Epson Stylus Photo R290

The Epson R290 is positioned at a very comfortable place on the shelves, both with regard to the customer’s needs as well as Epson’s own portfolio. This photo printer will not fail to satisfy you, especially after you hear the price. Epson is a strong contender in the printer market, and the R290’s performance in our lab was as expected.

The printer is light, which helps should you require to move it every now and then. It’s even lighter on your pocket, but more on that later. At 450 x 282 x 187 mm, there’s little bulk. It weighs about 5.4Kg, which is not much; traditionally printers tend to be bigger and heavier. Anyway, once installed, printers are the last thing you would want to move around.

This printer doesn’t have a screen, but that’s all right (you won’t miss it). Cartridge installation is easy, there’s nothing to it. Only remember to install the driver CD before you plug the printer in. This way you know where to begin.

This is an A4 printer, which means it can manage 8x10, 5x7, 4x6, 3.5x5, 5x8, A6, A5, B5, Half Letter, Envelopes No 10, DL, C6, Letter and Legal. The device performed really well in our time tests, and normal text printouts were a breeze. In fact, the R290 did pretty well in printing color-intensive pictures as well.

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A colorful photo-print took about 1 minute and 36 seconds. The printer can handle gradients really well. Unlike most photo printers we’ve reviewed, the R290 managed to churn out the prints without any visible banding.

The black was true enough, which means there’s no blue tinge etc. Even the font test was quite satisfactory; there was no ink spillage. I did notice a couple of prints where the blacks spilled a bit, but that was only in the first and second picture. That reminds me, you have to align the cartridge before you start printing for the first time.

The Epson R290 costs Rs 11,500, and is a good deal if you need an easy solution to those printing blues. Consider this: you throw a birthday party, and right after the cake is cut you can simply print pics and distribute them. It’s that simple. As far as performance is concerned, we liked what we saw. I’d say, go for it.