Thank You Epson: My Epson Artisan 800

My brand new Epson Artisan 800 arrived yesterday and I could hardly wait to take it out of the box and get it set up. I received this printer as a no strings attached gift from Epson when they sponsored the Sparkplugging team to go to Blog World Expo.

First of all let me say that it is very sleek and modern (read: sexy!) looking. A combination of matte and glossy black with a full color touch control screen!

It is a serious all in one. Printer, Scanner, Copier, Fax, Photo Printer and CD Printer (uses printable CDRs) - all the while being WIFI enabled! This means that I can print from my laptop and my son can print from his computer in the other room. Nice!

Here is MY Epson Artisan 800:

What I’ve enjoyed so far:

• The touch screen and ‘at printer’ controls. I have never owned one that I could control from the printer itself.
• It’s fast! I printed out two months worth of my PayPal records in less than a minute.
• The color printing. It is vibrant and crisp. Before now I’ve used a solid ink printer and could never print on photo paper. This one produces beautiful prints.
• Printing on a printable CDR. I don’t know if I’ll be able to give up my ‘Sharpie Marker on the naked CD’ habit - but I’m willing to give it a try.
• I’m geeked about being able to send and receive faxes. I’ve never had this ability in my home office before and it is truly just in the nick of time too - I need this ability for client contracts and proposals.

Some things I plan to try soon:

I want to create and print a flyer for my local design business. We need something we can hand to a potential client that shares more than is included on our business cards. I want to take screenshots of some of our best work and include them in the brochure. From what I’ve seen from the Epson Artisan 800 so far, it will produce these images with excellence.

I also want to print my own postcards - for the holidays and for business promotions. As soon as I finish one of these projects, I’ll share the results and show you how it looks!