Epson Stylus Photo 580 All In One Inkjet Printer

• All-in-one printer -- for photos, documents and CDs
• Borderless 4x6 photos in as fast as 13 sec; up to 30 ppm black/color text*
• 2.5" display and card slots to select, crop and enlarge photos -- PC free
• ClariaTM Hi definition ink for smudge, scratch, water and fade resistant prints
• Automatic photo correction, red-eye removal, direct printing onto CD/DVDs -- no messy labels

I''ve owned 4 or 5 other Epson printers (as well as several from HP) in the past, but the Stylus Photo RX580 all-in-one is the easiest to use printer I''ve ever had, with excellent picture quality and a very good built-in scanner as well. Combine that with the fact that it is the least expensive of the printers I have bought and you''ll see why I consider this a bargain.

Let me start with the scanner -it is quiet and fairly fast. The supplied TWAIN compatible software has three levels: fully automatic, "home" use, and professional. It works well. The resolution is fine for home use, although it is not a scanner for film or slides. The scanner integrates with the printer allowing use as a stand-alone copier. It can also copy photos directly to the face of an (inkjet printable) CD or DVD. And there are some interesting surprises -you can print an index of a memory card -then fill in a few choices (with a black pencil or pen -like a test answer sheet) and scan the index sheet and the printer will print photos from the memory card, only the photos you choose on the index sheet, sized and borders as you selected. Very cool -and easy to use. The scanner also allows you to directly prepare greeting cards without the computer.

The print quality is quite good. The Claria inks are dye-based inks (NOT pigment, as incorrectly stated in other reviews) giving them bright colors, and able to print on many surfaces. This is one of Epson''s "Hi-Definition" printers -which means tiny droplets and great pictures. The inks are separately replaceable, and available in two sizes (regular and high capacity -from Epson direct -50% more ink for only $5 more). The printer works best with Epson papers, and can print on virtually any stock Epson sells. It also creates excellent prints directly on printable CDs and DVDs -the results can look very good, and are much better than add -on labels.

The 2.5" built in color LCD is very useful -it allows meaningful dialogues with the printer as well as previews of images from memory cards, etc.

The printer is fully Mac compatible (as well as PC) and includes some useful software, including a CD/DVD print layout program.

What does it lack? Well, an USB cable -but, unfortunately, most prints ship without a cable. It doesn''t do paper sizes bigger than 8.5" wide, and its not aimed at professional photographers (who want larger images, higher resolution scanners, and more permanent pigment inks), but for home/office use it works quite well.

All in all an excellent all-in-one at a reasonable price. I''m very happy with it.

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My wife and I bought this mainly to print on DVDs/CDs, but we have discovered that this can do so much more! This is really an impressive product. Here is what we have tried so far.

1. Printing on DVDs/CDs--outstanding quality and the ink dries quickly.

2. Scanning--better than our HP 1315v (which we like) and a lot quieter.

3. Copying--only done black and white so far but it was crisp.

Things we look forward to trying: making our own family photos without having to pay high prices at a portrait studio (any size we want too); printing pics off of a PDA or cell phone; printing our own greeting cards by selecting what we want with a pencil or pen and then scanning our selections; printing photos on our choice of paper by marking our selections with a pencil and scanning the results and doing this all PC-free!

We haven''t found anything we dislike about this product but we have noticed a couple of things. First, your text/copies/pictures will look good depending on your quality of paper. We noticed that on cheap letter paper heavy amounts of ink will make the paper a little wet. It''s no big deal if it is something unimportant. Second, we didn''t like all of Epson''s backgrounds for the DVDs/CDs. We liked the ones from Memorex''s Expressit Label Design Studio a little better. So after some tinkering, my wife was able to convert Memorex''s backgrounds (using Corel Photo Album 6) into jpgs and put them into Epson''s folder of backgrounds. So that has worked great.

We really thought the small ink cartridges would be a problem but after printing about 5 CDs and some other small graphics the ink levels haven''t even moved. A coworker has an RX550 and has cautioned to remove the ink cartridges from the printer if you are going to be gone on a long trip (say more than a week). He was gone over a month and says the lack of use caused the ink to dry out. He had to get new cartridges and run the maintenance cycle 6 or 7 times to get back on track. We will probably take the cartridges out and seal them up when we go on long trips.

Overall this is a GREAT product! We are impressed and look forward to using it a lot!

November 11, 2006 UPDATE: Since we wrote this same review on Circuit City''s website, we still think this is a GREAT printer. The images printed on DVDs/CDs are excellent. We have noticed that it uses ink a little faster than non-photo printers but the color(s) that get used depend on the color of your images. That makes sense to us. We didn''t have any major problems with software installation. The only snag is that it wants to restart your computer before it is finished setting everything up. We were able to make choices and finish the setup (including the calibration page) by clicking on our choices in the background. After we were done, we clicked on the Windows message box in the foreground to restart the computer. It''s really no big deal.

Three more things. First, we still haven''t tried out all of the features. Second, when the printer first sucks in the paper it is a little noisy. It startles you, but you don''t need ear plugs. We quickly got used to it though. We can stand a little noise for great print quality. Third, after scouring the internet it looks like Newegg has the best deal on ink cartridges for this printer. We didn''t see any high capacity ink cartridges on their site but we figure that this will change eventually. Also, we figure that prices will come down a little once the regular capacity and high capacity cartridges become available at more businesses.

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I thing this printer is really good at each of its features. I have been very impresed with its printing of 4x6 pictures, which is the main reason we bought it. The pictures are very clear and well basically they look like they are supposed to. We have printed several pictures up to 8x10 and the quality does not have much of a drop off if any at all.

The scanner works well as well. We scanned a few pictures of Fenway taken with a 35mm. Instantly I was on the editor, first time using the software, and I made the picture look better than the one I scanned. I reprinted the picture and it looks very nice. Almost like being there again watching Pedro beat Mussina!

As far as black printing, for text, it leaves something to be desired. I usually would print my old all in one (Lexmark 125) on draft quality and it printed out fairly well. On draft quality here, it does not print very dark at all. I was disappointed in that, but when you change settings it looks sharp. It just uses more ink.

I was really impressed with the print to CD thing. I have never been able to do that, so the first time my wife and I tried it, and it turned out as well as it did, we were very happy.

Really good printer, considered this and the HP c5180, and choose this because it appeared to be better for pictures.

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Works as advertised as a printer, card reader, and copier, but the scanning is only fair. The print quality on Epson Premium Photo Paper Glossy (S041727) is outstanding, and at least as good, if not better than Wallyworld photo center or even the more expensive Kodak Perfect Picture mail-out prints. I''m printing 2 and 5 megapixel digital photos, and both turn out great. I''ve printed from computer and directly from the memory card, and the speed and quality are equally good in either mode.

If the scanner was good for anything but basic copying, I''d give this 4 or 5 stars. Even at very high DPI settings, a scan of a photograph is terrible. The scanner does not pick up a good range of color regardless of the settings you use. The scan function doesn''t even come close to the cheapo HP 2200C I bought for $10 at a garage sale. The "scan" function will be adequate for the kids'' school work and a couple of document copies you may need around the house or school, but don''t get this if you need it for high quality scans.

-1.5 stars for bad scanning, and -.5 stars for high ink consumption rate and cost.

I''ve read the reviews and not one of them mentioned the fantastic feature of photo restoration. I have restored many yellow 1960''s and 1970''s pictures and they look like I took them today. The colors are fantastic!! This printer even restores polaroid pictures. I have also printed copies of recent pictures and they too look wonderful. A professional photographer talked me into this printer and I''m so glad he did!! Everything else on the printer works well, as well.