Epson announces SureColor P800 A2 printer

The just-announced SureColor P800 A2 printer has similar body styling to the smaller SureColor P600 A3+   model. (Source: Epson.)
Featuring a new eight-colour UltraChrome  HD  ink set, the SureColor P800 is  designed primarily for professional use and is capable of producing high-quality colour and black-and-white prints. As with the SureColor P600, the new ink set offers improved black density and print permanence and the Advanced Black-and-White print mode, accessed via the printer driver, enables users to produce professional-level neutral or toned black-and-white prints.

The print head configuration has 180 nozzles for each ink colour. Enhanced Variable Droplet technology produces a minimum droplet size of 3.5 picoliters to achieve selectable output resolutions of 2880 x 1440 dpi, 1440 x 720 dpi, 720 x 720 dpi or720 x 360 dpi. The UltraChrome HD Pigment inks can provide up to twice the Wilhlem Imaging Reasearch Inc., Display Permanence Rating of previous generations of Epson UltraChrome Inks with most Epson photo and fine art papers.

The SureColor P800 features advanced media handling, including a sheet feeder for photo or matte media as well as a front-in and front-out paper path for printing on thicker fine art papers and poster board. These feeders can handle media and poster board up to 1.5 mm thick. An optional 17-inch wide roll paper adapter enables users to print on rolls of canvas and paper to cover the longer print lengths required when printing panoramas.  It can handle 2 or 3-inch core rolls.  

Inks are supplied in nine 80 mL high-capacity cartridges (Photo Black, Matte Black, Light Black, Light Light Black, Cyan, Light Cyan, Vivid Magenta, Vivid Light Magenta, Yellow) and the printer supports auto-switching between Photo and Matte Black inks. Epson provides the following data on automatic black ink switching:

	Switching time	Ink consumption
Matte to Photo Black	3 minutes 30 sec.	Approx. 4.6 mL
Photo to Matte Black	2 minutes 30 sec.	Approx. 1.6 mL

Like the P600, the new printer offers a variety of connectivity options, including USB 2.0, Ethernet, Wi-Fi (802.11n), Wi-Fi Direct,  Apple  AirPrint and Google Cloud Print. Power consumption is conservative, with ratings of 21 Watts while operating and 1.8 Watts in sleep mode.

The SureColor P800 is scheduled for release in North America in June this year.  Manufacturer’s suggested retail prices (MSRP) are as follows: the SureColor P800 printer – US$1295; the optional roll paper adapter – US$199.95; individual ink cartridges – US$59.95 each.

We contacted Epson Australia for details on when the SureColor P800 will be released in Australia and are awaiting their response. We’ll add details to this report once we have them.