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Epson Stylus Photo 1400: It’s taken a long time to get round to writing my review of Epson’s replacement for the much loved 1280 / 1290 / 1290S - I’ve been too busy using my Epson Stylus Photo 1400 to write about it. My original plan was to use the printer for a month or two before selling it on to a friend, but John never did get his Epson Stylus Photo 1400. The Epson 1400 is an excellent printer, and at a very reasonable price, but ink costs and cartridge availability are it’s main weaknesses. If you’re moving from the 1290/1270/1280/1290S you will find your ink costs increase substantially.
Although the Stylus Photo 1400 actually has a pretty good output per cartridge with main colours good for about 100 A4 photos, the light colours last about half this and since a Light Magenta and a Light Cyan cartridge for the Epson Stylus Photo 1400 will cost you slightly more than all 5 colours for the 1290, and you do still need to buy the others when they run out too, it will be more expensive to run. Ink cartridges for the Epson Stylus Photo 1400 are also extremely difficult to find - They are only used in that one printer, so I’ve found in the UK that only a couple of the bigger online stockists keep them. Most don’t. If you run out on a Saturday night your chances of finding any in a local computer store are about nil. On the plus side print quality from the new printer is excellent - glossy prints especially are beautiful - but not noticeably better than the 1290 though, so the main gains are in speed - it wouldn’t be hard to be faster than the 1290 - and in print life which with the new Claria inks is up from 25 to up to 200 years. The Epson Stylus Photo 1400 is an excellent printer in many ways but is it what you’re looking for?
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