Looking at the P700

[Keith Cooper]

I've had a P700 on loan from Epson for a while and have written up a lengthy review if anyone's curious.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/epson-sc-p700-printer-review/

I've also looked at B&W printing

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/black-and-white-printing-with-the-p700/

There are also some videos, including one about making a ~4m long panoramic print on the P700, using roll paper.

 

[pharmacist]

Tell me: what is left in ink quantity after installing the setup cartridges and how much is the waste ink tank saturated when priming the print head with the setup cartridges ?

 

[Keith Cooper]

Tell me: what is left in ink quantity after installing the setup cartridges and how much is the waste ink tank saturated when priming the print head with the setup cartridges ?

see the screen shot in the conclusions of the review...

 

[pharmacist]

My goodness: this is terrible. You are actually forced to buy a new set of cartridges. So this is an ultimate extension or optimisation of the razor blade business model, which benefits Epson a lot. Now they can be sure the ink sale will sore for Epson, because I think it will now take a very long time before aftermarket / refilll cartridges will be available in the future or maybe never. I think the cracked BIOS method will be the only way to print with aftermarket cartridges with this printer.

 

[mikling]

At this point on a board mainly dedicated to refillers, it should be disclosed that the P700 and P900 share similarities not seen in an Epson lineup before. First despite what the reviewers are claiming, the P700 is NOT really a P600 replacement. The P700 is a smaller P900 with less features. First, as a good review from another publication has stated it shares the identical print engine as the P900. This is a similar concept to the Pro-1000 and Pro-2000 etc.... where the whole lineup shared the same printhead and print engine, setting the scene up for upgrades to a larger printer but with no extra workflows, ICCs etc.

My speculation is that the P700 printhead is identical to the P900 but since Epson printheads are not user replaceable it is a moot point.

As Pharmacist's point. Indeed you will see how everything from a technical standpoint "hangs" together. The P700 and P900 tanks are identical in exterior dimensions and share identical shells. The difference is that the P700 has internal plastic pieces that limit how large the bladder can expand and this "cuts" down the internal volume. So Epson could have made the tanks for the P900 fit into the P700 but they chose not to. Knowing this and understanding that these two printers share a large commonality, one could infer that they will consume nearly a similar quantity of ink during setup but the P700 will consume slightly less because it will have the benefit of saving the amt of ink in 4 inches of tubing during priming. Now get this however.....the P700 starts with tanks half the size of the P900. OK.

Now go back to the previous ownership of the P800. 3880. 3800 and recall the amount of ink required to setup these printers. Was that not approx 1/4 a tank? The initial tank was 80ml ( Not P800) .... so approx 20 ml was used? It's been a while but I am unable to find the figures. In any case, the ink delivery system will be very similar for the P700. P900 and the P800 etc.
This possibly leaves you with around 3-5ml for printing on with a 25ml tank on the P700.

Apparently the ink costs more for the P700 than the P900 per ml. This could be Epson's plan in pricing since Epson's pricing on the P700 is actually a lot less than the P900 yet they share possibly very similar construction costs but not identical. So my guess is that Epson is literally pricing the P700 to a specific price target that is attractive to prior P600 owners. This squeezes their gross margin on the P700 and it must be made up somehow. On the other hand one could argue that the cost of the tank, packaging and handling is common for the P700 and P900 so the cost of the ink is the same and the added cost per ml is for the packaging etc.

However the P700 is finally a 13" Epson pigment ink printer done right. This category of machine should always have had a pressurized system. ...but this is costly to manufacture. Remember in the past, Epson's wide format 4xxx series did not carry a pressurized system for that reason but now this small desktop does.

For people on this board, the chance of using third party supplies on this printer done right.....nearly zero in my estimation and many will literally choke on the cost per ml of OEM ink to keep it going. But it is a nice printer if you can afford to own it and keep it running. It's already stated in public that third party supplies cannot be used. So forget about refilling or purchasing compatible tanks.

 

[Keith Cooper]

As one of those 'reviewers', I do believe that the P700 replaces the P600 and will carry on describing it as such
Sure, it's rather more than the remodel that turned the PRO-10 into the PRO-300, but from a product lineup POV the P700 is the P600 replacement and that is all most purchasers will see.

I have a P900 on the way at some time, so will indeed see how things differ - the fact that Epson icc profiles are marked P700/P900 is a pretty big clue to similarities.

 

[mikling]

As one of those 'reviewers', I do believe that the P700 replaces the P600 and will carry on describing it as such
Sure, it's rather more than the remodel that turned the PRO-10 into the PRO-300, but from a product lineup POV the P700 is the P600 replacement and that is all most purchasers will see.

I have a P900 on the way at some time, so will indeed see how things differ - the fact that Epson icc profiles are marked P700/P900 is a pretty big clue to similarities.

Note what was stated prior " So my guess is that Epson is literally pricing the P700 to a specific price target that is attractive to prior P600 owners "

Keith you got the plastic inserts in the tanks completely wrong and they were not there to provide better ink flow or whatever as you had claimed. If you had understood pressurized bladders you will understand that the small pressure alone will force most of the ink out.

From a marketing standpoint The P700 takes the place of the prior P600 ...pricing and size that is where it sits . From a true technical standpoint, it is clearly more akin to a small P900 that is defeatured. That cannot be refuted one bit.

Sales volume on the P600 category likely did not justify a complete retooling for a unique model. Epson printing division profits are under duress. (So is Canon's as well) . So they elected to share the parts bin of the P900. No one outside of Epson will know if it was intentional or forced for economic reasons.

It's obvious that the engineer's preferred design is the P900. The P700 was forced upon them for marketing and economic reasons. I can't see any self respecting engineer to put out a P700 with the 25ml tanks that have the capacity to be twice as large and then have the printer go through most of it in the first setup. . I can see them saying, OK, we'll put it in production but that does not make sense. Arrrgh those marketing people.

The better P700 would be if it was programmed to accept the P900 tank size. Physically it likely would be able to it, depending on the pressurization pump volume capacity. See that happening? ...... Yeah me too.

Take note folks the Pro-1000 was likely in the same spot the P700 is in now. A lot of machine for the money because Canon was forced to do it because of the Epson P800 pricing at the time. It's cheaper to run a Pro-2000 but it is a lot more money than the 1000. See the P700 - P900 relationship?

 

[Keith Cooper]

It cannot be refuted - but I can say it's an irrelevance to many people The P700 replaces the P600

Glad to see I was 'completely wrong' about the tanks rather than just mistaken

As to your assorted conjectures about Epson and Canon's motivations, I can't really comment, other than noting some of it concurs with conversations I've had with people at the companies here and in Japan whilst some doesn't

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did some testing based on Keith's comprehensive P700 test in B/W mode, he is addressing some occurance of bronzing effects.
www.northlight-images.co.uk/black-and-white-printing-with-the-p700/
My P400 is currently out of action, so I did something simple and straight forward, I'm using a little desktop printer WF2010W running on refill with pigmented Durabrite like 3rd party inks , an unkown mix of various leftover inks from previous tests.
I ordered a P700 cartridge Pk - photo black and printed some B/W images in B/W mode with the matte paper setting which justt uses the black ink for all lightness tones, no byprint from other inks, and there is no ABW mode in the driver for this printer.
I printed on a glossy HP Premium Plus Photo Paper, an Aldi/Netbit glossy PE/RC paper and on a silk/semimatte paper and I'm comparing these prints with another ink - onto the same papers - with a Canon photo black PFI 105Bk which so far performs very well in Epson printers , and did as well on the P400. I got a black point of L*=1.2 on one paper with this ink. So I replaced the Epson ink in the refill cartridge and reprinted the images with this Canon ink and I'm getting this - yes, there is quite some bronzing visible - under daylight conditions - overcast - no direct sun, and this bronzing is visible in the lighter areas of the images, the darker and black areas look very good - no bronzing, so strange reflection effects as with some other 3rd party pigmen black inks.
These two inks perform quite similar - the bronzing in the lighter areas is in the same range of the images , the bronzing - a yellow/golden touch - is even slightly stronger with the Epson black than with the Canon black.
This Canon ink is already on the market since years, so I'm wondering that Epson is not doing better in this respect with a new ink set for a brand new printer. Canon printers offer a chroma/gloss optimizer option to reduce these effects, Epson printers do not.

 

[Keith Cooper]

One thing I'd note is the chromatic variation of the (ABW) bronzing I see with the P700 - they look like interference colours, subtly different from what I've called 'bronzing' in the past. The nearest I'd suggest is the sort of oxidation colours you someitimes see on steel where some heat has been applied to one part.

What was less welcome was that the effect is worst at the highest quality setting


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