Home > Consumer Reviews > Epson Stylus Pro 3800 Printer Standard Model Photo Printer

I've been using this printer for over a year now. After getting my paper and profile choices dialed in (Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk with profile provided on Ilford's web site) the 3800 has been making consistently outstanding prints. Color prints are as good or better than Lightjet or Chromira prints I've had made by high-end professional labs. Black and white prints, using the ABW driver, exceed the quality of anything I was able to produce after years of work in the wet darkroom or messing around with 3d party inksets, tone curves, etc on earlier Epson printers. And the 3800 provides a near infinite range of toning options at the "touch of a button." The printer has worked flawlessly; not a clog yet. There are also some excellent on-line resources for the 3800(worth checking out before making the decision to buy). The only downsides for me have been the time and hassle involved in moving back and forth between the matte and glossy blacks (with the result that I almost never use matte papers anymore) and the cost of cartridges when you (finally) have to replace them. Although, to be fair, I'm just needing to replace my first cartridge after a year of moderate use. I expect that I will be very happy with this printer for years to come.

Bought this to replace an old Epson 3000. Its very fast, fairly quiet and turns out gorgeous prints. It's also much smaller than my old printer. There are 2 minor downsides. There is no paper feed tray...paper feeds from the top, or larger sheets can be fed through from the back. The paper output tray folds down from the front of the machine is quite flimsy. It works OK, but take care that its not in the way. Other than that I would highly recommend this machine.

The 3800 was my first printer. Made first rate prints right out of the box with Photoshop C3. You need to play with the platen gap to prevent banding on some of the papers, i.e., premium glossy - use "wider". Front door over output tray is the cheapest thing I've ever seen on an object over $100. Couldn't Epson find any real magnets? And no USB cord. Ultimately these things don't matter and the printer is first rate right out of the box.

First, this printer is big and heavy. It needs a lot of space to work.

When pulling the printer out of the box, be sure to follow the directions and lift the printer from the sides rather than the front and back. Lifting it front and back seems like it could do some damage.

Out of the box, the little piece of metal that holds the output tray closed came off and the output cover wouldn't stay closed. I re-seated the little piece of metal (it was stuck to the magnet) on the output tray and (I'm surprised to say) it has not come back off. The tray extensions to hold the input and output DO seem a little cheesy, though. I expected a little better.

I hooked the printer up both to a desktop machine via UPS and to a network. The network hookup was fairly painless and I've had no problems with it, though I'm an IT professional. Be aware that there are upgraded drivers on the internet.

The ink charging and printing was also not a problem. So far, I've run about 20 11x17s through the printer and the ink monitor bars haven't moved. Good thing as the replacement cartridges are $50 each.

Overall, I'm a little disappointed in the vibrancy of the colors. It may be the project I have been working on, or it may be that I don't have all of the color spaces aligned. I'll have to dig deeper on that.

I bought this printer because I wanted to print 17" x 22" genealogy charts in color. I also wanted pigment-based inks because they are much more fade resistant than dye-based inks. The 3800 has exceeded all my expectations. Setup was easy and the quality of photos printed on Epson media is superb. I'm delighted with the product!