Clearly both types of ink have come a long way since 2005, but generally I'd bet that even the old pigment inks last better than the Pro-100's dye inks, and work better on matte / 'art' papers-but not as well on glossy and luster papers.

I have done a lot of looking into pigment printers, especially those that are older and therefore presumably cheaper to acquire (which is much less the case than you'd think!).Īnyway, the most obvious comparison is that the Pixma Pro-100 / Pro-100S is a dye-ink printer, but the R1800 is a pigment-ink printer (UltraChrome Hi-Gloss inks). While I imagine the print head technology has improved a little since 2005, i would think the real difference would be in the ink tech we have now.Īnyone still using the R1800, any recommendations as whether to keep it or go for the upgrade?įirst a disclosure: we've got a Pixma Pro-100 at the office, but I've never used an R1800 (or its smaller and slightly older, but otherwise identical, sibling, the R800).

I would be very interested to know how this printer would now compare to a more current printer such as the Pixma 100s. When The R1800 was released it was considered fairly good hobbiest photo printer and retailed for quite a lot of money. I've just been gifted a 2005 Epson R1800 Photo Printer as the previous owner knew i was interested in buying the 'new-ish' Canon Pixma Pro 100s. I would not waste more than the cost of one set of ink cartridges if you see clogging issues in the printer output. I had mine serviced locally to try to overcome that but clogging problems progressively worsened. The gamut of new high end Epson printers is reported to be much wider than what the R1800 could deliver but that hardly is an issue for creating nicely colored prints.Īs I recall there was a built in 'kill switch' having to do with saturation of the ink pad that rendered the printer obsolete after a certain amount of use. I really like the color from this printer and its ink set but I have given up on it due to head clogging.

I have made many hundreds of prints, if not thousands, with the thing.

It still sort of works but it takes almost an entire set of increasingly hard to get ink cartridges to unclog it to make a few prints.Įven in its prime head clogging was a pain in the print carriage and I used it then at least once a week for several years. I have one of these sitting in my garage.

Epson stylus photo r1800 drivers