Epson Stylus Pro 3880

The Epson Stylus Pro 3880 is an A2+ large format printer, ideal; for producing big prints.


If you like the idea of producing big prints, you’ve got two options: upload your shots to a pro-lab, pay a fee and receive your results in the post, or invest in a large format printer like the Epson Stylus Pro 3880 and produce large prints instantly in your own home.
The Pro 3880 is one of Epson’s most compact large format printers and is designed to print up to A2+ in size. The ‘+’ means that it’s capable of printing a width of 17in - slightly larger than the standard A2 width of  16.5in. There’s no official ‘A2+’ paper size though, so you’d need to cut your own paper. If you do this, the 3880 will print up to a length of 37.4in, so that’s a pretty big panorama! 
The Stylus Pro 3880 uses a similar K3+ ink system to the one found in Epson’s A3+ 2880. Featuring a 9-colour pigment ink system with separate cartridges for each individual colour, there are four black inks (Photo Black, Light Black, Light Light Black and Matte Black) that help deliver a well-balanced grayscale for black and white images. Rather than switching between Matte and Photo black cartridges, the Pro 3880 fits all nine inks in the cartridge bay. This means there’s no hassle when you want to print on different types of media and it automatically decides which black ink to use as the media type is selected in the printer options. It uses Epson’s Micro Piezo print head technology and prints bi-directionally to speed up its printing times.
Setting up the Pro 3880 with our test PC couldn’t have been easier. It took five minutes to install the driver and, once connected via USB 2.0, we were ready to print. The 2880x 1440dpi resolution is fine enough for high-end prints and the advanced B&W Photo mode is a great way of optimizing mono images. It took 12mins 31secs to churn out an A2 borderless print with the quality set to Super Photo and High Speed selected. The printer was quiet in operation and reviewing our test prints revealed images packed with detail and full of faithful colour.
At £979, it’s a big sum to pay for an A2+ printer, especially when a one-off 135gsm A2 print from a pro-lab costs as little as £18. Therefore to get your money’s worth you’ll need to use it regularly. Each cartridge holds 80ml of ink, so should last for some time, but replacements cost around £47 each, so refilling the whole system would set you back £423 or so.
If it’s an A2 printer and exceptional results you’re after, the Epson Stylus Pro 3880 makes a great, luxury choice, but if you can get away with A3+, we’d be tempted to save £500 and settle for the award-winning Epson R2880.


AT A GLANCE
Street price: £979
Refill cost: £423
Cartridges: Cyan, Vivid Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Vivid Light Magenta, Light Black, Light Light Black, Photo Black, Matte Black
Price per cartridge: £47
Interface: USB 2.0/Ethernet
Max print size: A2+
Borderless printing: Yes
Print resolution: 2880x1440dpi
A2+ print time: 12mins 31secs
System requirements: Windows 2000/XP/XP x64/Vista
Mac OS X 10.3.9/10.4.x/10.5.x
Dimensions: 257x684x376 mm
Weight: 18.5kg

www.epson.co.uk