Why I buy this one ?
- Up to 2,880 x 720 dpi resolution
- 6-color photo ink system with 4-picoliter sized droplets
- True borderless photo printing in 6 popular sizes
- USB and parallel interfaces; PC and Mac compatible
- Includes roll paper accessory

What our customer's say!

"Excellent, BUT VISTA INCOMPATIBLE", I've had my 1280 for several years, and other than using a fair bit of ink it's an excellent machine (I sell my photography). HOWEVER - I had to get a new computer recently and the 1280 won't work at all. There are some online postings saying people have had trouble getting the ink levels to read and there is a patch for that, but mine won't work at all. So far, no reply from Epson. As well as this works, I can't see buying a new printer from a company with such poor support. I may have to get a local techie to see if my new computer (and I know there can be serious problems here, functionality-wise) can be converted back to XP. Anyway, this is a serious and possible very expensive problem.

"I love it.", I've had my Epson 1280 for about 2 years. I love it! It prints excellent text and photos. I can clearly read even tiny print done by it. I can use non-Epson brand ink and glossy photo paper with no problems. This keeps my printing costs way down. I am very happy with the colors, sharpness, everything. I can't think of a thing wrong with this printer! If it ever goes, I will get another Epson!

I will say however that my erzatz ink does tend to fade when left on display. It probably needs to be put under glass. If you print on paper that it's not set for (ie you set it for plain paper but feed it glossy), the jets seem to jam, but that's easily resolved by cleaning the heads using their utility routines. Again not the fault of the printer. All told, I am very satisfied with this printer.

"Great Printer", This printer has been great for me to have as it is helping my build my business and am very pleased that it has been so helpful and sent so quickly.

"Good Bye, Epson 1280", I bought this "1280 Silver" twice. The first printer started printing incorrect colors after extensive use over a year. I bought another, the same "1280 Silver" again, only because Epson was offering a sale and the printer was very cheap and also because I already knew the problems and how to fix them.

I am very good at repairing certain electronics, and that was why I was able to print so much, but I don't think people should work so hard to cleaning and tuning the mechanical device inside just to print things.

The first printer had lots of problems, although it produced high quality prints with my struggles to control this machine.

Problem 1: After printing borderless prints, the ink that didn't land onto the paper, where the edges are, accumulated on two certain spots, in this case, since I was printing a lot of letter size prints, the ink accumulation were 8.5 inches apart. I am talking about a lot of ink staying in two spots in the printer. What it did was, each time I printed, the edges of paper got black stains. There is a thin gray sponge to collect the excess ink, but since I printed so much the ink was soaked in the sponge. I was constantly cleaning and drying the sponge so the ink doesn't get onto the paper. Then this leads to the Problem 2.

Problem 2: The gray sponge (it was already black from the excess ink) got so worn out that it decided to come out of the spot where the sponge should have stayed. What happened was that the nasty sponge got trapped into a few wheels that move the paper! I had to use all sorts of tools (I am exceptionally good at using small tools to fix things) to remove the chunks of the nasty sponge that were already spinning with the little wheels. I honestly think most people cannot do what I did because, like I mentioned I am very good at doing stuff like that. So I did not give up, and removed the crap out of the printer. It took a lot of cleaning solution to clean up the excess ink from the printer, and I decided not to print borderless again with this printer.

Problems 3: Each time I put new ink, I had to clean up the nozzles so many times, and that is a pain because, first of all, it cleans just a little bit at a time, and each time it cleans a lot of ink is consumed. Also I had to clean the part where ink tank and printer meet each time I replace the ink tanks because the ink mess was tremendous. This printer requires a lot of maintenance if one uses a lot like I do.

Problem 4: The room got smelly when I printed for hours because I had to print that much. The smell made me feel sick.


Problem 5: This printer, according to Epson's specification, is supposed to print what they used to call "double-sided matt paper." This paper is thicker than the regular paper, and I had to feed one by one because this printer can grab any number of papers. I even had to feed the most common paper one by one because the printer grabs paper irregularly so the next page starts printing in the middle of the paper instead of the top of the paper. Since I didn't want to re-print nor waste papers, I had to feel papers one by one, restraining me at around the printer like a tied up dog.

Problem 6: Then finally it started printing incorrect color. I just did feel like spending more time trying to figure out how to fix it.

Problem 7: After buying the second printer, I removed the gray sponge because I knew that someday it would get trapped into the wheels. And I never printed borderless again with the second printer. The problem #7 occurred after I came back from one month trip. One of the nozzles was clogged! I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. The cleaning used up both black and colored inks, both brand new! The inks are over $40 worth with black and colors, and it was only one of seven nozzles that was clogged! What this might imply is that one must hire someone to come to his or her office to print something once a week or so to make sure that the nozzles don't get clogged when the owner of the printer is out of town for a long time. I can ask someone to feed a cat, but I hate a printer that requires that much of care!

I am giving a 3 stars because the quality of the prints were very good (I would give 4 or 5 stars), but the amount of work on my part was so much that I cannot give any better rate. I am writing this not because I want someone read this but because I am exhausted from using this printer and am going to buy Canon. I think I have had just enough.



"Actually order the wrong Printer", This printer is old (I thought it was recently introduced by epson)
Man....it uses the ink.... but does a good job printing...

Read this reviews before You buy...

" Still worth the value compared to what you get from Kinko's", I decided to buy a 1270 at the time I was still an Art student. As a poor art student, buying a good printer as early as possible is strongly recommanded. Epson 1270 was an hot topic at that time while I was still in school. So I paid several hundred bucks to get this nice printer then I would print at home anytime I wanted. I saved money and time. I didn't need to go to Kinko's anymore. I never liked to go there. The only time I would get help and got it printed correctly was be there at 2am in the morning while I was the only customer in Kinko's.

**Art Students, if you are sick and tired of getting rid off by Kinko's, get a good printer now! This printer can last 3 years easily, good til you graduate! Looks expensive but you won't regret. If you find any problem, call Epson to get another printer before the warranty ends!** Their replacement service is great but not when the warranty expires.... :-(

The printer is noisy but I appreciate the printing speed and the quality is great!

There was one time I have a weird printing problem with my 1270 that I never realized. I brought the printer to the mechanic to look at it. I was using Kodak Premium High-gloss paper which was a very nice kind of photo paper. He told me to use Epson brand and he gave me a sheet of Epson paper. He said it was because the chemical reaction on the paper and Epson's ink. I went home and tried the Epson paper he gave me, it printed great! The colors blended on the paper so well, couldn't even see any dots caused from printing. But, I still prefer the Kodak paper because the result of the color is a lot nicer (bright and strong)than Epson's paper.

Yes, you will need to clean the head time to time and it wastes papers and ink too. The color ink comes with 5 colors. Either one of them runs out, you will have to buy a new one for around $28-$30.

If you just need to print letter size paper (8.5x11) AND IF you are not an art student OR you don't really need to have the commercial kind of printing result, Epson 1270 or 1280 will not be a good deal for a long run. I hope this help!

"Separate ink tanks and steady use would make this a great printer", Like most other photo printers, the 1280 uses a lot of ink to print photos. However it doesn't have separate ink tanks, as seen in competitor models. The problem is, if one color runs out before the others do, you're required to change the entire tank. And if you go for long periods without printing photos, the printer heads require cleaning. The ink tends to clog in the nozzles. In general, the Epson Stylus 1280 is a fully capable printer that offers larger format printing -- especially nice for printing on 12x12 scrapbooking pages! But it is best suited for those who require photo printing on a regular basis.

"Good, Bad, and Ugly", I got this printer to make large format art prints. For that purpose, the quality is great. For other uses it is terrible. Making a smaller photograph-sized print leaves me with blurry details and odd colors, and I have burned through a lot of ink & paper trying to get colors right when our HP inkjet defaults to good color. Also, I have to clean the inkjet heads a lot which wastes paper, ink, and time. The heads may stay clear if used every day, but if you use it once or twice a week they will not.

"Large Format - Small Budget", The 1280 may be showing some of it's age in terms of technology, inks, and some other areas (...) This is a fairly decent printer with only a few quirks for the money and in terms of quality with bang-for-the-buck nothing touches it in it's current price range.

"Big Work Horse, Colors Just Right", Having owned a 1280 for a year and a half thus far, I can say that this printer is for somone who wants a reliable and problem free large format printer that produces on target results. The drivers at least for Mac OS X are easy to understand and reliable. The ability to manage the printer such as doing a nozzle check and a head clean right from the application that is going to be printing, is a vey nice touch as well. However, it is the colors that this printer gets high reviews from me. By using mat or glossy photo paper and making the proper print settings, one can get nice rich colors that are on cue. Thus this printer makes good for doing proofs. As an artist and Graphic Designer, having this quality is a blessing since this print cost $ 400 at the time of parchase. Compare that to profesional quality workhorses going from $2000 on up. Also being able to print up to 13 x 19 save me loads of time since that cuts down on the number of trips to my local print service to have them do my print outs on there large format printers. The only minuses are that one needs a generous amout of desktop realestate to acomadate the 1280 as it is almost twice the size of a normal 8 1/2 x 11 printer. Also one needs be prepared to shell out some payolla as the ink cartriges can get pricey. But what inkjet dosen't have that problem? Anyway that little expences is nullified by savings of not having to go to my print service so often. So any one looking for a good large format printer that produces some good printouts and not have to pay an arm and a leg for it, the 1280 is a very good cadadate for that job. So I'm giving 5 stars on the Epson 1280