Review of the Epson Stylus Pro 9800: Its First Year in Retrospect
I think there are far fewer negatives than positives, so I will address them first.
1. You have to perform an ink swap to switch your dark black ink from photo-black to matte black. For a brief time Epson offered the Stylus Pro 4000 which had 8 inks including both the matte black and the photo black, there was no need to swap dark black inks if you changed from photo paper to mat paper. This new generation still uses 8 inks but has added a light light black ink instead of offering the two varieties of dark black inks. The additional of light light black ink has enable the printer to produce finer gradations of tone and finer detail in the highlight area, but having to swap out the dark black inks to optimize printing on photo paper as opposed to matte paper is an inconvenience and an unfortunate waste of money.
2. There are quirks with the LCD menu on the printer. One in particular, comes up frequently with a message that says Power Cleaning? Y or N. Having been prompted many people select yes to this prompt, thereby executing a power cleaning cycle which wastes a good bit of ink and...