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Comparison of the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 with the Stylus Pro 7880

The announcement of the 7900 Stylus Pro was made public by Meridian Cyber ​​Solutions on October 15, 2008 through a disclosure agreement with Epson America. With the launch of the new Epson 7900 business printer, many people are wondering if it will replace the Epson 7880 printer. If not, why did Epson introduce another 24-inch business printer and how do the Epson 7900 and Epson 7880 compare?

The Epson Stylus Pro 7900 is not a replacement for the Epson Stylus Pro 7880. The Epson 7900 will be an addition to Epson’s line of 24-inch professional printers. The Epson 7880 will remain a part of the Epson lineup for the foreseeable future.

The Epson 7880 has proven to be a solid production printer for photographers, fine artists, prepress and business users. The print quality, color gamut, flexibility, performance and price of the 7880 will continue to make it a very viable choice in professional inkjet printers. If you decide to buy an Epson 7880, your commitments are minimal or none.

So what makes the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 special? As good as the 7880 is; Epson has made significant improvements with the 7900 in terms of print quality, color gamut, ease of use and performance.

With the launch of the 7900 Stylus Pro, Epson introduces the HDR ink set, High Dynamic Range, with green and orange inks. In addition, the HDR ink set includes the long-awaited Matte Black and Auto-Switching Photo Black inks. Finally, users can select from three cartridge sizes including 150ml, 300ml and 700ml. 700ml cartridges offer the lowest pigment ink costs in Epson’s history. That compares to a maximum ink cartridge size of 220ml for the Epson 7880.

The following is a short list of comparisons between the Epson 7900 and the Epson 7880. You can refer to the following for information and a full comparison chart:

Ink: The 7900 10 HDR, High Dynamic Range inks, including Matte Black and Photo Black, as well as the new additions Orange and Green. That’s a total of 11 inks compared to the 7880’s 8 inks. (Note: matte black and photo black, a long-awaited feature.)

Print head: The 7900 uses a TFP technology, Thin Film Piezo, while the 7880 uses the old AMC MicroPiezo technology. Both have an ink-repellent coating, but the 7900’s print head is more than twice as large with 360 nozzles X 10 inks compared to the 7880 with 180 nozzles and 8 inks. Additionally, the Stylus Pro 7900 has nozzle checking and cleaning that was not available on the 7880.

Speed: The larger printhead speeds up the 7900 to nearly twice the speed of the 7880. A 20-by-30-inch print printed at 1440 by 720 high-speed dpi takes 12 minutes on the 7880 and 6 minutes, 39 seconds on the 7900.

Ease of use features: The 7900 has several enhancements not implemented in the 7880, these include: spindleless roll media loading (no more spindles); Rotary cutter instead of blade cutter that allows cutting even thick materials such as canvas and watercolor paper; and ePlaten technology for ease and accuracy of paper and media loading.

The 7880 will continue to be a real contender in the 24-inch professional inkjet market, but the Epson Stylus Pro 7900 offers significant advances that many die-hard professionals will find appealing.

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