What They Want for Christmas – Epson Artisan 810 All-in-One Printer

I haven’t bought a new photo printer in a couple of years.  The one I had, an Epson Stylus (like the first one ever made) printed nice photos for its time.  They didn’t look like they came from a photo lab, but they looked ok in a picture frame.

Technology has come a long way and small, home inkjet printers now print lab quality photographs right in your home for a very reasonable price.

And these printers don’t just print anymore either.  They scan, they copy, they fax, they even charge your cell phone – at least the Epson Artisan 810 All-in-One printer does.

The Epson Artisan 810 All-in-One printer can pretty much handle any creative printing project your household can throw at it, even without a computer.

Some of the features & benefits:

• Smart, 7.8″ touch panel – large display lights up only the buttons you need; includes a 3.5″ LCD to preview, edit and print photos and more
• Built-in Wi-Fi, plus Ethernet, networking – print, scan, and access memory card slots¹ from any room in the house for built-in wireless and wired networking
• Ultra Hi-Definition prints – brilliant 4″ x 6″ photos in as fast as 10 seconds¹; DX5 MicroPiezo technology provides the finest color and detail without sacrificing speed
• Professional looking CDs/DVDs – print right onto ink jet printable CDs/DVDs, without labels
• Send faxes fast, even in color – fax in as fast as 3 seconds per page; store up to 60 speed dials and receive up to 180 pages in memory; also faxes legal-size documents; includes PC Fax¹ software
• Versatile paper handling – automatic, two-sided printing, and two automatic paper trays, plus 30-page Automatic Document Feeder to quickly copy, scan or fax stacks of originals
• Easily charge portable devices – free up a power outlet; charge cell phones and MP3 players
• One-of-a-kind projects – easily create coloring books, personal note paper, invitations and greeting cards using your own photos, PC-free
• Perfect photos made easy – Auto Photo Correction and red-eye removal with and without a computer
• Bring old, faded photos back to life – easily restore the color to faded photos
• Results ready to share – lab quality photos are smudge, scratch, water and fade resistant
• Epson Preferred^SM program – two-year limited warranty and free lifetime customer phone support with registration
• Individual ink cartridges – replace only the color you need
• Print from an iPhone or iPod touch – enjoy wireless printing from various mobile devices
• Preferred 3 to 1 by consumers – Artisan series of all-in-ones are #1 in photo quality

The video below, from EpsonTV on YouTube offers a great intro to the features and how and why the Artisan 810 will fit into your lifestyle.

The first thing I noticed about the Artisan 810 after getting it out of the box is its size.  It certainly is not a compact printer, but it still fit on the narrow shelf above my desk (it hangs off a bit but it is stable) so it’s not a big deal.  Certainly worth the trade off of the features, especially the double-sided printing which I think is part of what makes the unit bigger.

Wireless setup

My old printer was connected directly to my desktop computer, which I hardly ever use and prefer not to turn on, but it had to be on in order to print off our laptops.  With the wireless printing of the Artisan 810, I would no longer worry about that!

Except we could not get it connected wirelessly.

We followed the instructions in the quick install guide and in the manual and we could not get our network to see the printer, although the printer did see the network.  It took a call in to Epson and they talked my husband through a different way to install it than was in the manual.  I talked to a few other people who have this printer and theirs installed with no problem.  So, if you do purchase this printer and it will not install wirelessly the first time onto your network, just call Epson tech support and have them walk you through it. It didn’t take long for them to fix it!

After we finally got the printer on the network only one of our computers was really working with it.  Our two others were intermittent and the only solution was to reboot the router and then they would work, but rebooting the router every time we wanted to print was not a great solution.  We had to call our router manufacturer and they had to change some security settings and since then we have not had any connection problems.

Printing

I decided to test out the printing capabilities of the Artisan 810 by printing our Christmas cards at home this year.  I created the card and bought 4×6 envelopes to mail them in.

This is the image file for the card:

And when I printed it, this is what I got:

See how it didn’t seem to scale it to fit?

I tried so many different things, printing directly from a USB drive (which you can do on this printer and it is sooo cool), trying different software, and installing the driver again.  It turns out there is a setting in the page setup when you go to print on the “Page Layout” tab for borderless prints.   See the image below…

By changing the enlargement method and the expansion settings I was able to correct the problems I was having and my cards ended up printing correctly.

Next year I think I’ll do the new, popular size of Christmas cards that fit in a normal-sized business envelope.  Check out this video about how Epson makes it easy to print your own Christmas & holiday cards.

Print quality

If I were to show you a photograph that I printed from the Artisan 810 and the same photo printed from a professional lab, I doubt you could tell the difference.  They are quite simply gorgeous.  It’s no wonder the Artisan 810 has been rated #1 in photo quality.

STUNNING.

I am pretty sure part of the secret has to do with the fact that the Artisan 810 has five different ink colors rather than the traditional three.

You can see in the picture that there is the addition of a light cyan and a light magenta in the Artisan 810.

Summary

Despite the setup problems we had and the frustration with getting my cards to print correctly, I love this printer.  The print quality outshines anything I have ever seen INCLUDING some color laser printers I have used in the past.

While I haven’t used all the features yet, being able to print on a CD or DVD, print double sided, and print directly from a memory card are all features that will fit our lifestyle.

I also love that the paper tray can hold 2 sizes of paper at any given time, so I can keep 4×6 photo paper and regular 8×10 plain paper at the ready at all times and not have to worry about switching them out every time.

Where to to buy

You can buy the Artisan 810 online at the Epson Store or at Amazon.com for $199.99 with free ground shipping at both places.

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