Goodbye Epson

Several weeks back I had written a rather long post about my experiences with the Epson 7900 wide format printer. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted that post shortly after it was up and simply couldn't muster the strength to rewrite it.  This was the first time I have accidentally deleted something like that. Oh well....

At any rate, the post had outlined how in six years I went through three 7900 printheads and two printers. The average lifespan of the printheads were two years and went from a minimum of a few months to a maximum of about 3.5 years. I was fully willing to attribute one printhead failure to random bad luck, but not three. The internet is rife with posts about the printhead failures with this generation of Epson printers, and there was even a class action lawsuit against Epson for this very reason which, my understanding is, was lost on a technicality (though I can't find definitive documentation of that). And,of course, despite all this, Epson says there is nothing wrong with them.

At the end of that post I mentioned that the new 17 inch Canon imagePrograf PRO-1000 printer had received favorable reviews compared to the comparable sized Epson printers (they were generally considered a bit better in some features and qualities and a bit worse in others). I was planning to wait for this technology to come to new Canon wide format printers, which were last updated about three years ago.

Well, the announcement has been made. The new Canon wide format printers, which employ technology similar to the PRO-1000, are 'real' and scheduled to ship at the end of June. Yes, it is a bit of a wait and I would also love to see some formal and unbiased reviews of these new models.....but I just don't think I am willing to go with another Epson unless the print quality were significantly better (which from all I have read, it isn't).  Every time I think about purchasing the new Epson SureColor model which replaces the 7900 (and which uses the same printhead generation as the 7900) I can hear The Who singing "Won't Get Fooled Again" in my head:

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