Epson 1400 Printer

I was thinking of buying an Epson R2400 printer, but noticed a short blurb about the new Epson 1400 in Outdoor photographer. Has anyone tried the 1400? How does it compare with the 2400, besides costing half as much money?

The 1400 is a dye based printer, for one thing, not pigment based like the 2400; this affects print longevity if you care about that issue. The 1400 also uses a 6-ink setup, removing the Light Black and Light Light Black inks found in the 2400's 8-ink config, as well as not having the 2400's differentiated Photo Black vs. Matte Black inks that can be switched out when using different papers. The 2400 therefore produces excellent B&W as well as color prints on both matte and glossy media, whereas I imagine you'd look at the 1400 mainly for color.

The 1400 and 2400 have the same maximum resolution specification, 5760 x 1440 dpi. However the 1400 has newer head technology for possibly faster print speed at high quality settings.

The 1400 doesn't appear to support any roll media, which the 2400 does. From looking at the specs, I'd say the 1400 likely has other media limitations, such as a narrower range of thickness and smaller maximum printable area if you wanted to use custom sized sheet media for larger prints.

Don't forget Epson's model 1800 if you would like a pigment based printer at a lower price point. However for all of these small desktop printers, keep in mind that the largest cost by far is not the initial purchase price but on-going operations -- ink in particular, because of the small cartridges. On my 2400, the ink that I've consumed so far has cost much more than the original price of the printer. For this reason some folks have looked at the larger 3800 which as 80ml ink cartridges. While it's initially a little higher priced than the 2400 or 1800, factoring in ink costs would actually make it break even very quickly (if not immediately at the time of purchase) and be cheaper to operate, the more prints are put through it.

Just a few thoughts to consider... as always, the suitability of each model depends on what you want to do with it.

Excellent notes, Royce ...