Epson Stylus Color 880 review

Gallery

Verdict:

Review Date: 1 Aug 2001

Price when reviewed: (£121)

Reviewed By: Tim Danton

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Epson's Stylus Color 880 has held its place in our Top 50 for several months now.

The question is, can this jack-of-all-trades fend off tough new competition from the likes of Canon, HP and Xerox?

Design

Epson has long been a fan of big, chunky printers, and the 880 continues in this vein. It consumes loads of desk space and makes a fair bit of noise, too - not as much as the Xerox or Sharp, but far more than the HP DeskJets. Epson also loses ground to the HPs when it comes to setup - there are the usual tedious print alignment tests, while the 'easy to follow' setup poster was anything but. The see-through hatch is a nice touch, though, allowing you to check exactly how far through the document it is, while the driver provides information on the amount of time remaining.

Print quality

Yet again, we're impressed by Epson's quality when it comes to printing photos. The 880 and 790 come out best at reproducing skin tones and fine detail, with no visible dots. The 790 wins out for natural colours, but that's all. Where both Epsons lose ground is for text quality on plain paper, serif fonts being particularly poor. The 880 was better on coated paper, though.

Speed

The 880 can produce mediocre results quickly - if you want quality, you'll have to wait. It took over 11 minutes to produce the A4 photo. Even the newsletter took over 7 minutes.

Overall

Sadly for Epson, the competition now offers a better compromise between quality and speed. Despite the 880's low price, the HP DeskJet 959C is a better budget all-rounder.

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