Epson 3880 vs P800?

welly

welly

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Now I'm going all digital I'll be wanting a way to print my photographs. I used to have an Epson 3880 way back (or may have been just the 3800, I forget) which was an amazing printer. It seems digital printing has moved on since I last touched digital.

I've seen Epson 3880s on ebay for as little as 300 quid, which seems extraordinarily cheap. I do realise these printers are getting on a bit though so perhaps a reflection of that.

I'm looking for some advice whether it's worth the additional expense of the P800 over the 3880 (I could buy two or three 3880s for the price of a new P800).

My concern about a cheap 3880 would be print heads needing replacing, new set of inks which would definitely put it in the P800 price range.

Advice?

Thanks!
 
I've got an SP4800 which is fab. I have watches set up on fleabay for 220ml carts and pay from £20 for the yellow/cyan/magentas through to £50-60 for the light colours and the blacks. I've not paid full whack for a single cart yet and have slowly built up a 220ml spare one of everything. I'm using 2009 inks without a problem. I picked it up 2nd hand 2 or 3 years ago from a friend who was a printer by trade and had it "lying around". I knew he looked after his stuff and apart from a temperamental black jet, it's been a trooper.

If you can get one where you have a degree of faith in the care that's been taken with it, I'd say go for the 3880... However if it breaks after 5 minutes.... sadface...

If my 4800 breaks, I'll probably sell the carts on eBay and buy new. The risk (and effort) of getting another one hoofed into my office isn't worth the "oh crap it's broken - need to move it again".
 
Ive had the 3800, 3880 and the p800 , the last one was a great improvement. The 3880 was a great printer but defo still had the blocked head problem and it really does seem to be sorted on the p800. Been weeks between prints occasionally and it just performs brilliantly every time and it really does have a great footprint. A very reliable piece of kit.
 
gerry s said:
Ive had the 3800, 3880 and the p800 , the last one was a great improvement. The 3880 was a great printer but defo still had the blocked head problem and it really does seem to be sorted on the p800. Been weeks between prints occasionally and it just performs brilliantly every time and it really does have a great footprint. A very reliable piece of kit.
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Is the P800 much smaller than the 3880? Or at least a little bit lighter? The 3880 was a lump! I'm in no massive rush at the moment, need to get making photographs first so perhaps by the end of the year I might have saved up enough for the P800.

Also, would you suggest you can genuinely make prints that could sell? Assuming an image worth selling!

I printed a lot on my 3880, and while I was always blown away by the print quality, I was always curious as to whether any of my prints could sell. I suppose there's a market for all quality of print though!
 
welly said:
Is the P800 much smaller than the 3880? Or at least a little bit lighter? The 3880 was a lump! I'm in no massive rush at the moment, need to get making photographs first so perhaps by the end of the year I might have saved up enough for the P800.

Also, would you suggest you can genuinely make prints that could sell? Assuming an image worth selling!

I printed a lot on my 3880, and while I was always blown away by the print quality, I was always curious as to whether any of my prints could sell. I suppose there's a market for all quality of print though!
Click to expand...

I have a P600 (A3+) and the print quality is easily on par with prints I was getting from DSCL.
 
You can definitely print exhibition quality prints...………..
680cm widex37cm deepx25cm high 19.5 kg (43 lbs)

Northlight images always do a very good printer review
 
I have the P800 but use Permajet ink and papers. The quality seems just as good with the Permajet ink/paper and you get 'free' profiles for your own printer rather than generic profiles.

If you do decide to go for the P800, keep a lookout for special deals. When I got mine, I got a roll feeder free of charge together with a free roll of lustre paper. It was only advertised on the Epson website but I bought mine cheaper from Wex. Wex didn't mention the freebies but when I added them they came into the basket at £0.00. Wex's special offer at the time was a free 50 pack of Permajet paper (A3) and that was added automatically by Wex's site, so I ended up with the whole lot for just the price of the printer. Result!!
 
I've had the 3800 and have the 3880. I asked about the differences between the 3880 and P800 at the Photography Show, as the only significant difference I could spot from the brochures was that the later printer could handle panoramas. The Epson rep confirmed that as the only real difference.
 
welly said:
Also, would you suggest you can genuinely make prints that could sell? Assuming an image worth selling!

I printed a lot on my 3880, and while I was always blown away by the print quality, I was always curious as to whether any of my prints could sell. I suppose there's a market for all quality of print though!
Click to expand...

I have sold prints from the Epsons, and I amusingly had to correct the presenter on one workshop who mistook the Epson black and white prints (I only do black and white) on Hahnemuele Photo Rag for wet prints. Admittedly, they were in protective sleeves that disguised the surface somewhat.
 
StephenM said:
I've had the 3800 and have the 3880. I asked about the differences between the 3880 and P800 at the Photography Show, as the only significant difference I could spot from the brochures was that the later printer could handle panoramas. The Epson rep confirmed that as the only real difference.
Click to expand...

Thank you! You may haver saved me some money. I may pick myself up a 3880 bargain in which case. Not really that interested in panoramas (cannot be bothered to stitch loads of images together and hope they match!), Mainly interested in printing 11x14s and 17x22s, plus some high quality 8x10s.
 
Be careful.... it’s still fairly well established that the p800 doesn’t suffer from blocked heads whereas the 3880 does, I know because it happened to me several times and in the end they couldn’t be cleaned and it was new head time which is when I went for the p800.
 
Thought I’d chime in here...

I use a 3880 but never really suffered any print head blockage like some folks do. As a full-time photographer I print hundreds a year but I can go couple of months without touching the printer at all. So it doesn’t happen to all 3880’s. Yes, occasionally you need to run a head clean but this is required from time to time with any printer.

Secondly, you need to know that when you buy a new 3880, you do NOT get a full/normal size cartridges, only the much reduced ‘demo’ ones. So you cannot compare like for like.

If you can find a genuine good unit, I would not hesitate buying one, especially at that silly price.

Hope that helps.
 
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