Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Epson Expression Photo XP-850 Printer


"Product was received for free in exchange for an honest review."

 EPSON EXPRESSION PHOTO XP-850 PRINTER

Spring has officially sprung, and nothing captures the warmth of sunshine and fun of backyard barbeques like personal photography. With the Epson Expression Photo XP-850 Small-in-One printing, scanning and preserving those seasonal memories is a breath of fresh spring-time air.
 

Designed for Creativity.

Achieve superior photo quality with the Expression Photo XP-850, delivering premium performance in a Small-in-One printer design. Ideal for photo enthusiasts and families, this sleek performer delivers brilliant photos with Claria® Photo HD 6-color inks for smooth gradations and amazing skin tones. The XP-850 also prints at remarkable speeds, delivering 4" x 6" photos in as fast as 10 seconds. Always ready to print, it features a dedicated photo tray, as well as an auto-extend output paper tray. Easily take on any creative project with direct CD/DVD printing, plus a rear paper feed for card stock, envelopes and more. The XP-850 also offers a list of productivity features — 2-sided print / copy / scan with intuitive gesture navigation, plus a 30-page Automatic Document Feeder with color fax. Featuring convenient wireless and Ethernet networking, the XP-850 can be shared with everyone in the family. It's all at your fingertips with the Expression Photo XP-850.
 

 


 

OUR THOUGHTS

This is one cool printer!  Our first color printer was an inkjet, purchased many years ago and inkjets have come really far in all those years!  Epson not only sent us the printer, but a lot of media to go with it - Premium Glossy Photo Paper in several sizes, and printable CD's.  My favorite part: the photo quality is just amazing!  That is, once you use the right settings, LOL!!  The first time I printed a photo using the Epson Expression Photo XP-850, I forgot to set the printer settings and used the default settings – it wasn’t bad, about as good as the original inkjet photo printers, but I was really disappointed.  Until I realized my mistake, got it corrected, and then was WOWED with the final version.  Most of the time I don't get my photos printed, because you never really know what you’re going to get.  I’ve had some that looked fantastic on the screen, but was then less than pleased at the print quality when picking them up from the photo store, or the print quality of older inkjet printers - nice, but not *great*.  I have lots of photos I want to frame, so now I can!  The very first one to be framed is the cover art I did for my new paleo cookbook, Cavemom's Cooking, which will have its place of honor on my kitchen wall.

My husband did all the setup work to install the Expression Photo XP-850 in our home office. It really didn’t take too long and he had mostly good things to say about the whole installation process – with the exception of that it wants you to install some toolbar as part of the installation.  But, you can opt out of that (we did).  It can be set up wireless which is awesome for our small office – it’s across the room and we aren’t tripping over cables!  As an IT professional, he said the wireless setup wasn't as straightforward as it could be, and the printer seemed to "forget" its wireless setup, as it worked that night, but needed to be re-set up the next day.  He also said the management and configuration cability was limited in comparison to installing other leading brand printers. 

Now, you can get labels to print for CD/DVD’s, but this printer actually allows you to print ON the CD/DVD!!  How cool is that??  No more messing around with getting the sticky label on just right.  You can choose your text, font, everything! My husband is having lots of fun with this option, in fact just ordered a new spindle just for that purpose! I think we may have created a monster there . . .

One option that I think is THE coolest – is the ability to print right from your smartphone, iphone, ipad, tablet, or computer.  I mean, printing wireless from my pc is one thing, but to be able to print from my phone?  AWESOME!!  Granted, I don’t have a smartphone yet, but my old phone’s pretty near death and a smartphone will be my next upgrade.  And I take LOTS of pictures with my phone! Another great feature, I can even print directly from my camera’s memory card!  I just got a new digital camera and I am so pleased with the quality of pictures it takes, so I am super excited to get outdoor photos of my son this summer – and now that I can print great quality photos myself, it just makes it that much easier to share photos with the grandparents, who are always asking for photos!  The printer also features a touchscreen, where you can preview your photos and even do a little photo editing.

This printer has other options, too, which make it an excellent choice for a home office.  Not only can I print, but I can scan, copy, and fax!  The scanned in pictures are of excellent quality, too!  For all that it does, it's a nice SMALL compact design, not a big gigantic unit.  I feel like I have the best of both worlds now – last fall we purchased a new color laser printer to replace our “still works but is too old to work with new software” black and white laser printer.  While laser printing is preferable to me for some things, photos are not one of them. And while that color laser printer is pretty cool, it doesn’t have anywhere near the amazing features the Expression Photo XP-850 does.

Highly recommended – perfect for the home office!

***Please note that I received no form of monetary compensation for this post. The opinions expressed in this review are my own and were not influenced in any way. Please note that I am not responsible for the delivery of this prize and can not be held accountable if, for any reason, is it not received. Furthermore, I am in no way liable for any injuries that may result from the use or misuse of this product. ***

 

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