Radical Epson printer appears at Cebit

15th March - 2002
By Ian Burley

Epson set to shake up the photo ink-jet market with radical PM-950C

UPDATE 25th April - Epson announces A3+ Stylus 2100 Photo - click here.
UPDATE 11th April - first hands on review with print test analysis: click here.
UPDATE 7th April - DPN preview: click here.
UPDATE 17th March - UK press release: click here.

As we expected, Epson Europe has revealed plans to introduce radical new photo printers this year. At CeBIT 2002, in Hannover, Germany, we found a solitary Epson PM-950C A4 photo ink-jet printer being demonstrated. No leaflets were available to take away, so all the information we have is based on our conversations with Epson staff on the stand. We have taken a number of pictures of the printer (see below).

Note the fitted paper cutter and cloth collector
for trimmings.

We were also told that the wide carriage (A3), pigment ink-based, PM-4000PX, launched last week in Japan (click here), was being shown to VIP guests in a private meeting room on the stand.

The paper cutter is standard and can be removed
as required

The 7-colour (black plus three primary and three photo colours) PM-950C is not actually a brand-new printer, but it has only been available in Japan for the last year since its launch there. It’s a dye-based printer and features replaceable ink tanks for each colour. Print resolution is 1440x2880 dots per inch (dpi), up from the previous Epson maximum of 720x2880dpi. The dots are also very small; just 2 picolitres, or half the volume Epson’s current European photo ink-jet printers can manage.

The roll paper holder is a much neater arrangement
than before and appears to allow the loading of
sheet and roll paper at the same time.

And what about that seventh colour? Here, we received a confusing message. In Japan that colour is an intermediate shade of yellow. However, we were told that in Germany the seventh ink will be black, making two blacks in all. If that’s not confusing enough, the UK and US markets, we were told, could choose grey as the seventh colour. It all relates to the colour preferences of different countries. In Japan, the strong preference is for richer colours that tend towards yellow, while in the West we like more subdued colours.

The no less than seven ink separate ink tanks
is very reminiscent of Canon’s S800 and
S900/9000 series printers.

The PM-950C has lots of novel features as standard, including what looks like a permanent roll paper holder and a clip-on paper cutter. The paper cutter comes with a cloth collector that hangs in front of the printer to catch the left over trimmings. There is also a direct CD printing facility.

This side profile shows how the cloth paper
trimmings collector hangs over the edge
of the desk.

When we asked how fast the PM-950C is, again the answer was a bit vague, but apparently an A4 photo takes about four minutes to print, depending on the size of the file.

It appears that both USB and parallel port
connections are supported

You can expect to be able to buy a PM-950C from some time in May and the European price will be about €500, or £315 - roughly US$440. This makes the PM-950C a direct competitor with new Canon’s S900 (reviewed here).

No doubt we will be bringing you further, confirmed, details about the PM-950C and the PM-4000X in the near future.

www.epson.co.uk

UPDATE 17th March - UK press release: click here.

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