The tray-like contraption that facilitates this process clips on to the back of the unit, though that is the limit of its convenience. Those reservations aside, the P400 produces beautiful roll prints with no trace of tension banding.Īs with Epson’s previous photo-quality inkjets in the 13-inch range, thicker matte papers require a dedicated feed at the rear of the printer. And, as the printer lacks the cutting blade that many of its larger cousins are outfitted with, separating prints from the roll can be an awkward process of trimming them off by hand with scissors while the roll is still attached to the printer. While these fit onto the printer with relative ease, feeding roll media into the P400 can be difficult given the close proximity of the roll to the slot in the back of the machine designed to accept it. When installing roll media, make sure to wear cotton gloves because it’s otherwise nearly impossible to avoid smudging the surface of your paper with Epson’s two roll adapters on either end. You can’t print panoramas that are longer than 129 inches, but this seems to be an industry standard for many desktop inkjets more than a particularity of the P400 itself. If you are looking to make prints in bulk or simply interested in wider formats, the P400’s roll paper attachment will let you print on rolls up to 13-inches wide. The rest of the button interface serves to advance roll paper, accept replacement ink cartridges, delete and retry print jobs, and engage the printer’s wireless connection. Longtime inkjet owners may remember reaching awkwardly behind some of Epson’s larger printers for a miniscule yellow button to print a network status sheet that button is now helpfully provided on the front of the P400 to help troubleshoot Wi-Fi connectivity issues. Although it lacks an LCD screen, the six control buttons perform just about any function you could need for a printer of its size. Once it’s set up, using the P400 is a breeze-for the most part. Epson has found devilish places to hide them all, so look carefully! The P400 ships with attachments for roll media and fine-art matte paper, so be sure not to throw them out with the box after you’ve got the printer on your desk. After removing the printer from its box, make sure to remove the myriad pieces of tape affixed to nearly every part of the printer. At about 27 pounds, it’s reasonably light for a photo-quality printer and could conceivably be stacked on a shelf over other items on a crowded desk or small studio.
When outfitted for regular use, the output tray (fully extended) adds about 13 inches to the front of the machine while the two rear roll attachments tack on nearly 4 inches to the back.
With all of its various trays and feeds folded up, the printer is just over two feet wide and one foot deep, taking up little more space than a standard office printer. One of the P400’s most useful features is its size. While both printers spray out ink in three variable droplet sizes, the print head in the P400 can render fine images by laying down 1.5 picoliter ink droplets, a significant improvement over the 2pl output of the P600. Unlike the earlier model, the P400 has dedicated lines for both matte and photo black inks, avoiding the need to swap these cartridges out between print styles, thus saving both time and money. While the HG2 has one fewer cartridge than the HD system, this updated inkset incorporates new red and orange inks as well as a Gloss Optimizer to reduce metamerism. Epson’s earlier SureColor desktop was designed to work with the then-standard nine-color UltraChrome HD inkset, whereas the P400 uses the newer UltraChrome HG2 pigments. It is just these sorts of sophisticated additions that set the P400 apart from the P600. Like the larger Canon imagePrograf Pro-1000 (tested in March 2016), the P400 represents a shift in inkjet technology toward providing broader color gamuts and easier printer maintenance. This new 13-inch printer, $600 (street), adds to the SureColor desktop photo printer family, along with the 13-inch SureColor P600 and 17-inch SC-P800. paper size of 13×129 inches, separate rear feeder for fine art, cut-sheet paper and roll media, and CD/DVD printing with included tray, pigment-based eight 14ml cartridges $600, street replacement inks, $18 EpsonĮpson’s new line of inkjet printers, which the company began rolling out last year, has been steadily improving, reaching a zenith of sorts in the SureColor P400.