Epson Artisan 710 Wireless Color Inkjet All-In-One Printer

5 comments

1. 

   Average Joe on December 17, 2009 at 7:53 pm

   The Epson Artisan 710 is a remarkable printer. If you haven’t owned a photo printer since the mid 90’s, it’s time to take another look as technology has come a long way. Gone are the days of dried out ink heads because the printer wasn’t used for a week. Gone are the blurry, pixilated nasty images that people tried to pass off as photos. These machines go the extra mile and really print excellent photos.

   Back in July 09, I purchased a Canon MP9800 for my wife’s birthday. She fell in love with it and has been happily printing photos. When she initial saw this printer, she snubbed her nose at it and said she would expect the Canon to be her #1 choice. She laughed even more when she hear it printing, as it sounded like a squeaky mouse.

   Well, after putting both printers through their paces, she was surprised to find that she really liked the Epson photos better. I even did a blind photo test, printing 2 8×10 photos on Canon’s Pro platinum photo paper. (Yes, I didn’t even use the Epson paper) The photo selected was a scenery action shot where we were in a car traveling about 45 mps. After reviewing the photos, it took her about 30 seconds to select a winner. She was very surprised when I told her it was the Epson’s photo. Imagine that, Epson beat Canon using Canon’s own paper. Just to make it fair, I printed the same picture using different settings on the Canon, but the outcome was still the same. The 710 still won in clarity, detail and overall look.

   Next, we took our digital prints to Costco and had some 4×6 pictures printed. We printed the same pictures using the Epson and Canon. To us, the Canon and Costco pictures looked similar while the Epson’s colors just looked better and again, the picture had more detail. Now, don’t get me wrong, both home printers’ photos looked better than Costco’s, but the Epson was our personal choice.

   The Epson has a multifunction paper tray, which means you will be swapping out normal paper with the photo paper. (I really don’t know why anyone would want to waste the photo ink on non photos.) The tray does feel like wimpy plastic and has little plastic slides to adjust for paper size that are annoying. This tray and the slides are one of the major draw backs of the Epson. On the other hand, while the Canon has a dedicated photo tray in the back, but when you button up the Canon so dust can’t get into it, the photo paper has to be removed.
   
   The Epson also has duplex printing, but again, you know my opinion about printing non photos with these types of machines. I guess you could use just the black ink and not print color documents, but to me, it still isn’t a good use of the machine.

   Our only other complaint about the Epson is that it squeaks when printing while the Canon is very quite.

   So as a photo printer, the Epson Artisan 710 is very nice. It comes with a 2 year warranty which is a nice touch.

   We haven’t had this printer long enough to say anything about the longevity of the product, but it seems to be on par with the Canon MP980, excluding the paper tray.

   Ok, so here is the kicker for all photo printers, the ink costs. This Epson uses 6 ink cartridges which can be replaced individually.
   
   Since this is a photo printer, don’t be surprised when the ink disappears because you are printing color “stuff”. This is a photo printer, not a printer to put in Kate’s room so she can print stuff off the internet. That being said, the Canon and Epson photo ink costs are similar. Since July, we printed about 30 8×10 photos and about 50 4×6 prints on the Canon. So far, we only had to replace one grey ink but the others are getting low. To us, this was a great deal because we are lazy and never took our pictures to labs to be printed.
   
   I can’t say how many photos we will get out of the Epson printer, but we will be purchasing the extra capacity inks once we need them.
   
   We did like the Canon photo software better than the Epson photo software. With that being said, we would still recommend purchasing an expensive photo editing software suite such as Corel Paintshop photo or Adobe Photoshop elements.
   
   So in the end, my wife finally decided that the Canon printer will be donated to family and we would be keeping the Epson for personal use. We love having the ability to print photos at home. We use the scanner about once a week and it is nice having an extra USB port on the front of both printers. We are very happy with the Epson and look forward to printing Photo greeting cards this holiday season with it.
   

2. 

   M. Cheung on December 17, 2009 at 10:00 pm

   I recently got the Artisan 710 after already having the Artisan 800 for a while. With the exception of how much ink the 800 model seems to use, I’ve been more than happy with the printer. One printer wasn’t enough though and so the Artisan 710 seemed like an ideal addition at a lower cost. I was hoping the much smaller price tag wouldn’t mean smaller capabilities and lower quality but gave it a try anyway.

   First, it was easy to set up. Even the wireless. For some reason the wireless seemed easier to get connected than with the 800 model. Took about 15 minutes to get it up and running on my home network.

   My son is now using this as “his” printer with great success. He scans the music from school to input into music notation software so he can hear the notes played correctly. Notation software is very fussy about the scanners used and are usually not compatible. We were so pleased that this scanner worked with SmartScore. That makes it worth the price alone.

   Since we got it my son has printed off quite a bit of material for school projects and has yet (thankfully) to go through enough ink to warrant a new cartridge. My biggest complaint about the Artisan line is that if you do run out of ink in one cartridge, it won’t allow you to print anything until you replace it… or at least I haven’t figured out how to circumvent that issue yet. I always have a refill on hand for each cartridge just in case. I learned the hard way while working on something at midnight.

   The print quality of the 700 is on par with that of the 800. Photos are beautiful. Color management is terrific.

   For my use, now, I’m wondering if the 800 model is worth the extra 100 dollars. I don’t think it was but either way, I’m still happy with both models. There’s not much difference from what I can tell though so if you’re considering both, the 710 may fill the bill.

3. 

   Louise A. Dickens on December 17, 2009 at 10:12 pm

   I originally purchased an HP wireless printer at a Black Friday Sale. It worked for all of one day. Would not communicate with other computers in the house, wouldn’t scan or print unless you hooked it up with a USB cord (I have since heard this is a big problem with HP wireless printers). I spent three hours, yes three hours, on the phone with HP user support. They couldn’t figure out the problem either and said they would consult with their “next tier support” and call me the next day. They never called and the printer went back. I purchased the Epson Artisian 710 after getting a few recommendations from different sales people at the store and reading online reviews. I admit I was not sure it would be as easy to set up as they said after dealing with the HP. Was I in for a surprise. Within 30 minutes I had two computers working wirelessly with the Epson printer. The print quality is unbelievable. I didn’t find it noisy as others have posted. Printed very quickly from cold start up. Haven’t really tried scanning with it or copying on both sides but it’s not something I use that much anyway. I’ll play with those features later. The paper tray is kind of cheap, could be a better quality. The on printer display is large and easy to read and is extremely user friendly. Would have been nice if it had a fax but again, not a big deal for me. It is a little larger and heavier than other printers I’ve owned but this is not an issue for me. If you’re looking for an inexpensive wireless printer that is easy to set up and use I would highly recommend the Epson Artisian 710. Will update in a few months after I’ve had a chance to really use it.

4. 

   DLC on December 18, 2009 at 12:40 am

   I have a number of other printers and none of them seemed to like my Windows Vista OS. For over a year, I was totally unhappy with the quality of my printed-at-home photos. No longer. These are perfect, just perfect! Yes, the printer is noisy, but that was not important to me at all. I haven’t tried scanning or printing on a DVD, so I can’t speak to those issues. But if you are like me and crave quality photos you can print in an instant, this printer is wonderful!

5. 

   M. D. Mulhern on December 18, 2009 at 1:30 am

   This took a while to set up and install and is quite a large printer. But we have made some color copies nd the quality is amazing- they look original! Update to come- we are still experimenting with this item.