Targeted
at corporates, this printer produces prints at a whopping 2,880x 720 dpi (dots
per inch) resolution, the highest we’ve seen so far. It weighs about 5.6 kg
and comes with both parallel and USB support. It can also be networked, using an
optional Ethernet card.
The Stylus 880 comes with two cartridges: black and color
(cyan, magenta, and yellow). It has quite a few neat features up its sleeve. The
drying speed of the ink on a printout, for example, is as low as 0.01 seconds.
It also boasts of a variable-sized droplet technology that uses larger dot sizes
for solid colors and smaller dot sizes for gradations and blends.
The printer claims to give 12 ppm (pages per minute) in black
and 11 in color while printing in economy mode. The black cartridge lasts for
about 900 pages with 5 percent coverage at 360 dpi, while the color cartridge
prints about 300 pages with 15 percent coverage.
It also installs the Epson Status Monitor during set up,
which provides an online consumption status of ink in its cartridges, thus
indicating the replacement time. The printer supports paper of varying thickness
from 0.08 mm to 0.23 mm, which means it can print on ordinary sheets, envelopes
and even Epson index cards.
The printer costs Rs 19,900 and has one-year carry-in
warranty. Its black and color cartridges come for Rs 1,150 and Rs 1,160
respectively.
Vini Goel in Bangalore