-of-the-road performance to match its price and specification. It’s designed for serious amateur and semi-professional photographers and uses eight ink cartridges. One of these is Epson’s Gloss Optimiser, which seals the inks and gives the printed area a photographic sheen.

From a speed and noise perspective, it’s a vast improvement over previous Epson A3 models. It goes about its business quietly and produces an A3 print in just over 5 minutes, but the print quality isn’t what you’d expect from an Epson model. Prints generally show a cool tone and lack the detail displayed by some of the other models on the market. Naturally, the inherent coolness can be overcome by tweaking the controls in the advanced menu settings, but the detail never quite gets to where it should be.

With a maximum resolution of 5760x1440dpi and eight ink cartridges, this is a well-made printer that’s both quick and quiet, but is let down by prints that lack real detail and clarity.