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(hope this is in the right place) 
My trusty old Epson Photo Stylus 790 finally printed its last page around 2 months ago, and I had to get myself a new printer for my own personal work, as my standby HP DeskJet was getting very noisy.. So, I checked my finances to see what I could afford. Ah. Not a lot. Thinking back to when I bought the 790, I felt rather concerned, after all, it was pretty good at printing photographs, and what type of quality was I going to get for not a lot of cash?
Anyway my research finally revealed that there was very little available that could print photographs, and print directly onto CD/DVD as well (I decided that I wanted that facility) then I spotted this on the Argos website.
Epson R220 was £84.99 now £69.99
Sold! (I only had £70 to spend)
I jumped in the car (after checking the stock and reserving the last one!) and nipped up the road, paid my cash and took it home. Fairly standard Epson package (10 6x4 photo paper samples) an instruction leaflet and CD. No USB cable, but that was not a problem as I had a spare. (Note to others… remember a lot of printers do not come with cables!)
I was somewhat bemused by the fact I now had 6 little ink cartridges to play with, instead of my usual 2, but that’s progress I suppose.. Anyway, I followed the diagrams, removed the sticky tape, installed the ink, and plugged it in, following the sequence mentioned in the instruction sheet. Windows “saw” it straight away, and installation was painless. Within 10 minutes of unpacking I was printing my first picture. Using Epson’s own software, it walks you through the entire process, and is very easy to understand.
All the “advanced” settings are there if you want to tweak (i.e. ruin
) a picture, but for now the pre-sets are fine. The only fault I could find was it did not specify what way round the little photo paper was supposed to go. In the end it was “portrait style, and not “landscape” and thinking about it, that was pretty logical, as that’s the way the A4 paper is loaded…
It’s a lot quieter than my old printer, at least twice the resolution and faster. The CD/DVD printing option seems simple enough; there is a plastic tray that plugs into a little fold down hatch on the printer, and specific CD/DVD printing software is included, although I have not tested that yet, as I don’t have any printable discs (should have by Friday) It has so far tonight printed off a 30 sheet document, 10 photographs and some other bits, and quality has been top notch and as good as some of the more expensive printers we have at work (in fact, the photographs (borderless) from this are VERY good, and my friends could not believe the quality)
So in my opinion, if you want a nice little printer that prints photographs and directly onto CD/DVD media, you can’t go far wrong. Time will tell with ink consumption etc, but I intend never to use 3rd party ink for this machine, and will do my usual eBay search for the best deals for original ink
My trusty old Epson Photo Stylus 790 finally printed its last page around 2 months ago, and I had to get myself a new printer for my own personal work, as my standby HP DeskJet was getting very noisy.. So, I checked my finances to see what I could afford. Ah. Not a lot. Thinking back to when I bought the 790, I felt rather concerned, after all, it was pretty good at printing photographs, and what type of quality was I going to get for not a lot of cash?
Anyway my research finally revealed that there was very little available that could print photographs, and print directly onto CD/DVD as well (I decided that I wanted that facility) then I spotted this on the Argos website.
Epson R220 was £84.99 now £69.99
Sold! (I only had £70 to spend)
I jumped in the car (after checking the stock and reserving the last one!) and nipped up the road, paid my cash and took it home. Fairly standard Epson package (10 6x4 photo paper samples) an instruction leaflet and CD. No USB cable, but that was not a problem as I had a spare. (Note to others… remember a lot of printers do not come with cables!)
I was somewhat bemused by the fact I now had 6 little ink cartridges to play with, instead of my usual 2, but that’s progress I suppose.. Anyway, I followed the diagrams, removed the sticky tape, installed the ink, and plugged it in, following the sequence mentioned in the instruction sheet. Windows “saw” it straight away, and installation was painless. Within 10 minutes of unpacking I was printing my first picture. Using Epson’s own software, it walks you through the entire process, and is very easy to understand.
All the “advanced” settings are there if you want to tweak (i.e. ruin
) a picture, but for now the pre-sets are fine. The only fault I could find was it did not specify what way round the little photo paper was supposed to go. In the end it was “portrait style, and not “landscape” and thinking about it, that was pretty logical, as that’s the way the A4 paper is loaded… It’s a lot quieter than my old printer, at least twice the resolution and faster. The CD/DVD printing option seems simple enough; there is a plastic tray that plugs into a little fold down hatch on the printer, and specific CD/DVD printing software is included, although I have not tested that yet, as I don’t have any printable discs (should have by Friday) It has so far tonight printed off a 30 sheet document, 10 photographs and some other bits, and quality has been top notch and as good as some of the more expensive printers we have at work (in fact, the photographs (borderless) from this are VERY good, and my friends could not believe the quality)
So in my opinion, if you want a nice little printer that prints photographs and directly onto CD/DVD media, you can’t go far wrong. Time will tell with ink consumption etc, but I intend never to use 3rd party ink for this machine, and will do my usual eBay search for the best deals for original ink
Last edited:
some legal stuff that had to be printed and sent yesterday, so I sort of had to do the retail thing 
(or contact mucks 
