Digital BW, The Print

Was down at the local CompUSA where they were just putting out their 
first demo R800. Really nice folks there and they gave me total 
access to the printer thru a Mac and even gave me a stack of Epson 
Premium Glossy and Enhanced Matte paper and said, "Tell us what you 
think when you're done." The lighting in the store was awful, seemed 
like mercury vapor lights or something, but fortunately is was 
daylight outside and they said to feel free to take prints outside 
the store to check out -- obviously this place is gonna get my 
business!

The color prints with the glossy clearcoat, in my opinion, were 
nothing short of stunning and set a new standard; but it was BW I was 
most interested in. To summarize BW: not as good as meticulus 
techniques with third party quad inksets but light years ahead of 
anything out of the box by Epson yet. It seems Epson has finally not 
totally ignored BW in a printer. The glossy coating on Premium Glossy 
using "Black" printing gives a cool-toned print and looks very 
similar to conventional 8x10 glossy celebrity publicity photos I've 
seen. Metamerism between the awful store lighting and daylight was 
noticable but just barely. Colored inks are definitely used to print 
BW and I could see at least Cyan and Magenta being used as the ink 
was being laid down. Prints on EAM were smooth and cool-neutral. Also 
no cartridge change from glossy to matte -- nice! As a side note, I'd 
love to see someone do a shootout with ImagePrint on the 2200 vs. the 
R800's stock BW output. 

The retail price was $400. If this same machine could print 13x19 I 
would have bought it in a heartbeat. It blows the 2200 out of the 
water so I guess that's why its not made in the larger size, YET.