Epson R2000, R3000 or 3880 Printer

[bitm2007]

Hi

I was planning to replace my Epson R1900 printer with the 3880, largely based on lower priced ink per ml. That's was until I studied the cost of home printing reports from Red River Paper closely

http://www.redrivercatalog.com/cost-of-inkjet-printing.html

If their calculations and mine are correct the 3380 uses more ink per print than either my R1900 or it's replacement the R2000.

R1900 116.28 ml of ink for 200 10x8 inch prints at 1440 dpi
R2000 115.26 ml of ink for 200 10x8 inch prints at 1440 dpi
3880 148.92 ml of ink for 200 10x8 inch prints at 1440 dpi

Has anybody else who has moved up from either the R1900 or R2000 found the 3880 or indeed the R3000 that has the same ink set to be more ink thirsty ?.

 

[Jeffrey]

I have the 3880 and think it is phenomenal. I don't pay much attention to the cost simply because I do not print a lot of images. The 3880 is clearly the way to go. You can always send your work out to a pro house if you need a better quality print.

 

[privatebydesign]

Even if the quantity is correct, and they point out they are relying on the printers own internal program to get the 3880's figures, the fact is the ink is so much cheaper than for the 1900 the 3880 is still much cheaper to run.

 

[Sith Zombie]

I had a 3880 [sold it last year] and the ink lasts for ages. I still had on average 50% ink left from the first set of carts when I sold it. The carts are huge and although replacing the whole bunch is fairly costly, you'll find that your using some of the colours more than others, so some colours won't need replacing for a long time. In the long run, it beats a smaller printer for cost efficiency easily.

 

[bitm2007]

On Amazon UK most of the cartridges for the R2000 are retailing £13.92 each, most for the 3880 are £40.17 each. At those prices the 115.26 ml of ink for the R2000 would cost £94.37, 154 ml for the 3380 £77.32. Factor in that the 3880 requires maintenance cartridges (£15.23) and that it uses 4.6ml (costing £2.31) of ink every time you switch from Matt to Photo Black, then another 1.6ml (80p) to switch back and i'm questioning how much of a saving I will actually make. Hence the question.

 

[Sith Zombie]

Well one 80mm cart for the 3880 is say £40
If you spent £56 on 4 R2000 carts you'd get 68mm of ink [17mm each]
So you get around 12mm extra with the 3880, and save £16 which isn't too bad

As far as I'm aware, the R2000 will use ink for swapping blacks too, same as the R3000 and 3880. It's not that big a deal unless your continuously swapping for matt to gloss paper. I used semi gloss most of the time, so didn't swap too often. I wouldn't worry about the maintenance cart too much, mine never needed swapping out.

There are other advantages to the 3880 too, such as bigger print sizes and grey carts for better black and white prints.

You'll save money, but it's totally dependent on how much you'll be printing.

 

[bitm2007]

Well one 80mm cart for the 3880 is say £40
If you spent £56 on 4 R2000 carts you'd get 68mm of ink [17mm each]
So you get around 12mm extra with the 3880, and save £16 which isn't too bad

There's no question that the ink cost per ml for the 3380 is far better value than the R2000, but if Red Rivers figures are correct the 3380 drinks it 1.292 times faster than R2000. So the savings in real terms aren't as great as your figures suggest. What I really need to know is does the 3380 really drink ink quicker than the 3880 ?.

Black swapping is also a cost factor, as the R2000 has individual ink lines for each black. The R3000 and 3380 do not, hence the costly loss of ink when swapping.

 

[Lichtgestalt]

i have the R2880 and the R3880.
both are great printers.

if you worry about ink cost then printing maybe is not for you.

honest i don´t understand why some people want to print themself.
for most it´s cheaper to send images to professionel print services.
they don´t even like to print themself and complain about the cost all the time.
they print on the cheapest third party "photo" paper they can get and so the results are at best mediocre. and all that for lot of money.

i print on hahnemühle paper that cost 4 euro a sheet. ink is only a fraction of the cost.
i don´t worry about ink cost... the clients pay for it.

but when i would ONLY print for myself i would use a good print service.

 

[bitm2007]

if you worry about ink cost then printing maybe is not for you.

My business model relies on selling large quantities of small prints at low mark-ups. The convenience of so called home printing and the cost of ink per print are therefore both extremely important to me.

 

[alexanderferdinand]

I would take the 3880.
(I have the 3800 for five years now, I am very satisfied with it)
Efficiency and the ability to print A2 are the main reasons.

 

[Gert Arijs]

I have two R2880 printers. I bought them used for less then one new R2880 (that is: my both printers combined and including some (12-15) replacement cardridges). I use it to print for clients on location. It takes about 3 minutes to print A4 (about 8x12 inches), so it's usefull to have two for larger numbers of prints.

If you don't need to print on location, I'd use online printer services. That's cheaper, but not as fast and you cannot tweak things as needed.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I have been using a 3880. I use Cone inks in it, and this makes the cost of ink a much smaller issue, since it costs 1/4 of Epson's price. I see a local has a 4880 that he is selling for $325. Its been sitting for a year, probably more, so it might be a project to get started up, but it has a roll feed, which is a feature sadly missing from the 3880.