Epson’s Stylus Color 895

This high-resolution, photo-quality color inkjet printer supports a maximum resolution of 2880x720 dpi; you can even adjust the resolution from 360 to 2880 dpi. It has six color cartridges instead of the normal four, the extras being low-density magenta and cyan.

It has a PCMCIA slot and CompactFlash card adapter, which lets you insert memory cards like SmartMedia, Memory Stick, and IBM’s Microdrive. You can insert a card, preview, and print images stored in it directly without hooking the printer to a PC. It has a roll-paper handler for roll-paper banner printing. It has drivers for Windows and Mac, and connects via a USB port.

In our tests, it fared exceptionally well with some of the best line art and curves we’ve seen in inkjet printers. The fountain fill (a smooth gradient of gray) came out very well without any banding. Printing a full-page color image on photo paper, at a resolution of 1,440 dpi, took about 9 min, and the quality was very good. Text quality was also good, readable even at 2 pt font size. We printed a 31-page word document to check print speed. At the default resolution of 360 dpi, it took 15 min, which comes out to only 2 ppm against a rated speed of 7.8 ppm. The same test in Economy mode took 5.5 min, giving it a speed of 5.5 ppm, closer to its rated speed.

This printer takes in two cartridges (Rs 820 for color and Rs 790 for black). According to the rated figures at a resolution of 720 dpi and 60 percent coverage the color cartridge gives around 115 prints–around Rs 7 per printout, which is very good.

The black cartridge gives 115 printouts at 50 percent coverage.

Sachin Makhija at PCQ Labs