Handy Dandy Printer

While I’ve been researching products for my business, one piece that I knew I wanted was a printer that could print directly onto printable DVD and CD media.  None of that sticker crap.  What I found were a bunch of high priced, costly to maintain, mediocre quality specialty machines.  No more.  Enter the Epson R300.

Not only does it print directly (and borderless) to CD and DVD media, it’s a six-color printer.  So not only are the colors much more vibrant and ranged than three and four cartridge printers, you save money as each cartridge is individual, and you only change the one that’s out.  Of course, it also prints borderfree pictures too, and bonus: it includes media slots so you can print photos from a digital camera without ever involving a computer.  The price?  A slick $179.99.  If you’ll use the media slots, consider going up to the R300M model, which for $40 more adds a two and half inch color monitor to preview the images.

Posted Wednesday January 14, 2004 in Interesting by Chris Curtis

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Comments

Wow, very cool!  I certainly wouldn’t have expected to find something with features like that for under $200 MSRP (probably well under $200 at street prices).

I really need to get a printer myself, and something that would print on discs would be a nice bonus.  However, I’d also prefer to have one of the multi-function printers so that I could have scanner as well.  I’m betting there aren’t any good multi-function + photo/disc printers out there…

By Chris Curtis on January 14, 2004 at 09:56am link

I’m betting there aren’t any good multi-function + photo/disc printers out there

Not that I can find.  We’re probably at least a year out from that, since most printer manufacturers still don’t even have disc printers out yet.

By Derek Jones on January 14, 2004 at 10:17am link

{quote} I’m betting there aren’t any good multi-function + photo/disc printers out there…{/quote}

Don’t worry, HP is bound to copy this and come out with one of thier own. Don’t look for it to have 6 color capabilty, but they will have a scanner/copier/photo printer/media reader version im sure.

MaximumPC reviewed this epson a couple of months ago and LOVED it. One of the things they said about the edgeless photo printer was that it was the fastest edgeless theyve seen by a 40% margin. (being 40% faster than any other model they tested with edgeless printing)
They also professed thier love for the direct printing on the CD. Be fair warned though, to do this you need to find DVDs or CDs that are prefectly flat, and preferealby with a white sruface. Memorex, verbatim and tdk all have thier logoes slightly embossed on thier products (- some verbatims i used to have with plain white surfaces) so make sure you get media with flat surfaces, or else your printing will look wierd.

By Greg Ferrell on January 14, 2004 at 10:21am link

Mitsumi makes a good printable disc, I hear.

By Derek Jones on January 14, 2004 at 10:23am link

EEEEEeee uh. Well the only other thing i knew mitsumi to make was cheaaap cheeeeaaap keyboards and mice (besides their mediocre rw drives). I would look at getting like five or soemthing and trying them on all kinds of players before i ordered them by the dozen. Ive alwasy used verbatim and tdk for my stuff. Everyone thing ive ever read review wize says tdk is basicly the best, but its hell expensive. Verbatim is the pioneer of cd media. Its the top notch...at Wal-Mart.

By Greg Ferrell on January 14, 2004 at 10:31am link

Yeah, Verbatim is nice, but you have to check that it’s real Verbatim.  There’s a lot of counterfeit Verbatims at large discount stores, and they aren’t even aware of it.

Maybe I meant Maxell.  I can’t tell, I’d have to look at them again.

By Derek Jones on January 14, 2004 at 10:34am link

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